Despite a crying need for Christmas music that hasn’t been played to death, some holiday songs that used to be popular have fallen out of favor. But there’s always hope for a revival. For example, Eartha Kitt’s 1953 tune “Santa Baby” was all but forgotten until Madonna recorded it for the charity record “A Very Special Christmas” in 1987. Hundreds more have covered it since.
It’s happened more than once with “A Marshmallow World,” published in 1949. It was recorded by several big bands in 1950, but Bing Crosby’s version with Sonny Burke’s orchestra in 1950 charted highest. Then the song then went ignored until 1963, when Johnny Mathis and Darlene Love (for Phil Spector’s Christmas album) recorded it. For several years it got popular again, culminating in what’s considered the definitive version, Dean Martin’s from 1966.
The tune disappeared again until the mid-’00s, when it started to get attention as a jokey interlude – both Regis Philbin and Seth McFarlane recorded it. So did Raul Malo, Garth Brooks, and Zoey Deschanel with M. Ward, her partner in She & Him.
Despite these revivals, I don’t hear this one very often. Maybe they need to listen again to Spector’s treatment with Darlene Love on vocals.
