Merry Xmas from Miles Davis and Bob Dorough

If my favorite Christmas song is Darlene Love's Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – and it is – then my second favorite is probably Blue Xmas (To Whom It May Concern), by Miles Davis and Bob Dorough. It's been described elsewhere as "a Christmas song for those who hate Christmas," but I can't agree with that description. I think it merely captures the holiday from another and no less legitimate perspective. Lord knows it voices some very real concerns:

Merry Christmas

I hope you have a white one, but for me it's blue,

Blue Christmas, that's the way you see it when you're feeling blue

Blue Xmas, when you're blue at Christmastime

you see right through,

All the waste, all the sham, all the haste

and plain old bad taste

Sidewalk Santy Clauses are much, much, much too thin

They're wearing fancy rented costumes, false beards and big fat phony grins

And nearly everybody's standing round holding out their empty hand or tin cup

Gimme gimme gimme gimme, gimme gimme gimme

Fill my stocking up

All the way up

It's a time when the greedy give a dime to the needy

Blue Christmas, all the paper, tinsel and the fal-de-ral

Blue Xmas, people trading gifts that matter not at all

What I call

Fal-de-ral

Bitter gall.......Fal-de-ral

Lots of hungry, homeless children in your own backyards

While you're very, very busy addressing

Twenty zillion Christmas cards

Now, Yuletide is the season to receive and oh, to give and ahh, to share

But all you December do-gooders rush around and rant and rave and loudly blare

Merry Christmas

I hope yours is a bright one, but for me it bleeds.

 

Dorough wrote the song in 1962 at Davis' request. It seems Davis was under some pressure from his record label to contribute a Christmas tune to a compilation album it was putting together called Jingle Bell Jazz. Davis, unsure of what to contribute, is said to have remarked to Dorough, "What the f*** am I supposed to play for them? White Christmas?" Dorough solved the problem by writing this downbeat number, which, while rarely played on mainstream radio today, is quintissential Miles Davis. Mitchell Kezin's upcoming film Jingle Bell Rocks features an interview with Dorough, who's still very active today at the age of 89. Younger folks will probably recognize Dorough's voice from the old Schoolhouse Rock series, as he contributed a sizeable number of songs during his tenure with the the show from 1973-85.

 

Tomorrow:  Three more tracks from Here Comes Santa Claus, including one from the great Johnny "Bowtie" Barstow.