Christmas Harmony

What would Christmas be like without the music? Christmas carols playing on the radio and in shopping malls boost our spirits, nurture our souls, and flood our hearts with fond memories of Christmases past. Since Christmas in the Catholic Church is a liturgical season that generally lasts through the first or second week in January, we get to experience Christmas music a little longer than most.

I am always struck by the history of certain carols. Silent Night, for example, was first written as a poem by Fr. Joseph Mohr, a priest in a little Austrian village. He asked musician Franz Gruber to put his poem to music and the hymn was performed at St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf on Christmas eve in 1818. A century later, the song aided a temporary Christmas truce between opposing forces in World War I when troops from Germany and Britain joined in singing the familiar melody in their own languages.

This year I was moved by the story behind two Christmas songs that have been fused together: The Little Drummer Boy and Peace on Earth. The story began in September 1977, during the recording of a segment for Bing Crosby’s television special, Bing Crosby’s Merrie Olde Christmas. Both Crosby and David Bowie, a guest on the program, were scheduled to sing The Little Drummer Boy together, but David Bowie resisted. “I hate this song, is there something else I can sing?” Bowie reportedly said. So a team of composers scurried to write a counter melody and new lyrics to harmonize with all the pah-rum-pum-pums-pums. They called the new part of the tune Peace on Earth. After only an hour of rehearsal the segment was recorded. About five weeks later, Bing Crosby died. The show aired later that year as scheduled and the song became a hit in both the United States and in Britain.

This duet is considered one of the most wonderful and perhaps one of the most unlikely in music history. Pairing the offbeat Bowie with Mr. “White Christmas” himself was a risk that became a witness to the power of music to unify. Despite their differences, Bowie and Crosby found new ways to harmonize for all the world to hear.