There are a handful of Christmas-themed songs from musicals (and you can hear most of them on the wonderful recording, A Broadway Christmas), but aside from those, the holidays tend to leave Broadway behind for most of us. Well, those of us who don't have Playbill ornaments on our trees (I have a lot). It occurred to me it would be nice to have some Christmas carols for people who love musicals.
I know, I know, that's a really weird, random idea. But no weirder than my last project, a collection of short horror fiction inspired by musicals, Night of the Living Show Tunes. So I let the Christmas carols idea percolate for a while. After the pandemic hit, I returned to my idea, and by now I had some questions I had to answer, in order to go forward. As I write in the notes to my new songbook:
When I started this project, I wasn’t exactly sure what it was going to be. I knew I was going to write new lyrics to traditional Christmas carols, and they would be related to musical theatre. But would they still be Christmas songs or just use that music? Would they all be comic or would some of them be serious? Would I try to write in the style of the original lyrics or consciously violate it?
The answers, it turned out, were all Yes.
So I began work on a piano-vocal songbook, soon called Broadway Musical Christmas Carols. I went for the low-hanging fruit first. What Christmas carol titles obviously lent themselves to a musical theatre joke? That led immediately to "O Little Shop of Bethlehem," "Angel, Tom, and I Are High," "Away In a Mame Tour," and "Shrek, the Herald Angel, Sings."
But soon I also found myself writing more serious lyrics, about the sacred nature of storytelling, the magic of collaboration, the purpose of art, the ritual nature of the theatre, the profound bonds we form during the work, songs like "O Holy Stage," "It Came Upon a Musical," and "Joy to the World (for Musicals)."
Here's a taste, from "Op'ning Night, Holy Night"...
Op‘ning Night, holy night,
Work is done, now we run.
We take part in the making of art,
Ancient rite of the soul and the heart.
Storytelling is sacred;
Storytelling is art.
Holy stage, holy place,
Filled with joy, touched by grace.
Human souls, alone in the night,
Come together to act out this rite.
Storytelling is healing;
Storytelling is art.
Closing Night, sacred night,
What’s begun, now is done.
We made art and we touched the divine,
Greater still when our talents combine.
Storytellers are holy;
Storytelling is art.
And for the history-minded fans like me, there's "These Three Kings," a celebration of George M. Cohan, George Abbott, and Hal Prince; and also "Carol of the Flops," a salute to Broadway's commercial failures; and there's a special tribute to "Jolly Old Steve Sondheim." The hardest one to write, and therefore the most satisfying, is "These Three Kings."
These three kings, no parallels since;
Cohan, Abbott, and Harold Prince;
Sparked a spark, and made their mark,
With fearless irreverence.
O, they made rules that we now use,
So the tales we tell amuse;
Honesty and truth will be
The guiding light we rightly choose.
Of these kings, the one who began;
George M. Cohan, Renaissance Man,
Writer, actor, much compacter,
And so cosmopolitan!
O, short and scrappy patriot,
Star of Broadway, sizzling hot!
Our conventions, his inventions,
We owe him an awful lot.
Mr. Abbott, King Number Two,
Mixed a heady musical brew;
Fast and funny, sweet and sunny,
But showing us what is true.
O, authenticity is key,
Playing people honestly.
Show respect and reconnect
The musical and comedy.
Third of three is King Harold Prince,
From the start, his history hints:
Truly peerless, fully fearless,
And delving in darker tints.
O, Prince and Sondheim, thus combined,
Blew it up and blew our mind.
Mind and heart both play a part,
And share with us the truth they find.
There are a couple of very odd songs here, "I Heard You Screlt on Christmas Day" and "I Saw Threepenny Opera Once," that I just couldn't resist including, because I know High-School-Scott would have found those very funny. I personally love Threepenny, but it is a beast of a show to sit through. And I have to thank New Line Theatre music director Nic Valdez for introducing me to the word screlt (to scream and belt at the same time), around which I felt compelled to build a song. I still giggle when I sing the last line, "But screlting doth displeaseth God."
And then there's the music. I'll quote again from my notes in the songbook.
I knew I wanted to include the vocal music so these songs could actually be performed, and I love all those traditional SATB arrangements that I learned in high school. (I still know those bass lines by heart.) So I started with those original arrangements (including the somewhat different original melody of “Jingle Bells”!), but I also added a little extra harmonic color and complexity here and there, particularly when the same musical phrase repeats itself. I hope you like the balance I struck.
You can use this book several ways. You can have a sing-along, ignore the vocal music, and let everybody just sing off the lyric pages. You can sing my new words to the traditional arrangements you already know. You can sing my four-part arrangements a cappella, with no accompaniment. You can use these vocal arrangements as piano accompaniment, so the songs can be sung solo.
Particularly in this insane, theatre-less world, it may be a really weird holiday season. I hope these songs will bring some extra joy to it for you. It was really wonderful working on them. Like I say in my book, I hope these songs make you laugh and I hope they touch your artsy heart.
Please check it out -- just click here -- if you love musicals, I think you'll love this too.
Long Live the Musical! And Stay Safe!
Scott
P.S. While we're here, I might as well mention my other books...
-- my quiz book, It's a Musical!
-- my collection of short horror fiction, Night of the Living Show Tunes
-- my musical theatre history book, Strike Up the Band
-- my six collections of musical theatre analysis
-- my piano-vocal songbook, The Best Wedding Songs They've Never Heard Before
-- and script, vocal selections, and recordings of some of the shows I've written
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