Yesterday I said “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” was the saddest Christmas song, and Nathan Arizona nominated this one as a challenger. He’s almost right — almost. This is the most depressing Christmas song, which is a little different. Lee Mendelson’s lyrics list the subtle joys of the season, all undercut by the melancholy of Vince Guaraldi’s melody. That made it perfect for the opening of “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” the 1965 animated special — it plays over the opening credits scene of children ice skating just before Charlie Brown tells Linus how the season makes him depressed. With her affectless delivery, jazz pianist/singer Diana Krall captures the emotion perfectly.
The lasting success of the project — both the TV special and its accompanying soundtrack album remain Boomer Christmas standards — surprised almost everyone involved with it. The entire production was rushed into existence in six months, and wasn’t completed until days before its initial broadcast. It had no laugh track, its pace was slow, its tone subdued and its animation crude even by the lowered standards of the day. Even worse, Charles Schulz insisted on having Linus recite the Annunciation to the Shepherds from the second chapter of the Book of Luke at a time when religion was anathema to network executives — and made it the climax of the plot, so it couldn’t be edited out. The network and even the producers expected a big-time flop. Mendelson, who was actually the show’s producer, not a lyricist, never grew accustomed to its enduring popularity.
“The whole thing from beginning to end has been surreal,” Mendelson said. “The fact that it’s become such a permanent part of the holiday season is surreal. And every time I hear it on the radio, or I hear it in a store, or someone says, ‘wah, wah, wah,’ I realize we’re very lucky to have been associated with Mr. Schulz and his characters. It all comes back to his characters, and his philosophy, and his humor.”
Mendelson became a lyricist by necessity, not choice. “[Vince] Guaraldi had written a very beautiful melody for the opening skating scene, but about two weeks before it was about to run on the air, I thought, ‘Maybe we could get a lyricist to put some words to this,’ ” Mendelson told Rolling Stone in 2015. “I called a few lyricist friends of mine, and everyone was busy. So I sat down at my kitchen table and I wrote out a few words, and we rushed it to the choir that Vince Guaraldi had been working with in San Francisco. And he recorded it, and we got it into the show about a week before it went on the air.”
Vince Guaraldi died of a heart attack in 1976 at the age of 47. Lee Mendelson was 86 when he passed away just last year — on Christmas day.