Oh What A Time... - #84 Christmas is cancelled (Part 2)

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed!Pull down the decorations and throw the tree in the street; because this week we’re discussing a few of the attempts through history to cancel Christmas. You can expect an appearance from Oliver Cromwell, Maximilien Robespierre will pop up too, as will all the critics of Elvis Presley’s 1957 Christmas album.And this week we’ve got several great emails on the subject of “who are you playing a song to from history and what song are you picking and what do you want out of it?” (Snappier title for this feature very urgent). If you’d like to chip in you can email: [e-mail]).If you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).AND MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OUR LISTENERS!Chris, Elis and Tom xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wandery Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time Early and ad free. Join Wandery Plus in the Wandery app or on Apple podcasts. Hello, this is part two of Anti Christmas. Let's get on with the show. I tell you what, this year has really been the year of the French Revolution for me. Read so much about it. In fact, I'm just sat here now. I look down beside me, I've still got Simon Sharma, Citizens.

Oh, lovely. Yeah, been well into it this year. And I'm going to tell you about how the French Revolution got what they did to Christmas. So they had this thing, they wanted to do away with religion, they wanted to overthrow Christianity, they wanted to install what is essentially a new religion based on the ideals of liberty, reason, virtue. There's a scientific element of this as well, like the enlightenment of man, like let's get away from these old dusty churches and actually, now we're all enlightened now, so

they come up with a kind of an atheistic cult that was called the Cult of Reason. They took Notre Dame Cathedral and renamed it the Temple of Reason. And they even had a great big festival of reason in November 1793. And Simon Schama goes into that festival and it's just mad. The renaming of Notre Dame is like the renaming of the Seven Bridge to the Prince of Wales Bridge. It just didn't catch on. Toby So He did for a brief period he was referred to as the hunchback of Templar reason. It was not quite as catchy. Poor guy. Will Barron It's interesting as well about the French Revolution and this abandonment of Christianity and wanting to do away with it. One thing

that would happen is that the French Revolution was seen to be a thing that was happening in Paris. But of course in the regions of Paris, in villages, et cetera, you've got like communities are built around churches in much the same way as they are throughout England, even now to some extent. You know, you're having baptisms in those churches, you're having weddings, you're having funerals, you get to know the pastor, you get to know the local religious leader. And then when the French Revolution happened, they said, no, we're closing all those down,

we're selling off the land. So the disruption to specifically kind of rural communities was enormous. But it's not only that, they're doing away with Christmas as well. Christmas comes under massive attack from revolutionaries. So church services, like they included midnight mass, were banned as part of a wide programme of de-Christianisation. It was outlawed. It literally became illegal to show the nativity, to create a nativity scene. Wow.

It was also illegal to eat the traditional Three Kings cake. The Galette de Roy, which was renamed the Equality Cake to fit in with the new Republican ethos. The names are crap. Was that the precursor to Equality Street or not? No, it wasn't. Oh, it's so sad. When you were mentioning earlier about the Puritans, El, just the idea of living through that, that seeing this wonderful time of year being stolen away from you must be just heartbreaking. I felt really sorry for students and school leavers during COVID. Yes.

There were some people who basically did almost all of their degree with restrictions in place. And you know, university, if you do decide to go, it can be a very formative time as you move away from your home and all that kind of stuff. I always thought, God, they're the unlucky ones. They're people who live through puritism. They should be like, excuse me, they outlawed fun. Not just for students, for fucking everyone. You think you had it bad? At least you had WhatsApp. I couldn't even share a meme. I'd give anything for a Nintendo Switch. One thing I think about, this is the Vox Pop I think about most ever.

It was around the time of the Brexit vote. They were going out into the streets asking people which way they're voting. And I remember a woman was interviewed and she said, she said, I'm voting for Brexit. And she said, because it can't get any worse. Right. And you're like, can we go through history, get in the one day time machine. I'll go around picking people up from the last 2000 years. And let them have a chat with you about can it get any, can't get any worse. It can always get worse.

As a West Ham fan, I know that all too well. The French Revolution are crap on titles. Christmas Day got a new title. The 25th of December, you know they rena, we've covered this when the French Revolution happened, they actually, they came up with a brand new calendar system, the revolutionary calendar. So the 25th of December became the fifth day of the month of Nouveau, and became known as Jouer de Chien, which means dog day. Three days later, they had the Jouer de Fumier, which means manure day. Come on, guys, it's such a two fingers up. Various Saints Day like St Stephen's Day was abandoned as well. And then Robespierre, Christmas Day 1793, I'd

say at this point when he, I mean he is the kind of the extreme one who's really going all out to ban Christmas. Christmas Day 1793, Robespierre made a speech in which he set out the principles of revolutionary government and he said the establishment of the French Revolution, he told those assembled, was no child's play. Of course it was going to get very much worse over the coming months. It wasn't a Christmas sermon but it wasn't a King's speech either. The date was deliberately chosen for this big speech because the previous year, Christmas Day 1792, Louis XVI has spent the day writing his last will and testament and his trial was scheduled to begin the very next day,

the 26th of December on Boxing Day. So to extinguish any Christmas activity, the revolutionaries were out on the streets using mechanisms of the state as well to impose their will. They didn't want anyone kind of gathering together, especially riotous gatherings late their will. They didn't want anyone kind of gathering together, especially riotous gatherings late at night. They didn't want any drink to any kind of any signs of celebrations on the street. Public officials were told to go out and make sure no one's holding a midnight mass in contravention of the rules. And they were told to kind of encourage people who are observing other people to redouble surveillance and ensure public tranquility through your zeal, i.e. use force if you see anyone having something that appears

to be a midnight mass. Revolutionary fervor spread out from Paris and it spread all over the country, specifically into the south of France as well. People tried to get around the rules and tried to have celebrations of Christmas in their own way and tried to see what they could get away with. But of course, if you were caught, you were going to head for the guillotine. But one person who was brave in 1797 was an artist from Marseille, Jean-Louis Langnell, who began making figurines out of clay to sell to local people.

And these figurines just happened to be. Tell me if you're in the French Revolutionary're a French revolutionary and you see this market store, what are you going to do? So he's creating little clay figurines of a baby, a mother, a father, a donkey, and a baker, a butcher, et cetera. They became to be known as santons. Are you slamming this guy in prison? Oh, big time.

Rules are rules. Get in the slam of it. He's making little clay figurines around Christmas of a baby, a mother, a father, a donkey, some other Christmas orientated symbols, a baker, butcher, et cetera. I think the baker and the butcher have saved him, to my money. If I was him, that's what I'm pushing. I'm saying, no, these are just members of the community. Oh yeah, good point. And farmyard animals. That's not in the Bible, is it?

Baker. No, there's not a butcher in there. The extras have saved him. Yeah, you need to add in a couple of like extraneous or superfluous characters, don't you? Yeah. So you could have the three wise men, you know, the shepherds, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and maybe an app developer.

A barista. A barista. The Christmas barista. Yeah, exactly, yeah. And Christiano Ronaldo. There you are. It's fine. These are just a bunch of guys.

Yeah, Ronaldo and someone who works for legal in general. And you're like, Nativity? Don't know what you're talking about, mate. Jason Vale I've just had such a memory that's come back to me that I haven't thought about in 20 years. That when I was a kid, my brother, my grandparents were quite religious and they had a proper Christmas Nativity scene. And he put a little Corinthians footballer like Julian Dix in the nativity scene just to see how long it would be before they noticed. A little Corinthians Julian Dix. Also, such a funny footballer to choose. If you're not a football fan and you listen to

his podcast, I cannot think of a footballer in history least likely to be at the Nativity than Julian Dix. He's like the least Christian footballer. He's famous basically for kicking people and hitting the ball hard when it was Tibbets who took the penalty. If you had him stood front row of the crucifixion, I believe it. If you replicated that. Oh yeah, banging in the nails. That would be Julian Dix's job. Yeah, that's where he'd be. I've got one other question, Chris, very briefly, before you continue, about this Midnight Mass being cancelled. So obviously people were gathering

to try and do their own little secret Midnight Masses. Do we think it's a situation where they had a go-to song that they quickly changed to if they saw some member of the authority approaching? Venger boys were going to Ibiza. Exactly. Where you could shift very quickly from Silent Night into that. That away in the Venger bus is coming. But that might look like celebration and they might go, oh, to the guillotine. But of the Vengerbus, not of the birth of Jesus Christ, so that's fine.

But the thing the revolutionaries couldn't extinguish was this idea of the Christmas feast. So people still, despite they didn't have a midnight mass, they might not have gathered, but families on Christmas day still gathered and still ate as they had always done. So the revolutionaries couldn't stop that. When Robespierre fell from power in the summer of 1794, believe it or not, so Robespierre fills in 1794, but not until Napoleon meets the Pope in 1801, do the French restore Christian festivals, including Christmas and the renewed status of the church? So it's a good seven years there after Robespierre falls that they're still not celebrating

Christmas. It's mad that, I can't imagine myself putting up with it. But then if there was a guillotine as the alternative option, maybe I would. The bravado of Chris Skulder, I can't imagine myself putting up with it. As if you're going to it. You're saying you're going to be the guy who goes up against the French authorities and the guillotine as there's no enough for enough. Ronspierre's going to take one look at my headless deer and think, I can't mess with this guy.

And then he sees your mistletoe and he thinks, if I mess with him, he's going to kiss me to death. And then he sees your mistletoe and he thinks, if I mess with him, he's going to kiss me to death. Your headless deer looks like the last guy to kick up a fart. Look what happened to him. Yeah, they'd love that. Yeah, so in 1889, the French really started embracing Christmas celebrations. 1889 was actually the centenary celebrations for the revolution, and Cécile Carnot, the wife of the then president Sardinia Carnot, used a Christmas tree, which was a relatively new import into the French Christmas tradition. As a symbol of Republican philanthropy and virtue, Madame Carnot had 10 Christmas trees installed in the Elysee Palace that year and invited poor children from all over the city,

20 from each of the 20 arrondissements to come see the spectacle and to receive a Christmas gift from the state and the practice which continues today came to be known as La Abra Noel de la Lice." So yeah, Rob Spear spinning in his grave that the French Republic now has very much... That's amazing....part of Christmas tradition is almost inseparable from the state at this point. And as a perfect little Christmas moment there, that sound you may have heard in the background was Claire bursting in, not knowing I was in here, holding my Christmas presents, and then going, ooh, and leaving again.

So there you go. What a perfect moment for a Christmas episode. So, to finish the show, this is a short little bit of history, but it's a fun bit of history I'm going to take you through. I'm going to talk to you about how Elvis, Elvis Presley, got banned at Christmas. Are either of you familiar with this story or the fact that Elvis was banned at Christmas, that his music was banned? No, I mean, like most people,

I'm aware of how controversial he was for doing things like shaking his hips in the 50s and being filmed from the waist up and all that kind of stuff. I didn't know he'd done anything, presumably sacrilegious." Will Barron Well, interestingly, you assume it would be that sort of sexualisation of performance and that sort of stuff, but it actually isn't that. That's not the reason he was banned. So, just as a context, over the years, staples of the Christmas song genre have faced bans, there have been alterations of lyrics. They

try to keep up with the changing times and attitudes to Christmas and religion. That's a thing that has happened throughout time. Even the most apparently innocent songs. So are you familiar with Elvis Presley's 1957 cover of White Christmas? You may have heard it. Well, he did. He covered White Christmas with a bit of a swing beat. It's upbeat, but for him it's quite… Sedate. Yes. It's not sexually charged. It doesn't feel like he's trying to be sexy or alluring

or that sort of thing. It's not like that. It's just kind of quite a sweet cover with a bit of a beat, basically. So this song was recorded as part of an album of Christmas classics including Silent Night, which were all given the rock and roll treatments or swing treatment. And it was called Elvis's Christmas Album. And it seemed like this would be a winner, that people would love this. And indeed, 200,000 copies, which is the original print run, sold out instantly. The album went straight to number one.

And it even did well with the critics. So the spectator, they loved Elvis's surprising sincerity. See, this is what I'm talking about. It didn't have that sort of like, he wasn't trying to be edgy or young, it was just kind of sweet. And the Belfast Telegraph praised Presley's rhythmic beat and his unusual articulation. However, not everyone was happy, so much so that people tried to get it banned. And this all kicked off with this guy called Mel Bailey, who I think seems like one of the least fun human beings ever to have existed. Mel Bailey was a radio manager for Keps in Portland and Oregon, and he felt that the song desecrated the spirit of Christmas. There's a fun sentence for

a slightly rhythmically different version of White Christmas. Okay. Desecrated the spirit of Christmas. And after one of his DJs, a guy called Al Priddy, played the song during his all night show in December 57, Mel immediately fired him and told him it was not in the good taste we ascribe to Christmas music. Imagine being that much of a spoilsport, being so sure about what Christmas should be and so conservative and everything, you're sacking someone on the spot. Thoughts on that? You're a radio presenter, Al.

What are your thoughts on that? I've heard of DJs being bollocked and being told off. To be sacked on the spot, that's big. I remember doing a course on things you couldn't say on the radio, and one example they played was, um, SEM station, I can't remember what it was. They were just sort of hypothesising about a murder trial, and the finding was that it could have influenced the jury. They had to throw the case out of court, and obviously the DJs got sacked. They were just chatting about it on air, about whether the person had done it or not. And they were like, okay, well, we've got to throw the case out.

Even if you're not on maybe a national radio station, you do have an enormous responsibility. But the sings are usually safe for something of that magnitude. Will Barron Yeah, I won't lie. The idea of someone discussing whether a murderer did it or not does sound like Drake, right? If I'm driving home from school and in between playing Shania Twain and whoever else it is, it's not yay. They're discussing. Yeah, text lines are open. Did he do it? Margaret from Gmaman says. She thinks definitely because he's got a shifty looking face. Whenever I think about radio bravery that may have led to someone getting sacked, I

always think about, you remember Kenny Everett? I read it read that Kenny Everett, when he got sent Bohemian Rhapsody, he played it on air and then went, that's so good, I'm just going to play it again. And then he played it again and then he did it three times. Wow. I'm sure it was three times. It's a good song to be fair. Yes. And was he sacked? I don't think he was sacked. I think he was reprimanded.

Okay. Reprimanded three times. Chris Morris from Day to Day in Brassite, he once filled a radio studio with helium, which caused the weather reporter to sound ridiculous on live radio. That was on BBC Bristol. And I know that because I used to do a show on BBC Bristol and the first thing they told me as I went into that little studio is this is the one that Chris Morris filled with helium. BBC Bristol and the first thing they told me as I went into that little studio is this is the one that Chris Morris filmed. I mean that is incredible. It's unbelievable. I think it might have been a newsreader actually. Yes that is right. Yeah yeah. I think memory serves me correctly there were quite serious topics on that day as well. Oh yeah yeah absolutely. But also it would be

you'd think you were going insane if your voice is just getting higher and higher. But what a prank. Bloody hell. Can I, I bring this fact up most Christmases. I haven't brought it up this Christmas so far. You know, there's a Christmas song that should be cancelled. Oh, it's good. Well, no, I don't think it should be cancelled.

But there's an interesting fact around it that may lead to getting cancelled. It was more popular known. Do you know Slade? Yeah. The festive band, Noddy Holder. The bass player for Slade is a guy called Dave Glover. Do you know who Dave Glover was once engaged to? No. I imagine a bit of a wronging. Rose West. Wow. No way. Okay. After she was convicted. What? Yes.

Whilst they became pen pals while she was in prison. Bloody hell. I will never be able to listen to that song in the same way again. Wow. It's mad, isn't it? It's mad. I think to be fair to Slade,

I'm pretty sure they got rid of him afterwards. Okay. So Mel Bailey, okay. he's a bit of a spoil sport. He doesn't finish there. He then goes on to give a press interview about the decision where he adds, Presley gives it a rhythm and blues interpretation. And to me, that doesn't seem to be in keeping with the intent of the song. So he still won't let this go. He doesn't feel there should be sort of blues interpretations. There shouldn't be swing rhythm. This is all wrong. And in his defense, the fire DJ, DJ Priddy, the guy who played it, he explained that word was passed around the station that we weren't supposed to play the record, but I figured the listeners were entitled to hear it.

So we don't hold back anything else Pressley's done, and the record is not objectionable. So he played it. Two weeks later, interestingly, there was such a huge outcry from listeners and such a massive mailbag full of letters demanding his reinstatement, he was brought back. So two weeks later, after his immediate sacking, he was brought back. However, Kecks were not alone in this stance. In Canada, several radio stations, including all six of the broadcasters of Vancouver, banned the song. The National Public Broadcaster, CBC, had concerns, but left it up to the individual DJs, but clearly were uncomfortable with it being

played. In Toronto, CFRB refused to play anything from the entire album because of this one interpretation, completely fine interpretation of White Christmas. And this was a choice made by Calgary's CKXL2, with the station programmers adding that the record has no place on our station. Rival Calgary station, CFCN, which did not institute a full band, nevertheless, made it clear they thought the record was lousy and were not disposed to play it. So across the board there was this weird reaction because it didn't conform to a sort of traditional idea of how Christmas songs should sound. It's all about change, people being uncomfortable with change, isn't it?

Will Barron I wonder what the Colonel, as in his manager, thought of this. Because yeah, I mean, he's the kind of person who would quite shrewdly use controversy. But the album went straight to number one, so maybe there's an argument that probably a lot of this probably helped. It meant he was in the press, people were talking about it. What's interesting, and I'm going to end on this, is there's a really interesting rumour attached to all of this and why it happened in the first place. Do you want to guess why people think it happened? Why do you think these stations banned it? Why did all these people

suddenly decide this seemingly fine song was problematic? Was it an inside job? Well, you're not far off, okay? So, word on the street was that Irving Berlin, who was the composer of the original White Christmas, hated Elvis' cover so much, he was pushing radio stations to try and get the record removed from the airwaves and from record stores. So the guy who wrote the original White Christmas, that's what the rumours are. However, it's thought now that's probably not true because he was earning so much money from royalties. From Elvis obviously being a massive star and the level of records that were sold, it would have been a strange decision on his part. But for a long time, that's what was considered to be a possibility.

I will close by just saying this, it isn't the only time Elvis was cancelled at Christmas. Another one of his covers from the same album, which was called I'll Be Home for Christmas, was massively popular in the United States. But here in Britain the BBC refused to play it on the belief that it was bad for wartime morale. So, I'll Be Home for Christmas, I suppose. Yeah, good. Well done BBC. But yeah, the idea that troops would listen to it, troops who were overseas would hear I'll Be Home for Christmas and think, oh, and then go, oh, I'm not gonna be home for Christmas. Yeah, exactly. So at least there's a bit more logic to that.

But there you go. So that's the couple of times that Elvis has been canceled for Christmas. Wow. Very good. There you go. Okay, that's it this week for Anti-Christmas. And indeed, that is it for 2024 for anti-Christmas and indeed that is it for 2024 this year. I hope all our listeners have a wonderful Christmas, however you choose to celebrate,

unless you're Puritan, in which case I hope you have just a Wednesday. Lighten up! But, January, thank you very much for being with us over the last year. It's been an absolute joy. I've loved it. We really appreciate your support. If you want to support a little bit more, you can of course become an O What a Time full-timer. Treat yourself. A little Christmas gift. £4.99 a month. No ads. All these wonderful things.

First dibs on live shows. And of course, the whole back catalogue of bonus episodes, two of which I added every month. Brand new episodes only available to O What A Time full timers. What better Christmas gift is there than that? I can't think of one, can you boys? Nope. No. Okay. There isn't one, there simply isn't one. No, absolutely.

So thank you so much for listening. If you wanna subscribe, you can go to owhatatime.com and sign up via Wondery Plus or another slice. But otherwise, have a wonderful Christmas. We've got compilation episodes coming out over the next couple of weeks and we'll be back with normal service in early January. So have a great Christmas, have a wonderful Christmas. We've got compilation episodes coming out over the next couple of weeks, and we'll be back with normal service in early January. So have a great Christmas, have a great new year,

and we'll see you on the other side. Goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye. So The Follow Oh What A Time on the Wondry app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts. And before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry.com slash survey.