Why Christmas carols endure as popular music changes

William Brangham:

From "Silent Night" to "Jingle Bells," Christmas carols are some of the most familiar and beloved songs of the season, and some of the oldest.

Stephanie Sy explores why, even as popular music changes with the times, these classics have endured.

Stephanie Sy:

To help us dig into why Christmas carols have stood the test of time, I'm joined by Ariana Wyatt, a professor of voice at Virginia Tech.

Ariana, it's great to have you on the "News Hour."

There are very few things that haven't changed over the years, and Christmas carols are one of them. In fact, as I was reading, I understand that some of them date back 2,000 years to the birth of Christ. Is that right?

Ariana Wyatt, Professor of Voice, Virginia Tech: It's really remarkable, in fact, that our first Christmas carol is really proclaimed in the Gospel, the "Angels Hymn," or "Gloria in Excelsis Deo," which is a carol that we sing today in many different versions and have over the last 2,000 years.

Stephanie Sy:

I read that that's because angels were viewed as biblically sort of singing, that that was a biblical interpretation of what was happening.

Ariana Wyatt:

Yes, that's correct. Scholars interpret that saying as singing.

And there's a lot of other references to singing and praising with music, with song in the Gospel. So it makes sense that the angels would have been singing that.

Stephanie Sy:

My favorite Christmas carol is "O Holy Night." And there are other carols that start with this expression, O, right? O, come let us adore him. Talk about the O carols.

Ariana Wyatt:

Yes, it's really a fun thing.

So, in the eighth century, they made in the liturgy a series of antiphons that were in preparation for the birth of Christ. So they were during the period of Advent. And there were seven specific ones that led up to December 24.

So the last would be performed on December 23. And they all started with O, O, and then a name for God. So, you had seven of them. And the last was "O, Emmanuel," or "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." And it's really interesting because, if you reverse the order of the Latin of all of those O, name for Christ, all seven, it spells ero cras, E-R-O C-R-A-S, which means "I will come tomorrow."

Stephanie Sy:

Now, speaking of the Latin, in the Middle Ages, not a lot of people were speaking Latin. How did it become accessible when Latin itself was not particularly well-known at the time of these carols?

Ariana Wyatt:

So it wasn't until the 12th century when Saint Francis of Assisi in Italy started to introduce the vernacular into the Christmas story. And so he would take these Christmas hymns and put the verses in the vernacular, which would have been Italian where he was.

And then the choruses were -- remained in Latin. And that allowed people to start to connect with the story. So, previous to this, these hymns were not popular. They didn't connect with them. They didn't understand what the story was.

Stephanie Sy:

Do we know anything about the melodies and how they have evolved?

Ariana Wyatt:

We assume that some of these melodies date back to celebrations about the winter solstice, which predate Christianity. And so they would take these folk tunes and they would put on new words that were around the Christmas story.

And they are gradually put into the repertory and passed down through oral tradition, both by just singing to your own children, but also by groups of traveling musicians who would go from town to town and kind of sing these various songs.

Stephanie Sy:

That's extraordinary.

Speaking of speaking to children, I used to sing "Silent Night" to my babies as a lullaby. Is "Silent Night" one that dates back pretty far?

Ariana Wyatt:

It's actually one of the more recent ones. Recent is a subjective term when we're talking about 2,000 years of history, of course, but it dates to 1818, and it was composed in Austria.

Then it was brought to the United States in 1839 and performed for the first time in New York City at Trinity Cathedral. And from there, it kind of took on a world of its own. There's a great story of the Christmas truce of 1914 during World War I, where German and American troops sang that hymn together from across the trenches in their respective languages, because it was one of and remains one of our shared Christmas carols.

Stephanie Sy:

World War II also gave us some really emotionally powerful Christmas songs. What was happening in America at that time that led to songs like "White Christmas"?

Ariana Wyatt:

Yes, there's two large things.

First, we have the invention of recorded sound.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Former President of the United States: A date which will live in infamy.

Ariana Wyatt:

That was a huge change to music and how music is transferred and shared across continents, really. And so we have for the first time the ability to share music out over the radio, share music that can be purchased and listened to at home, which is really remarkable and was -- really changed everything at the time.

But, also, we have two major World Wars that happened in the 20th century. And as a result of that, after World War II, we have a real economic boom in the United States. And so we see a new genre of Christmas music emerge that is really a contemporary, commercial Christmas music. And it has legs because we can record it and then we can broadcast it.

The first one that we really look to is "White Christmas," which was broadcast for the first time on the radio on Christmas Day in 1941, which was just 18 days after Pearl Harbor. And, of course, that song is built in nostalgia, is built in hope for Christmases future, in nostalgia for Christmases past.

And, of course, the nation was reeling, as was the world at the time, in the middle of a of a World War. And it really spoke to people, which is why it continues to speak to people today.

Stephanie Sy:

That is Ariana Wyatt with Virginia Tech.

Ariana, thank you so much and happy holidays.

Ariana Wyatt:

Happy holidays. Go hear some music.