Winter Wonderland by Tony Bennett—Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival 2025-26

 

                                                                        Winter Wonderland sung by Tony Bennett.

There is moderate amount of snow on the ground here in northern Illinois and temperatures are frigid. Other parts of the country, however, have been buried in all of the Winter Wonderland they can stand.  Looking at you, Buffalo! Time to revisit this classic winter-but-not-Christmas song and let the great Tony Bennett give it his swinging interpretation.

Winter Wonderland was written in 1934 by Felix Bernard and lyricist Richard B. Smith. Since its original RCA recording by Richard Himber and his Hotel Ritz-Carlton Orchestra, it has been covered by over 200 different artists, including Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Mathis, Frank Sinatra, Amy Grant, Michael Buble, The Eurythmics, and Radiohead.

Smith’s lyrics were reportedly inspired by memories of his hometown Honesdale, Pennsylvania park freshly buried in snow but were written while he was being treated for tuberculosis in the West Mountain Sanitarium in Scranton.

Winter Wonderland snowman--Parson Brown or Circus Clown?

Among the most notable covers were by Johnny Mercer, which reached #4 on the Billboard radio play chart in 1946, and by Perry Como the same year which was in the top ten songs in retail sales.

Sinatra’s version is notable for changing the lyrics.  Despite the earlier success of the song, Sinatra was warned that powerful protestant clergy were prepared to demand radio stations ban the song because of the line “In the meadow we will build a snowman/We’ll pretend that he is Parson Brown/He’ll say, ‘are you married?’ We’ll say no man/But you can do the job when you’re in town.”  The preachers were alarmed that the words implied hanky-panky by the unmarried couple.  Old Blue Eyes changed the word to the nonsensical “In the meadow we can build a snowman /And pretend that he’s a circus clown/We’ll have lots of fun with Mr. Snowman/Until the other kiddies knock him down.”

Some other later covers of the song used Sinatra’s version while others stood by the original words.  Some even used both versions.

Tony Bennett at a Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting special on NBC a few years ago.

Tony Bennett’s jazzy take of this seasonal chestnut is one of my favorites.

A Hazy Shade of Winter by Simon and Garfunkel—Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival 2025-26

                                                                    Simon and Garfunkel's A Hazy Shade of Winter. 

It’s a mystery. Why do some non-holiday Winter songs get included in Christmas music play lists and others don’t?  Is it because they aren’t perky with a catchy hook, full of romance, or a clever novelty tune?  Take, for example, Simon and Garfunkel’s A Hazy Shade of Winter. 

The 1966 single sleeve for A Hazy Shade of Winter.

Despite being the second biggest hit off the duo’s landmark 1968 album Bookends peaking at # 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 after Mrs. Robinson which reached #1, you won’t find the song on Yule radio.  Maybe it’s because it is a rather gloomy take on the season—dull overcast urban sky, only patchy snow among long-dead leaves on the ground.  And it even mentions a synagogue down by the river instead of a pristine chapel by a Currier & Ives lane.  That can’t help.  But any fair assessment of all the moods of the season should be included like Christina Rossetti’s In the Bleak Midwinter.  

The Bangles had an even bigger hit with the song in the '80s.

This classic was also a #3 hit for The Bangles in the 1980’s. 

Baby it’s Cold Outside—Controversial Not a Christmas Song—Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival 2025-‘22

                                        Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting on Capitol Records was just one of a slew of successful covers released in 1948-'50.  

With much of the U.S. now fully experiencing freezing cold and/or snow, it’s time to consider those pop songs that really have nothing to do with Christmas but have become staples of holiday play lists.  Among the most enduring of these Winter songs is the playful duet Baby it’s Cold Outside.  But now it is caught up in controversy.  

The song had its origin in 1944 when Frank Loesser, a Hollywood lyricist turned composer, wrote it as a novelty to sing at cocktail parties with his wife Lynn Garland.  At the time Loesser was in the Army Airforce but based in California where he penned songs for war effort broadcasts and moral boosting films including Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition, What Do You Do in the Infantry and others.  Some of the songs also made it to Hollywood films like They’re Either Too Young or Too Old for the 1943 film Thank Your Lucky Stars. 

Frank Loesser and his wife Lynn Garland entertained Hollywood pals with their personal song, Baby it's Cold Outside.

Baby it’s Cold Outside proved so popular among their friends that Lynn Garland objected to offers to buy “our song.”  But after the success of Loesser’s first Broadway musical, Where’s Charley starring Ray Bolger in 1948, the offers became too lucrative to turn down.  He sold the song to MGM which featured it in the 1949 film Neptune’s Daughter performed by Ricardo Montalbán and Esther Williams and in a role reversal version by Red Skelton and Betty Garrett.  The song was the highlight of the film and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Song. 

That year in addition to versions by Montalbán and William and by Loesser and his wife—billed as Mrs. Frank Loesser, almost a dozen covers were released including four that climbed into the upper reaches of the pop charts and stayed there for weeks—Don Cornell and Laura Leslie with the Sammy Kaye Orchestra, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan, Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark, and by Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer. 

Baby it's Cold Outside performed by Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban won the Oscar for Best Song in 1949.

Since then, the song has been covered or included in TV shows countless times featuring a wide variety of duet partners.  Among the most noted versions were by Dean Martin with a female chorus and later with various partners on his TV series and specials, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Brian Setzer and Ann-Margret, Zooey Deschanel and Leon Redbone, Willie Nelson and Norah Jones, Lady Gaga and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood. 

The song was always considered a bit coyly risqué but good-hearted fun. 

But in the #MeToo era it drew criticism that it is essentially a date rape song and a classic example of a man refusing to accept a woman’s no.  The main point of contention is the woman’s line, “say what’s in this drink?” and protests that she has to go home.  In response, WDOK in Cleveland announced that it was removing all versions of the song from its holiday playlist.  Some other US stations followed and in Canada it was banned by Bell Media, CBC Radio, and Rogers Media which together represent the bulk of Canadian stations. 

The bans stirred a veracious backlash.  Right wingers, or course, painted them as an example of the infamous but non-existent War on Christmas despite the fact the song has nothing to do with Christmas.  Other fans of the song were simply vexed that it has fallen victim to political correctness, whatever that is. 

In reaction to the controversy John Legend and Kelly Clarkson did a "revised" version which they insisted was not "politically correct" but was more respectful.  They were all over TV and cable programs with it and it was a radio hit.

Susan Loesser, the daughter of the composer, leapt to the defense of her parents and the song insisting that it was never a date rape song.  She said the controversy began when comedian Bill Cosby was accused of drugging and raping scores of women over decades.  Both Saturday Night Live and South Park featured skits with Cosby crooning the song to a victim. 

But Susan pointed out that in 1944 “People used to say ‘what’s in this drink, as a joke. You know, ‘this drink is going straight to my head so what’s in this drink?’ Back then it didn’t mean ‘you drugged me.’”  Others noted that despite the woman’s initial demurrals in the end she wants to stay. 

Dean Martin’s now 78-year-old daughter Deana Martin also defended the song and insisted that she would continue to perform it in her own act. 

Although I understand the objections to the song and am loathe to dismiss them out of hand, I also believe that songs can be sung and considered for the times in which they were composed.  A hell of a lot of music from classic opera to County & Western cry-in-your-beer juke box favorites, to blues and rap would have to be sacrificed along with this novelty song. And I am just not a fan of censorship in general. 

But you be the judge. 

My personal favorite version of the song was the one by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting.