Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

A pianist whose forte was popular music, Baker usually wrote the lyrics and Regney composed the music for their collaborations. But the roles were reversed for the Christmas tune they wrote in October 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis, when the U.S. and Soviet Union were locked in a confrontation over the Soviets’ placement of ballistic missiles in Cuba.

Inspired by the sight of infants in strollers on the streets of New York City, Regney opened the song with the words, “Said the night wind to the little lamb, ‘Do you see what I see?’ ” and included the line, “Pray for peace, people everywhere.”

“Noel wrote a beautiful song,” Baker told an interviewer years later, “and I wrote the music. We couldn’t sing it, though. . . . Our little song broke us up. You must realize there was a threat of nuclear war at the time.”

The song was first recorded by the Harry Simeone Chorale and sold more than a quarter-million copies upon its release just after Thanksgiving 1962. The next year Bing Crosby made it an international hit. The song has been recorded hundreds of times since then in nearly every conceivable musical style.

I wonder what the WWII generation would think of the events happening in the world today.