The Carpenters -- Merry Christmas, Darling

 

A few weeks ago, I started off the annual Xmas segment of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with the jazz version of "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town" via Tony Bennett in the weekly Reminiscings of Youth article. Well, once again, I'm going with something Xmas-y for this week's ROY and though it was released when I was but a wee lad, I didn't actually get to know about it until I was well into adulthood. In fact, I was on my second tour of duty in Japan.

From Wikipedia

Over the years, I've said that jazz, Charlie Brown and Norman Rockwell go great with Christmas. I can also add The Carpenters. I mean, look at that cover for Richard and Karen's October 1978 "Christmas Portrait" album. It absolutely rocks Rockwell well (yes, I'm being cute here), although the cover was actually designed by Robert Tanenbaum based on a 1960 Rockwell painting, according to the Wikipedia article.

As I mentioned above, I first heard "Merry Christmas, Darling" by The Carpenters somewhere and sometime during my life in Ichikawa, and quickly opted to track down "Christmas Portrait" at one of the major CD stores in Tokyo. What I hadn't known is that "Merry Christmas, Darling" wasn't a 1978 creation by the duo but a song that was first released as a single in November 1970! The history behind it goes even further back according to the Wikipedia article which was itself based on a Randy Erickson article printed in "La Crosse Tribune" back in 2005:

The lyrics were written in 1944 by an 18-year-old Frank Pooler, which, according to him, were about a love interest he had at the time. 22 years later in 1966, when he was choral director at California State University, Long Beach, two of his aspiring music students, Karen and Richard Carpenter, who were beginning to have success as a local band, asked him (their favorite professor) if he had any ideas for holiday songs. According to Pooler, they had become tired of the standard holiday songs they were singing. Pooler gave them the lyrics of the song he had written from years before, and told them he did not think much of the original melody. According to Pooler, Richard wrote a new tune for the lyrics—the tune currently used—in 15 minutes. Four years later, in 1970, the Carpenters first recorded and released it as a single.

Always love a song with an interesting story. In any case, the combination of Pooler's lyrics and the new melody by Richard (and The Carpenters are considered to be music legends in Japan) were magic made in heaven, especially in my old stomping grounds because the story sounds perfectly made for Japanese audiences. I've heard a number of J-Xmas tunes (such as "Midnight Flight: Hitori Bocchi no Christmas Eve") over the years which involve the melancholy plot of being apart during the Yuletide with only the mutual Xmas wishes between a couple tying them together, and the same thing is happening here with "Merry Christmas, Darling".

I've read that the 1978 version in "Christmas Portrait" is slightly different in terms of Karen's lyrical preferences but basically the melody and arrangement are the same. Anyways, "Merry Christmas, Darling" is another go-to standard in the run-up to December 25th for me, and even listening to some of their versions of the Christmas classics through "Christmas Portrait", Christmas and Carpenters go together like candy and cane.

Well, considering how late in 1970 the original single came out, I guess we can make our kayo comparisons through what won the Japan Record Awards that year. None of them, though, are Xmas-y in nature.

Grand Prize: Yoichi Sugawara -- Kyo de Owakare（今日でお別れ）

Best Performance: Hiroshi Uchiyamada and The Cool Five -- Uwasa no Onna （噂の女）

Best New Artist: Mari Henmi -- Keiken （経験）