The Band tended to cast a special glow on just about everything they did from a musical standpoint. Unsurprisingly, “Christmas Must Be Tonight,” the lone Christmas-themed song they released in their career, rises way above your typical rock holiday fare.
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It’s impressive The Band were able to pull the song so effortlessly, as it was recorded during a harried time. As it turned out, “Christmas Must Be Tonight” turned out to be one of the last examples of the special chemistry that epitomized their original lineup.
A Frenzied “Christmas”
When Robbie Robertson decided in the mid-’70s The Band should call it quits (if only, as originally intended, for a while), he wanted them to go out in style. Hence, he formed the idea they should shut it down with as a star-studded concert, which would come to be known as The Last Waltz.
He decided as well that the concert would be filmed and turned into the basis for a documentary directed by Martin Scorsese. Since there would be special guests appearing to sing their own songs, the five men who comprised The Band were frantically rehearsing to learn this music so they could play it live at the Thanksgiving 1976 show.
All this would have been exhausting enough on its own. But then there was the matter of an album that they still owed to Capitol Records before they could shuffle off the stage. As a result, The Band had to simultaneously crank out some new studio material while they were preparing for The Last Waltz.
Because of the time constraints, a good chunk of this last album, which was called Islands and released in 1977, consisted of cover songs or songs the group had lying around on the cutting-room floor. Robertson did manage to write a few new songs, one of which was “Christmas Must Be Tonight.”
A Look at the Lyrics of “Christmas Must Be Tonight”
Most Christmas songs written in the modern pop/rock era tend to focus on the activities, sights, and sounds of the season as we know it these days, maybe with a little bit of a romantic twist thrown into the mix for good measure. “Christmas Must Be Tonight” diverges from that path by taking us right back to the source of the holiday, depicting the night of Christ’s birth.
Songwriter Robertson does this via the perspective of a shepherd who just happened to be there to witness the scene. The narrator marvels at the child and the phenomenon he brings with him: Come down to the manger, see the little stranger / Wrapped in swaddling clothes, the prince of peace.
By approaching the story through an ordinary man, Robertson is able to capture the wonder and awe of the scene: In a dream, I heard a voice say, “Fear not, come rejoice / It is the end of the beginning, praise the newborn king.” This guy can’t believe he’s privy to all this: But why a simple herdsman such as I?
And then it came to pass, he was born at last / Right below the star that shines on high, the narrator observes, as eloquently as any of the authors of the antiquated carols we sing every year. The chorus wraps it all up: Son of a carpenter / Mary carried the light / This must be Christmas, must be tonight.
It helps that Robertson chose Rick Danko as the lead vocalist. Danko gets inside the character, evoking a touching humility in the presence of this miracle. The Band went against the holiday-song grain a bit with “Christmas Must Be Tonight,” leaning on their storytelling abilities to take us back in time to when, where, and why the season started.
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