“Christmas time is here
Happiness and cheer …”
I dig the Peanuts singing this but man, it brings me down. Maybe it’s the minor-key thing. I’ll never be 6 years old again, playing in my footie jammies and checking the sky for incoming reindeer.
Sniff.
Man, now I’m depressed. Thanks a lot. No more Peter Paul commercials during the specials. No more CBS opening.
Sigh.
Have some kids of your own. Re-live it through and with them.
I remember the Burlington coat commercials. They had a staccato drumbeat while a logo was ‘woven’ on the screen.
Once upon a time, there were no DVDs. Not even any VCRs. If you missed a program, you might have a chance of seeing it again in the Summer rerun season; but if you missed Charlie Brown, you had to wait a whole 'nother year. Remember everyone gathering to watch Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! and How the Grinch Stole Christmas and (at Hallowe’en) The Wizard of Oz? Watch them now, or you’re out of luck for a year! No more. Just buy a DVD.
The Christmas specials (Charlie Brown, The Grinch, Rudolph, et al) signalled that Christmastime is here! Maybe it’s because my Christmases have not exactly been happy during my adult life. Maybe I’ve just lost the magic. Maybe it’s that I can see the specials any time I want, and that has reduced their impact. It was nice being little. No worries, except that Santa wouldn’t bring that one, special toy. No job, no bills, no mortgage. No terrorists, and even the threat of nuclear destruction or the war iin Vietnam didn’t register. Three whole months in the summer to play outside. Two weeks of no school in the winter (which wasn’t much of a Winter in San Diego). Playing with toys, and seeing what your friends got. I want to be little again. 
And remember how you endured your pre-show bath and putting your pjs on, all the while eagerly anticipating sitting on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn (made in a popcorn popper, NOT a microwave!), maybe some Plantar’s cheese doodles and a glass of milk or juice, just waiting for the CBS spinning rainbow “SPECIAL!” to come up? And when it was over, you felt a little sad that you wouldn’t see it again for another year, but a little giddy too, at the thought of the approaching holiday?
For me as a child, Christmas was signaled by Christmas Eve on Sesame Street and Barishnikov’s production of The Nutcracker. On PBS. And the commercial for Eat N’ Park, with the little star trying to jump on the tree, until finally the tree bends over and puts it on top. Anyone from Western PA remember THAT one?
But then PBS stopped showing either of those, and I didn’t see them again until years later, when I purchased them.
Damn, growing up sucks.
The dreary melancholia of “Christmastime Is Here” comes as no surprise to dedicated Peanuts readers, who know that depression and disappointment are far more common to the Peanuts universe than “happiness and cheer.”
It’s in F major.
Anyway, it so happens that every time I watch that Christmas special, I am a wet-eyed, sniffling mess by the end of it. Call me sentimental, but it works every time.
It’s in F major.
I ought to stop throwing around these terms as if I know thing one about music.
A little sad? I remember crying like crazy when the credits rolled for the Charlie Brown specials (Christmas and the others too). The commercials that I remember were for Dolly Madison snack cakes…mmmm…Zingers!
Just bought the soundtrack CD. I still can’t make out the words to that song, beyond a few snippets. But the CD is great. It took me until this year to figure out that the music for that show was jazz.
Oh, the biggest change between childhood Christmases and grown up ones - I’m not blinded on Christmas morning when I walk down the hall to the tree. My dad had these flood lights that hooked onto the camera. Christmas was a historical event in our house. I almost feel guilty just having the holiday instead of recording it for posterity.
Vince Guaraldi was an amazing composer. I can’t begin to imagine what A Charlie Brown Christmas would have been like with a different, more “cartoon-like” score. That laid-back jazz orchestration is such an unlikely style for a Christmas special, and yet somehow it fits the “Peanuts” characters to a T. He was a truly inspired choice to provide the music for those shows.
And yeah, “Christmas Time is Here” is one of the more melancholy holiday tunes, but the same show features “Linus and Lucy,” which has got to be the grooviest and liveliest cartoon theme music ever, bar none. Listen to that track; it’ll cheer you right up again.
[QUOTE=diku]
Man, now I’m depressed…No more CBS opening.
QUOTE]
Go here, click “Promos” toward the middle, click “CBS” from the selection bar at top, select the “Video” portion of the topmost listing, and pretend.
What makes it sound so melancholy then? I have a tin-ear, but if pressed, I would have thought it was in a minor key, too.
Are there “out of key” notes or augmented chords or something in it?
And the Zinger Zapper!
Worrying about school and homework and report cards and who was going to beat me up at the bus stop, and even dreading summer with its awful camp (baseball? I wanna read a goddam book, leave me alone!). Having no control over your own life or what you wear or eat or do with your “free time . . .”
I’m glad I’m not little anymore! Though I’d like to be a size 6 again . . .
[I recall *The Wizard of Oz* running every Easter, not Halloween]
I loved the Charlie Brown Christmas when I was a kid, but even at that age I remember getting annoyed at what a pompous, holier-than-thou asshole Linus was at the end . . .
It’s a terrific tune, lending itself to jazz interpretations, but having solid lyrics. Christmas tunes are supposed to be schmaltzy and conjure up memories of family gatherings.
It might just be the descending chords at the end of the verses (“Fun for all/that children call …”) that give it that downbeat quality.
Cool Jazz, baby.
Lots of major seventh chords (take the major chord of do mi so, and then throw in ti). Also, the chord progressions do throw in some flatted and sharpened notes (like flatted fifths and ninths) which would be more normally heard if it were a minor scale.
The chord progression can be found here at SongTrellis.com.
The lyrics for Christmas Time Is Here by Vince Guaraldi can be found here at Wowlyrics.com.
Peace.
I never thought of Linus as pompous or holier-than-thou, just as the smart kid who happened to be an expert on the New Testament.
Best Christmas special ever, with the best score. The exact opposite of all of the Rankin-Bass specials, including Rudolph. I never liked Rudolph.