let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
MP3: Let It Snow [http://www.knightberman.com/marbletea/weblog/2009/MarbleTea-LetItSnow.mp3] (2 mb)
I love snow. Probably because, growing up in the Deep South [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Alabama], there wasn't a lot of it around. Oh sure, we managed a flurry most years, but accumulation was a rare and meager thing: one inch and the whole town shut down. White Christmas? I didn't know what that song was about until I was a teenager, since having snow on Christmas Day was never even a remote consideration.
Living in New Jersey [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Pleasant,_New_Jersey] these past nine years has allowed me to get to know snow better, and I still love it. Yes, it comes on big and brawny sometimes, and shoveling it is a royal pain, but as long as it's cold outside it might as well be pretty, says I. And it is, at least until it gets mucked up along the roadways with all the dirt and grime of life and travel. Ah, but we must take the black with the white [http://fly.cc.fer.hr/~shlede/ying/yang.html]. Always.
Here's a view out my window when I was recording yesterday:
[https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Ul9fB_L97dansUVy-MjfTAKDvfWR5mpexP93gKxfqwtb1NhuHhDL0Fv555pgKyRWu2tDb9SA6zS-f7MzUeRKHOPByPXwGRed24wRguLEL7JUEIQ7ujX5qe4703oyBOOmY4nY/s320/2009-snowview-gspot.jpg]https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Ul9fB_L97dansUVy-MjfTAKDvfWR5mpexP93gKxfqwtb1NhuHhDL0Fv555pgKyRWu2tDb9SA6zS-f7MzUeRKHOPByPXwGRed24wRguLEL7JUEIQ7ujX5qe4703oyBOOmY4nY/s1600-h/2009-snowview-gspot.jpg
And that brings us to this month's song. Written by Sammy Cahn [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Cahn] and Jule Styne [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jule_Styne] in July 1945 (in Hollywood of all places), it's always been one of my favorites of the Holiday Season. But that's kind of a shame really, that it's so closely associated with Christmas...there's no mention of that joyously celebrated day anywhere in the song, its authors were Jewish, and it was written in the middle of the Summer in Hollywood, CA for Pete's Sake [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Pete%27s_Sake_(film)]!
As lauded as the these two songsmiths are, I know that I'm not the only person [http://www.maunet.com] to think the opening couplet should have been written slightly differently, and I took the liberty to do just that. You're welcome.
So - while I present this version as a Christmas song, even though the tone is more somber than festive - remember that it's okay to sing it whenever snow may appear throughout the year. Even if you're noshing Gefilte fish [http://www.jewishrecipes.org/jewish-foods/gefilte-fish.html] by a pool under the bloody red sun of phantastic L.A. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KlVZ9CLg3E]
Happy Holidays to you!
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