Merry Christmas My Friends

Years ago I offered on this blog a close reading of the lyrics of a classic Christmas song. Because I feel lazy, I will just paste that close reading here and perhaps do some minor tinkering on it.

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The news it came out in the First World War
The bloody Red Baron was flying once more
The Allied Command ignored all of its men
And called on Snoopy to do it again

The Allied Command has a rather low opinion of its own men. Snoopy's flying-ace fantasy on top of his doghouse was firmly established in the pop-cultural consciousness well before The Royal Guardsmen did this in 1967. But Snoopy always seemed to lose his imagined battles with the Red Baron. He'd go down in flames, shouting "Curse you!" That was the running gag. So how had the Allied Command developed its confidence in his ability to do "it again" -- if "it" means anything they should want done?

Apparently, they were confident in his abilities because they had listened to an earlier Royal Guardsmen tune. But let's stick to this one.

Was the night before Christmas and forty below
When Snoopy went up in search of his foe
He spied the Red Baron and fiercely they fought
With ice on his wings, Snoopy knew he was caught

Wasn't it just as cold for the Red Baron? Why wasn't there ice on his wings too? Or had Germany invented de-icers?

CHORUS:

Christmas bells those Christmas bells
Ring out from the land
Asking peace of all the world
And good will to man

The Baron had Snoopy dead in his sights
He reached for the trigger to pull it up tight
Why he didn't shoot, well, we'll never know
Or was it the bells from the village below

There's a wikipedia article on this song. Oddly, when I first wrote this post that article said that the Baron doesn't fire "possibly due to his respect for Snoopy's prowess at flying." I don't see any basis for that supposition. The suggestion is that he didn't fire out of a Christmas-eve act of compassion. Somebody else may have agreed with me, because I've just checked -- in 2020 -- and that presumption that the Baron was saluting canine flying prowess has been edited out of the article.

REFRAIN

The Baron made Snoopy fly to the Rhine
And forced him to land behind the enemy lines
Snoopy was certain that this was the end
When the Baron cried out "Merry Christmas, mein friend!"

How far, I wonder, was the trip from the site of initial contact to this Rhine-bank place where they finally landed? Snoopy was apparently doomed, earlier in the song, because he had ice on his wings. Are we supposed to conclude that the ice harmed his ability to maneuver sufficiently for a dogfight, but not his ability to fly in a straight line to the Rhine?

The Baron then offered a holiday toast
And Snoopy our hero saluted his host
And then with a roar they were both on their way
Each knowing they'd meet on some other day

REFRAIN TWICE.

We again here a few bars of O Tannenbaum after the final two refrains of the tune proper -- this time it is being played by a piano, not sung as in the intro.

That concludes my close reading. There is no real point to it. I trust all my readers are having a wonderful Christmas and will enjoy the remainder of this holiday season.

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