Beech Tree News Network

On Saturday, my daughter, Natalie, and I drove to Owensboro to deliver Christmas gifts to my sister, Marsha.  We had the radio set to one of those stations that plays 24-7 Christmas music.  When “My Favorite Things” began playing, Natalie turned the volume completely down and proclaimed, “Whoever decided “My Favorite Things” should be a Christmas song needs to be drug out into the street and shot!”  I nodded in agreement.  “That is a Julie Andrews’ song, a “Sound of Music” song, not a Christmas song!” she added.  

As we continued down the road, I wondered to myself, “Who did decide it should be a Christmas

song?”  Well, it turns out, Julie Andrews herself is at fault.  According to billboard.com, Andrews performed the song in 1961, on a Garry Moore TV Christmas special.  This was four years before she performed “My Favorite Things” in THE SOUND OF MUSIC, which was released in 1965.  

(The Broadway production of the Von Trapp family’s story premiered in 1959, complete with the Rodgers and Hammerstein number.)

  The first album to cement the song as a Christmas favorite was “The Jack Jones Christmas Album” in

1964.  According to Billboard, the selection of the song for the album came as part of a promotion deal.  The movie version of THE SOUND OF MUSIC was coming out that following spring (1965), and a representative from Williamson Music (the publishing division of Rodgers and Hammerstein) approached Mickey Kapp (Jack Jones’ producer) about including the song on the Christmas album.  The rep told Kapp, “They were worried because this was such a big-budget movie, and they thought having a hit song would help sell tickets.”  (As history shows, they needn’t have worried, the movie was an instant classic, but the movie business is anything but predictable, so it is understandable that the executives wanted to hedge their bets.)

 By December of that same year, Christmas albums by the Supremes, Andy Williams and Eddie Fisher featured “My Favorite Things,” and two years later, Barbara Streisand recorded the song for her Christmas album.  What all of this means is Natalie will be fiddling with the volume button on her radio for many Christmases to come.

 I’ve always loved Christmas music.  Oftentimes, in the summer, I will be playing Christmas CDs while I’m putting up vegetables from my garden.  I’m delighted by the radio stations that go “All Christmas, All the Time” by early November.  According to variety.com, more radio stations flipped to all-holiday formats earlier this year than ever before.  The magazine sites the doldrums of 2020 for the early switch.  “People were saying, ‘I need a break this year’,” reported John Peake, program director for KOST of Los Angeles.

 Who actually decided which Christmas songs get airtime?  According to fivethirtyeight.com, it’s “planning, data work and market research” by radio programmers and music-streaming services.  The same website reports that the top 15 songs make up half of the holiday music played, and the top 53 songs comprise 90 percent of the play list.  The site lists the top twenty songs, with “Sleigh Ride” coming in at number 1, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” grabs the number 10 spot, and “Jingle Bells” rounds out the count at number 20.  

“My Favorite Things” is

nowhere to be found in the top 20.  Natalie will be pleased.