In writing for Rock NYC this year, I’ve picked on some easy targets in my columns. The Black Eyed Peas, Britney Spears, Rage Against the Machine… All of these groups have their own unique qualities surrounded by a mess of flashing, bleeding targets. I hit those targets because it’s fun and easy. I’ve poured the hate on the mess that is music radio today, and the kind of people it appeals to.
So to finish up what might possibly be my last column of the year, I’m going to talk just briefly about the first song to ever go out over the airways, and a song that is probably in my top 10 favorite of all time.
In 1906, Reginald Fessenden, a Canadian professor who worked formerly as a chemist for Edison, put the final touches on a new kind of generator. With this device, he hoped to be able to transmit voices and audio out over the radio waves. After powering up his transmitter with this homemade technology, he situated himself in the first “DJ booth” ever and pulled in with him a violin and his Bible.
Radio operators, who at this time were mostly ships at sea and newsrooms, stopped their in astonishment. Instead of the low, crackled beeps of Morse code, a man’s voice came booming over their speakers. It was Christmas Eve, and some shocked listeners insisted an angel must be transmitting to them. Fessenden read the “Linus Van Pelt” portion from the biblical book of Luke detailing Jesus’ birth. Then, after a few moments of crackled silence, he began to play his violin.
At this point, you’ll be happy to hear that Mariah Carey wasn’t available to perform.
He played O Holy Night, a carol with a history as beautiful as its chorus. With the song complete, the broadcast ended, and this song was not sponsored by anyone.
The song was originally a poem. In 1847, a wine commissioner in a small French town was encouraged by his priest to write a poem, imagining what the birth of Christ looked like. On a trip to Paris by coach, Placide Cappeau finished his poem, and so excited by his inspiration, asked a musician friend if he would put it to music. Adolphe-Charles Adam put the song together, and it was excitedly included into the Christmas Mass of churches all throughout France. That is, until they realized that Cappeau was a socialist, and Adam a Jew.
The church denounced the song, and forbade it from being played in services.
So beloved was the melody, however, that it continued to be sung by the French people for decades.
During the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, legend has it that on Christmas Eve, a lone French soldier leapt from his defenses, and started to sing the first line from Cantique de Noel. “Minuit, Chretiens, c’est l’heure solennelle ou L’Homme Dieu descendit jusqu’a nous. ” A 24 hour truce was declared on the front lines after a similarly insane German soldier countered with Martin Luther’s, “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come.”
I have an end-of-year assignment for you. Listen to this song without listening to what Clay Aiken or Celine Dion did to the music. May I recommend Tino Rossi. You can still find it on iTunes. It’ll be a buck well-spent, and really put you in the holiday spirit.
Happy New Year, all!
Comments are closed.