'Twas The Night Before Christmas - Fred Waring and The Pennsylvanians - 1942

[studedude43]

This 1942 classic Decca recording is by far the best. version. I've listened to it for most of my 68 years and it fondly reminds me of my childhood. Today it bings tears to my eyes when I think of how much time has since passed in my life. Reading the comments posted here it seems this iconic piece has similarly affected many others .

[SidTheLoveRat]

I love this song. This is the best version that I've heard. :)

[josephR1938]

My Mother bought this album just after its release way back then. I have such fond childhood memories not only of this but so many wonderful things. Now, only my Mother is left, age 96. All Grandparents, aunts, uncles and most cousins are gone, but the memories are warm and precious. These things bring tears to my eyes and sometimes I choke up trying to talk about these times past. No matter what, Christmas is a blessing and full of wonderment! Khristos Razhdajetsja!!! Slavite Jeho!!!

[icujts]

love this song!  This is the version we listened to on record when we were kids! :) Merry Christmas!

[latitudeCheck]

Thank you for uploading and sharing this. It's the version I grew up listening to every year at Christmas. One snowy Christmas Eve while listening to this playing on our RCA Victrola I remember looking out the window as one of my brothers pointed to some very distant red lights in the sky proving that Rudolph was leading the reindeer this year. Merry Christmas!

[creeper1014]

Oh, thank you! This is the Christmas album I grew up with. I don't know how you made the transfer with such fidelity. Merry Christmas to you!

P.S. Could you please do the rest of them?

[53Aubergine]

Ah, but I believe you're wrong. Contact the University of Pennsylvania Archives :D But that being said, I love listening to this pressing. MERRY CHRISTMAS! Nothing does it for me like -this- music.

[douglasamarshall]

If you ever get a chance to look at the sheet music of a Harry Simone arrangement, which most of Waring's were, you'll notice how he carries a word ending with a consonent over to a word that begins with a vowel, in order to hear the consonent, an example:"If I were you", would be written "Ih fi were you."

[socallymike]

My dad bought Christmas albums by Firestone & Goodyear. Included in his collection was the Fred Waring record with the Norman Rockwell painting. Love to have this someday but until then thanks for the posting. Dad's been gone, now, over 25 years.

[Sara95127]

Thanks for posting this - we still have our folk's 78 rpm -- now played sparingly.

[jsawoski]

The sheet music is still available from JW Pepper.

[gmh952]

By far superior to any of the later arrangements. A truly charming story told in a charming manner!!!!

[Fringedbenefit]

Sometime in the '50s, one of the Pennsylvanians (soprano?) fell off the stage onto my Dad's lap. I've always remembered it as a Christmas concert, tho' it may not have been. In the fieldhouse, at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (now OSU).

[cookiepizza99]

my 5th and 6th grade honor is singing this song and it was very fun to learn

[LilbunUWiz]

If anybody remembers the 60's animated short "The Night Before Christmas", the song version of the story they sung in that sounds like it takes a llllot of inspiration from a large chunk of this version. A great piece!

[migsnickwah]

In college (1963-67) our dean of music, Dr. Warren Angell, had sung with The Pennsylvanians so we did this every year. I was lucky enough to sing the tenor solo, four years! Great memories.

[alltuned]

This is THE classic performance, with all the radio drama magic intact, much less so in the later recordings. Worth mentioning, too, are the colorful vocal "slides". They are tricky to say the least--to keep all the voices in tight harmony as they go. Waring's early groups did them so well (as in the Nutcracker Suite), and they too are heard here in their never-again glory. Finally, there is the sheer Joy of the singing. Top-shelf Christmas, alongside Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song".

[icujts]

I grew up listening to this song and our Dad always played the whole Fred Waring album at Christmas time. Have loved this song for 30-40 years. This song, along with Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song" always take me right back to my childhood, the old record player, and great Christmas memories! Thanks for posting! My brother and I both love this song to this day and always talk about this album...

[ghgause]

My grandparents used to play this record for my dad and my dad has played it for me every christmas eve before I go to bed. Laying under the christmas tree looking at the colors from the tree's lights on the ceiling has always been one of my favorite christmas moments.

[MegaDancingqueen23]

@ghgause how old were you?

[ghgause]

@MegaDancingqueen23 I'm 25 now, but I think my dad's played it every year since I was born, and my grandpa is still around and has the record that he must've picked up in the 40's :)

[studedude43]

Have remembered hearing this version almost all of my 67 years of life. Love it as much as I did when I was a small child

[mstahoegal]

Thanks a million for posting this rare original recording. I first heard it growing up in Pennsylvania in about 1949 when I was three. It was part of our Xmas Eve ritual, and was incredibly affecting and vivid to a young child who still believed in Santa Claus. I'm sending it to my siblings, for whom it will also evoke long-forgotten memories. It was so beautifully arranged and performed, and gave me an early love of choral singing. I probably haven't heard it in 50+ yrs. THANK YOU!

[boinx1234]

hageja01

This is by far the best sung version of this song. No other version comes close and has this much emotion when sung. This forever will be a Christmas Classic.

friendsfamilyaccount

I love this - it almost brings tears to my eyes, the flood of memories. Somebody needs to release these old classics on CD - all the Good Year records, etc. Thanks for posting! :)

[kcharnas]

Thank you for this!  I grew up to this album... And you should've seen how me and my family erupted into dance and song to this album. Luckily, we still do! It made (and makes) our Christmas season. Thank you. And Merry Christmas!