Oh! Christmas Tree!

Why the Christmas songs we love to sing might not be what they seem

Last week I wrote about our love of Christmas traditions and our quest to keep things the same from one year to the next.

Heaven forbid you don’t eat the same food and sing the same songs as you did the year before and the one before that!

This week, I’d like to point out that if you dig a little deeper into those timeless traditions you’ll likely find some surprising stories of reinvention.

And what better way to illustrate this than with a Christmas carol?

How’s this for a reinvention twist? A great many of the carols we sing each year were never intended to be associated with Christmas.

Deck the Halls, for example, was a sixteenth century song celebrating the new year, while O Holy Night (honestly, my least favourite carol) was written in 1843 to celebrate the renovation of a church organ. Even Jingle Bells, beloved by all small children everywhere, was originally written for Thanksgiving.

Which brings me to O Christmas Tree. The melody can be traced back to a sixteenth century German folk tune that had nothing to do with Christmas. By the early nineteenth century it had become O Tannenbaum, with lyrics that celebrated the fir tree as a symbol of loyalty and steadfastness.

When the tradition of decorating trees as part of Christmas celebrations became widespread the song became associated with Christmas, too. Add in an English adaptation of the lyrics that focused more explicitly on Christmas, and there you have it (and for more, go to O Tannenbaum).

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O Christmas Tree, reinvented yet again

I’ll be back in the new year with more Discovering Music missives, but until then I’m going to leave you with my take on O Christmas Tree, which starts off traditional and becomes rather jazzy.

Frohe Weihnachten! 🎄

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree,
How lovely are your branches!

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
wie treu sind deine Blätter!