“Silent Night” – the origin and evolving words of the famous Christmas carol...

In 1818, during the annual Christmas Midnight Mass at the St. Nicholas Church at Oberndorf, Austria, the song we know as “Silent Night! Holy Night!” (or just “Silent Night”) was performed in public for the first time.

Most sources say this happened on Christmas Eve, the night of December 24, 1818, though some say it was after midnight on December 25.

The lyrics of the song were written in German by Joseph Mohr (1792-1848), an Austrian Catholic priest who sang tenor during the song’s debut.

The church organist, Franz Gruber (1787-1863), wrote the music.

During that first performance of the song, Gruber accompanied Mohr and the choir on guitar. According to legend, he played a guitar because a mouse had chewed on and damaged the bellows of the church organ.

The original German title of the song — “Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!” — is taken from the opening line of the first verse:

      “Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
       Alles schläft; einsam wacht
       Nur das traute heilige Paar.
       Holder Knab im lockigten Haar,
       Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!
       Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!”

Today, the familiar English version of this first verse that most of us know is:

      “Silent night! Holy night!
       All is calm, all is bright.
       Round yon virgin mother and child,
       Holy infant so tender and mild.
       Sleep in heavenly peace,
       Sleep in heavenly peace.”

However, it wasn’t until the 20th Century that this version became standard. And, although it’s the only one most people are aware of today, there have actually been many different English translations.

A literal English translation of the German words of the first verse is something like this:

      “Silent night! Holy night!
       All are sleeping, alone and awake
       Only the intimate holy pair,
       Lovely boy with curly hair,
       Sleep in heavenly peace!
       Sleep in heavenly peace!”

The most famous English version of the song was written by American Episcopal Bishop John Freeman Young (1820-1885) and first published in 1859.

Young made up his own words for the middle part of the first verse and for most of the other two verses (of the original six) that he “translated.”

His English adaptation became the one that’s best known. But it wasn’t the first.

According to the authoritative, amazingly detailed history of the song on The Hymns and Carols of Christmas site, an American named J. F. Warner created what is believed to be the oldest English version of Mohr’s German lyrics in 1849.

Warner titled the song “Silent Night! Hallowed Night!”

That makes sense since “hallowed” is one of the possible translations of the German word Heilige. (It can also be translated as awed, blessed, devout, righteous, sacred, saintly, solemn — or holy.)

Warner’s lyrics for the rest of the first verse (and other verses) are, if anything, even more creative “translations” than Young’s.

He started his version of the song this way:

      “Silent night! halllow’d night!
       Land and deep silent sleep,
       Softly glitters bright Bethlehem’s star,
       Beck’ning Israel’s eye from afar,
       Where the Saviour is born,
       Where the Saviour is born.”

Another early English translation that preceded Young’s was written in 1858 by Emily E.S. Elliott. She titled her version of the song “Stilly Night, Holy Night.” Elliott’s lyrics also bear little relation to the original German.

Since then, twenty or so other English versions of “Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!” have been created, each with its own unique lyrics.

But at some unknown turning point in the 20th Century, for some unknown reason, Rev. Young’s became the standard.

There’s a good chance you’ve been hearing — and possibly singing — his words this Holiday season.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa and Happy Everything Else from ThisDayinQuotes.com!

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“These are the times that try men’s souls…”

During the Revolutionary War, getting soldiers to stay in the Continental Army was one of the biggest problems facing the American commander in chief, General George Washington.

Many American soldiers were non-professional militiamen who volunteered for a limited number of months, usually during the spring or summer. After a short stint, they were legally allowed to go back their farms to harvest their fall crops — and typically did.

There were regular soldiers in the Continental Army. But many deserted once they experienced the horrors of combat or the miserable conditions in winter camps. Others left after becoming disgusted by the lack of reliable pay and supplies.

In 1776, Thomas Paine, an aspiring writer who had emigrated to America from England two years earlier, became an aide-de-camp to American General Nathanael Greene.

That winter, Paine decided to write something to try to renew the patriotic spirit of American soldiers and discourage them from deserting or going home when their enlistment period was up.

It ended up being the first in his series of “American Crisis” pamphlets.

The opening sentence became a famous quotation; the second embedded two related metaphors into our language: 

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

Paine’s rousing treatise was first published in the Pennsylvania Journal on December 19, 1776, then issued as a printed pamphlet on December 23.
 
The piece provided some very timely and welcome inspiration to General Washington.
 
In recent months, the British had repeatedly defeated the Americans in battle and forced the Continental Army to retreat from New York into New Jersey. Washington’s troop strength was severely reduced by a combination of death, disease, “summer soldiers” and desertion.
 
On December 18, a despondent Washington said in a letter to his cousin in Virginia:

“I think the game is pretty near up, owing, in a great measure, to the insidious arts of the Enemy…but principally to the accursed policy of short enlistments, and placing too great a dependence on the militia.”

Five days later, after reading Paine’s new pamphlet, Washington had it read aloud to his remaining troops to inspire them in advance of a upcoming attack he’d planned.
 
On Christmas night of 1776, he and about 2,400 American soldiers made the legendary crossing of the Delaware River. The next day, at the the Battle of Trenton, they surprised and soundly defeated a group of 1,500 professional Hessian mercenaries who were fighting for the British.
 
That victory renewed the morale of Washington and the soldiers of the Continental Army. It also attracted many new recruits to the American ranks.
 
During the next six years, Paine wrote a series of fifteen more “Crisis” pamphlets. They helped inspire the sense of patriotism and resolve that eventually led to the success of the American Revolution. But none are as significant or as remembered as his first.
 
It played a role in a turning point in the Revolutionary War. Its opening sentence became one of the best known quotes in American history. And, the second sentence made “summer soldier” and “sunshine patriot” common terms of derision that are still used today to refer to people who give half-hearted commitment to a cause or abandon it when the going gets tough.  

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Related reading and viewing…

The odd links between “Louie Louie” and Ralph Nader’s “Unsafe At Any Speed”...

It’s truly odd, but true: the renowned rock song “Louie Louie” and the history-making book about car safety by Ralph Nader, titled Unsafe At Any Speed, are connected by both a quote and by a date.

“Louie Louie” was written in 1955 by the pioneering American R&B singer and songwriter Richard Berry (1935-1997).

In a nod to the popularity Calypso music was enjoying in the mid-1950s, Berry gave “Louie Louie” a Caribbean flavor by writing the lyrics in an island-style patois.

It’s basically a love song.

A Jamaican sailor explains to some guy named Louie that he misses his girlfriend. He can’t wait to sail home, take his “fine little girl” in his arms and tell her “I never leave again.” In the chorus he says dolefully: “Louie Louie, me gotta go.” (As in, go home.)

Berry recorded “Louie Louie” with his group the Pharaohs in 1957. Their version was a modest regional hit in the Northwest, where it became a popular party song covered by many local rock bands.

One of those bands was a group of white kids from Portland, Oregon who called themselves The Kingsmen. They made a raucous, poorly-recorded version of the song in 1963.

It was released in May and entered Billboard’s Top 40 singles chart on November 30, 1963.

The fuzziness of the recording and the garbled attempt at Jamaican patois by The Kingsmen’s lead singer, Jack Ely, made the lyrics notoriously hard to understand. Nonetheless, their catchy cover version was a huge hit, selling over a million copies.

By 1964, “Louie Louie” was being gleefully sung by teenagers nationwide, often using salacious Mondegreen variations of the words.

The actual lyrics as written by Berry and slightly altered by Ely are not overtly sexual. But many “dirty” versions were made up and spread.

For example, in the original lyrics the second verse starts with: “Three nights and days we sailed the sea. / Me think of girl constantly.”

In raunchified versions, those words were turned into things like: “Each night at ten, I lay her again / I f--k my girl all kinds of ways.”

It was soon rumored that the hard-to-understand lyrics on The Kingsmen record were themselves obscene. This caused much moral harrumphing by parents, the press, politicians and bureaucrats.

Indiana Governor Matthew Welsh declared the record to be “pornographic” and banned it from the state’s airwaves. (And he was a liberal Democrat!) Some radio stations in other states also banned it.

The FCC and FBI conducted official investigations — at taxpayers’ expense — to try to decipher the muffled words on The Kingsmen’s hit single to determine if it should be banned nationwide.

Federal investigators grilled Richard Berry and Jack Ely and listened intently to the Kingsmen record played forward and backward at various speeds, including 33 rpm, 45 rpm and 78 rpm.

In February 1964, one exasperated FCC official uttered what became a legendary rock history quote when he reported:

       “We found the record to be unintelligible at any speed.”

Around that same time in 1964, lawyer Ralph Nader was working as an advisor to a U.S. Senate subcommittee that was investigating car safety (or, more accurately. the general lack of safety features in cars built at the time).

Armed with the knowledge he gained from that work, Nader wrote a shocking book on the subject. He titled it Unsafe at Any Speed.

It became a bestseller, gave Nader his initial fame as an industry gadfly and led to many improvements in car safety we now take for granted, such as seat belts and anti-lock brakes.

The similarity between Nader’s book title and the FCC official’s quote about “Louie Louie” suggests that Ralph was either aware of the FCC quote — or blissfully unaware that his title was an ironic echo of “unintelligible at any speed.”

What makes the connection even odder is the fact that Unsafe At Any Sped was published on November 30, 1965, exactly two years to the day after The Kingsmen’s recording of “Louie Louie” entered the Billboard Top 40.

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Further reading and listening…

“When it rains, it pours” started out as a good thing…

Back in November 2009, not long after I first started writing this blog, I happened to see two news stories in a row that had quotes using the saying “When it rains it pours.” 

One was a story about the Boston Bruins hockey team, which had just lost another in a series of losing games. Player Blake Wheeler told a reporter the team’s losing streak was “a when it rains, it pours type of thing.”

That same day, I saw an article about the controversy over a health care amendment leading Democrats had floated in Congress.

In the story, Republican Congressman Dave Camp from Michigan was quoted as saying: “When it rains it pours. This amendment only increases the government involvement in health care, raises more taxes and opens more taxpayer subsidies to illegal immigrants.”

After seeing the two back-to-back uses, I decided to look up the origin of this idiomatic expression.

One of the interesting things I found was that, while “when it rains, it pours” commonly has a negative connotation, the original, high-profile use that popularized the saying was designed to be positive. 

It dates back to 1911, when the Morton Salt Company developed a new breakthrough in table salt technology.

Until then, most table salt was sold in a raw, coarse-grained form that clumped and caked when rainy weather made the air in a house even slightly humid.  

The Morton food scientists solved this problem by reducing the grain size and adding a small amount of magnesium carbonate, an anti-caking agent.

As a result, the salt didn’t cake and clump. It could be poured or shaken out as nicely as dry sand, even when it was humid indoors due to the weather.

The Morton execs asked their ad agency – the renowned N.W. Ayer & Son firm – to create a catchy ad slogan for this new and improved salt.

Morton rejected a couple of initial slogan ideas, but the Ayer admen eventually came up with a winner: “When it rains, it pours.”

It was an updated, positive twist on the old English proverb “It never rains but it pours,” which had a negative connotation, suggesting that when troubles come, they come one after the other.

As expected, American consumers, who previously had to put up with inconveniently clumpy salt when the humidity was high, understood exactly what the Morton slogan meant.

It meant that Morton Salt would stay dry and come out of the box or shaker perfectly, even when it was raining outside and humid inside.

That was indeed a very good thing. Nonetheless, over time, the Americanized version of the old English proverb typically came to be used in a negative way, like its forbear.

The Ayer firm also created an image of a little girl with an umbrella to go with the slogan. This famous combination was trademarked by Morton and, according to US Trademark registration information, first used in commerce on November 6, 1914.

Over the decades, the image of the “Umbrella Girl” on boxes of Morton salt has evolved.

The company has adopted other marketing slogans. And, few people today ever think about the “problem” of clumping salt.

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Related reading…

True or false: Stephen Colbert coined the word truthiness? (Hint: you’re right!)

During the very first Colbert Report show on October 17, 2005, the witty faux Conservative media pundit Stephen Colbert unleashed the word truthiness on the world. (Click here to see the video on the Colbert Nation website.)

He introduced it like this:

“On this show your voice will be heard...in the form of my voice. ‘Cause you’re looking at a straight-shooter, America. I tell it like it is. I calls ‘em like I sees ‘em. I will speak to you in plain simple English.

And that brings us to tonight's word: Truthiness.

Now I’m sure some of the Word Police, the wordanistas over at Webster’s, are gonna say, ‘Hey, that’s not a word.’ Well, anybody who knows me knows that I’m no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They’re elitist. Constantly telling us what is or isn’t true, or what did or didn’t happen. Who’s Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was finished in 1914? If I wanna say it happened in 1941, that’s my right. I don't trust books. They’re all fact, no heart.”

In that brilliant bit, Colbert captured the nature of modern political rhetoric and punditry. Indeed, it has only become more “truthy” since 2005.

Nowadays, it doesn’t seem to matter much what “the truth” is.

Whatever is consistent with what someone believes is what they consider to be a “fact.” Whatever confirms their views is their “truth.”

For example, as a huge fan of Stephen Colbert, I believe he coined the word truthiness.

Oh sure, there are some elitist egghead language experts who have noted that the word truthiness already existed before Colbert uttered it and that uses of the word date back to the early 1800s.

Indeed, there’s a series of posts about this on the Language Log, a popular hangout for snooty linguists.

The so-called “facts” in those posts supposedly “prove” Stephen Colbert may have popularized the word truthiness but didn’t actually coin it.

The wordanista who started pushing this absurd claim appears to be Ben Zimmer, producer of the Visual Thesaurus and Vocabulary.com, language columnist for The Boston Globe and former “On Language” columnist for The New York Times.

As Colbert might say [loudly, while shaking his fist], “Damn you, Zimmer!”

No verifiable proof will shake my belief in the truthiness of my belief that Stephen Colbert coined the word truthiness!

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 Related reading and viewing…

OCTOBER 2 - The day we crossed over into The Twilight Zone

 

On the evening of October 2, 1959, CBS aired the first episode of a new television series created by Rod Serling called The Twilight Zone.

It became one of the most popular TV shows ever made and is still shown in reruns.

The name of the series itself became an idiomatic term to describe a situation that seems weird and strange. And, lines and phrases from the introductions spoken by Serling at the opening of the show became famous.

During the show’s original five year run, Serling’s opening lines changed several times.

His voiceover during the animated title sequence used for the first episode and other early Season One episodes goes like this:

“There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.”

During the last four episodes of Season One, Serling recites a different intro that ends with a line about the “next stop”:

“You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!”

Serling came up with yet another beginning for his intros in Season Two, though its ending kept the “next stop.” During the first three episodes of Season Two he said:

“You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!”

Starting with the fourth episode of Season Two, Serling modified that intro a bit by adding the famed “signpost” ending:

“You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead. Your next stop, the Twilight Zone!”

Serling’s intro for the episodes in Season Three was similar but had a different ending. He says:

“You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop, the Twilight Zone!”

During Seasons Four and Five, Serling used an intro that mixed new opening and ending language with a few words and phrases from previous versions. During the final two seasons of the original series, he introduces the episodes by saying:

“You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension — a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.”

The haunting theme music most fans think of as the music for The Twilight Zone wasn’t used until Season Two.

That opening music begins with the nervous-sounding staccato notes some fans (like me) jokingly mimic with their voices when something is spooky: “dee-dee-dee-dee / dee-dee-dee-dee.” It was written by avant-garde French composer Marius Constant.

Constant’s version was used for Seasons Two through Five of the original series and, with re-recorded elements, for later iterations of The Twilight Zone, including the 1983 movie, the 1985 series, the 2002 series, and the 2019 series. That’s why it seems so familiar.

The original opening music used during the first season was also eerie, but different. It was written by legendary soundtrack composer Bernard Herrmann, creator of many memorable film scores, like the music for Psycho (1960).

The star of the premiere episode of The Twilight Zone was Earl Holliman.

Holliman appeared in scores of movies and TV shows, but he’s best remembered for his portrayal of the male cop partnered with Angie Dickinson in the TV police drama Police Woman during its run from 1974 to 1978.

The first Twilight Zone episode is titled “Where Is Everybody?” In it, Holliman plays a man in an Air Force jumpsuit who inexplicably finds himself in a town where all the people have disappeared.

Just in case you haven’t seen “Where Is Everybody?” I won’t say any more about the plot or the final twist at the end (an element that became a hallmark of the show).

And, if you haven’t seen it but want to after you read this post, here’s a link to watch it on Vimeo.

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Related reading, listening, and viewing…

April 2, 1865 – “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”

On September 22, 1969, The Band released the great self-titled album that includes what became one of their most famous songs, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”

Like many songs by The Band, it was primarily written by lead guitarist Robbie Robertson, with creative contributions from the other Band members: Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, and Richard Manuel.

The haunting lyrics tell a tale about the final days of the American Civil War in 1865 as recalled by Virgil Caine, a fictitious Confederate soldier and farmer.

It opens with the plaintive voice of Helm, singing the now well-known words of the first verse.

Other Band members added harmonies on the chorus, which begins with the line that gave the song its title.

       “Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train,
       ‘Til Stoneman’s cavalry came and tore up the tracks again. 
       In the winter of ‘65, we were hungry, just barely alive. 
       By May the 10th, Richmond had fell, it’s a time I remember oh so well. 
       The night they drove Old Dixie down...”

On The Band’s website, there’s an interesting in-depth article about the lyrics, compiled by teacher, author and music historian Peter Viney.

As it notes, Richmond had indeed already fallen by “May the 10th.” But that’s not the date when Richmond fell.

Richmond, Virginia — the capital of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War — actually fell to Union troops on the night of April 2, 1865.

That night was, in many ways, the death knell for the Confederacy and the metaphorical “night they drove Old Dixie down.”

The fall of Richmond came after a long siege that started in 1864.

During those months, Union Army troops led by Gen. George Stoneman repeatedly tore up “the Danville tracks” and other railroad lines going to Richmond to keep supplies from reaching Confederate soldiers and civilians.

Meanwhile, at the orders of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, the top Union commander, Gen. Phil Sheridan laid waste to the farmland surrounding Richmond. 

In The Penguin Book of The American Civil War, historian Bruce Catton wrote:

“A Federal army trying to take Richmond could never be entirely secure until the Confederates were deprived of all use of the (fertile and productive) Shenandoah Valley, and it was up to Sheridan to deprive them of it. Grant’s instructions were grimly specific. He wanted the rich farmlands so thoroughly despoiled that the place could no longer support a Confederate army; he told Sheridan to devastate the whole area so thoroughly that a crow flying across the Valley would have to carry its own rations. This Sheridan set out to do…Few campaigns in the war aroused more bitterness than this one.”

By late March of 1865, Confederate troops and citizens in Richmond were literally starving.

It was clear the city would soon fall.

So, on April 2, 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, his Cabinet, and most of the remaining Confederate troops and civilians abandoned Richmond and fled south.

At the time, Richmond residents called it “Evacuation Sunday.”

Robbie Robertson gave it the more poignant name, “the night they drove Old Dixie down.” 

That day, Confederate soldiers were ordered to set fire to the armories and warehouses they left behind.

The fires spread, setting Richmond ablaze. They continued to burn into the night, devastating large areas of the city.

The “Fall of Richmond” led to a rapidly unfolding downward spiral for the South.

By April 9, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.

On May 5, the Confederate Government was dissolved. The Civil War was officially over.

However, two final war-related events did occur on the May 10th date noted in The Band’s song.

On May 10, 1865, Union troops captured Jefferson Davis in Georgia.

By then, most Confederate troops had laid down their arms and accepted the amnesty terms offered by President Abraham Lincoln.

There were a few die-hards, like the notorious “Bushwhacker” William Quantrill, who kept up a guerrilla-style raids on Union towns.

But on same day Jefferson Davis was captured, Quantrill and his men were ambushed by Union troops in Kentucky and Quantrill fatally wounded. He lingered for almost a month before he finally died on June 6. 

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Related reading, listening, and viewing…