1993 Christmas Cards

.....The original song here is the B-side.

• 02:05 "O TANNENBAUM" (Traditional; arranged by They Might Be Giants)
• 02:32 b/w "CHRISTMAS CARDS" (They Might Be Giants/G.Maby/B.Doherty)
• performed by They Might Be Giants
• original source: 7" Elektra 7-64578 (US/C) 1993
• and my source: the same

.....The playing times are not printed on the record or the sleeve. The times I included above are from the band's wiki (distinct from their website, which is devoted to news, tour dates and merchandising). It provided a few more pieces of information, such as that the band is credited as their own producers and that Amy Sillman provided the sleeve art. There are a few others I'll get to later, but at the moment I want to reassert that the purpose of this blog is to document Christmas music written since the advent of recording technology. Obviously "O TANNENBAUM" doesn't fit that criterion, but because I'm writing up the B-side anyway, I felt this recording might make a good object lesson on exactly why disambiguation of classic carols can be such a headache.

.....The A-side was recorded at a sound check at Fairfax High School [per the wiki; the sleeve erroneously identifies the school as Hollywood High] in Los Angeles California on November 20th, 1992. It was recorded and mixed by [per sleeve] Paul Angelli or [per wiki] Pat Dillett. The line-up was as follows:

• John Linnell as lead vocalist [per wiki]
• John Flansburgh on guitar
• Kurt Hoffman on saxophone
• Tony Maimone on bass
• J.[Jonathan per wiki]D. Feinberg on drums

.....Only the first verse of the song is used and is sung in German. That's a nice touch in a field saturated by rerecordings of the same songs, but the writing credit isn't entirely accurate. The song has its origins in a German folk song "O DANNENBOM", combined with the melody from a student song known by the opening line, "Lauriger Horatius"/"Laurel-crowned Horatio". The melody became the basis for a popular song, "ES LEBE DOCH"(which, according to Babel Fish, means "It Lives, Nevertheless"; it's probably a colloquial term for "Life Goes On"), published in 1799. By the early 1800's it had already become a popular custom in Germany for Christian households to bring fir trees into their homes for Christmas celebrations, one of numerous practices that put touchstones of pagan life into Christian context. While these practices were banned in England (off and on with varying degrees of enforcement) at the time, the Prussians just went with the flow. In 1824 a Leipzig schoolmaster named Ernst Anschütz, probably recognizing the tune from his own days in college, rewrote the pagan rooted folk song "O DANNENBOM" to the sweeter, more modern melody of "ES LEBE DOCH" and voilá-- a brand new song we know as "O TANNENBAUM". Just as German families were taking the fir trees into their homes and Christianizing them, Anschütz taught his students a matching pagan song in a Christianized fashion to take home to their families. A key, but subtle, alteration was in the first verse. The first two lines are:

"O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,

Wie grün sind deine Blätter..."

...which roughly means, "how green are your branches". The version used by They Might Be Giants actually says:

"O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,

Wie treu sind deine Blätter..."

...which is more like, "how faithful are your branches". Although the reworking of the lyrics by Anschütz doesn't mention Christ explicitly, his aim was obviously to use the perennial nature of the fir tree (admired by the pagans) as a metaphor for the eternal nature of Christ. Hence, unchanging becomes faithful. Since they used the modern version, they should have credited Anschütz, although they aren't legally required to. And for the record, taking an arrangement credit is perfectly legitimate. And as long as we're credit where credit is due, I have to confess that the lion's share of the research behind that little history lesson was done by Ian Bradley in his invaluable "The Penguin Book Of Carols" (1999, second printing).

.....The B-side was recorded at Excello Studio, Brooklyn, New York on July 5th, 1993. It was recorded and mixed by Pat Dillett. The musicians were:

• John Flansburgh as lead vocal and guitarist
• John Linnell on accordion
• Graham Maby on bass
• Brian Doherty on drums

.....The song is actually a bit of a disappointment for the guys who gave us "SANTA'S BEARD" as an album track in 1988 and then no Christmas related songs since. After this, they started flowing a little more freely (more in future posts), but to my knowledge this was the one and only time they had a designated holiday 7" single. Even when they put together their compilation EP, HOLIDAYLAND, in 2001, they only included The A-side. In nearly twenty years this song has never made it to CD. Part of that may be because it's boring. The lyrics are repetitive and boil down to this: whenever I write out Christmas cards, someone steals them. I have no trouble with the lyrics being dark ("SANTA'S BEARD" being an obvious example of how that can work), I just wish there had been more of them. Here's hoping that they take this song's premise and expand on it. Maybe even include both versions on a full-length Christmas/holiday album along with their song for "OLIVE, THE OTHER REINDEER", only available as a limited edition flexi.