What do Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (Gene Autry), Run Rudolph Run (Chuck Berry), Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (Brenda Lee), A Holly Jolly Christmas and Silver and Gold (Burl Ives) and I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day (Bing, Sinatra and Others) all have in common? All their melodies and most of their words were written by one man, Johnny Marks. I’ve already told you the history of Rudolph but my favorite is the history of “ I heard the Bells on Christmas Day” because the words were written 93 years before Johnny Marks wrote the melody in 1956.
On Christmas Eve 1863 (as the story goes) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow sat dejected in his Cambridge Massachusetts home. His first love and wife had died years earlier after a miscarriage and in 1861 his second wife and mother of his 6 children caught her dress on fire and died from the burns. He was badly burned and scarred trying to save her and as a result grew a beard to hide the burns. He didn’t write much for a while afterward. In November of 1863 he received news that his son was badly wounded in a Civil War battle, so as you might imagine, the weight of the world was upon him, so he wrote.
The following are the original words of Longfellow's poem:
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
and wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."
(My favorite version is by Bing Crosby's)
(This is still true today, with all that afflicts us
we must never abandon hope and faith.)