We're about to be woken by distant cannon fire,
and the strains of "O Tannenbaum"...
It’s
December – how did that happen? Well,
the same way it does every year presumably, with Christmas trees and promotions
now firmly established in shop windows, ferry sailings all but booked out and
intensifying scarlet splashes appearing among the leaves of the cities many
pohutukawa trees.
At my
house, December 1 also marks an occasion eagerly anticipated but dreaded in
equal measure by a significant other.
This Sunday will mark the dusting-off of Snoopy’s Christmas (and various other cheese-and-tinsel infused Yule-tide
‘favourite’ songs) for the annual festive thrashing - lasting until I’m made to
put the CDs away on Boxing Day. The above image is the cover for a compilation album I created a couple of Christmasses ago, so that others can do the same... or possibly not.
How did
this novelty hit, released by The Royal Guardsmen, become so firmly established
in contemporary Kiwi culture, and why do I love it so much?
As with
many things, there might be a personal degree of perversity involved. The more
people I meet who want to pour scorn on this feel-good favourite, the more I
want to profess my devotion to it. I even
went as far as sending a card containing this message to a well-known
journalist who was somewhat un-Christmassy about the best canine pilot in
Allied Command in his column (and fortunately he saw the funny side).
There’s
much more to it than contrariness of course, so let’s first see how this festive
duel of aerial aces began.
The Royal
Guardsmen were actually six young men from Florida, most of them still at High School
when they formed in 1965. The name was
chosen to reflect the popular ‘British music invasion’ on American pop charts
at that time, and their original aim was to become a ‘cover band’ (long before
the expression was ever coined), performing authentic versions of current hits
live.
Meeting a
talent scout in a music store led to them recording a demo record which in turn
led to a proposal from record producer Phil Gernhard. He was asking local bands to take a look at
the lyrics for a novelty song called Snoopy
vs The Red Baron, with the aim of releasing a record of the ‘best’
treatment. The Guardsmen
unenthusiastically composed a self-professed ‘hokey’ arrangement, which Gernhard
liked, released, and it shot to the top of the American charts in November 1966,
catapulting a student garage band to something approaching fame. I love the
fact that their first television appearance was hosted by Khan himself, Ricardo
Montalban.
Although our adversaries are in place for this
‘proto-Snoopy’s Christmas’, along
with the military drum beat and aeroplane sound effects, obviously the most
important element (the clue is in the second word of the title) is missing.
Sadly the
band’s ambitions to become serious musicians were thwarted by Gernhard’s
insistence that they record two further ‘Snoopy’ songs the following year, but
the third one, a certain Christmas novelty hit, is a record the Guardsmen have
admitted to having the most fun making. Although eventually becoming a gold
record, Snoopy’s Christmas only
charted at number one in the US
on Billboards ‘Best bets for Christmas’ chart.
In New
Zealand, however, it shot to number one in Christmas 1967 and for reasons I’ve
been unable to ascertain, has remained a festive favourite here ever since
(despite the predictable Snoopy hate from vocal minorities in media
silly-season opinion polls each year).
As for the
Royal Guardsmen, they eventually became disillusioned with their pigeon-holing
as a novelty band and split up in 1969.
They remain philosophical about their one-time fame as ‘the Snoopy Boys’
– proclaiming “Long live the dog” when the single debuted at number 3 on iTunes
Children’s chart. They apparently filmed a 2011 documentary titled, Burned by a Beagle – The True Story Of The
Royal Guardsmen.
I must
confess, while working a student holiday job in my teens which kept me within
earshot of a radio all day, I strained for some ‘cred’ by affecting a cynical
adversion to having to listen to the song several times a day. A friend pulled me up with the far more
genuine remark “Come on, how can you possibly complain about Snoopy’s
Christmas?” I instantly realised he was
right – to profess an adversion to the distilled spirit of peace and goodwill
which this silly little song celebrates would surely be the very worst in
Dickensian mean-spiritedness. I wasn’t
like that, and didn’t want to be. I love
Christmas, always have and always will.
Snoopy’s
Christmas also channels the essence of the famous unofficial Western Front Christmas
Day truce in 1914 (beautifully depicted in the film Joyeaux Noel 2005), and I hope
to give this a closer look as we get closer to Christmas this month.
I can’t
help but wonder how Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen, famed, respected
and feared on both sides for his unparalleled aeronautic skill, would feel if
he knew that he would become best remembered by many because of a Christmas song
celebrating his fictional encounter with a cartoon beagle.
In the spirit of Joyeaux Noel, perhaps it just might have seemed utterly preposterous
enough to ignite even a famously-elusive teutonic sense of humour. 
...
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