I’ll have to admit up front here that this song made me rather sad when I was very young, until one of my older sisters assured me, with great certitude, that when Frosty “…waved goodbye saying,“Don’t you cry, I’ll be back again some day,” he well and truly meant it.
Written in 1950 by Steve Nelson and Walter “Jack” Rollins (who also wrote “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” and is credited with creating Smokey the Bear), “Frosty the Snowman” was sent directly to Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys who were looking for a follow up to the chart-topping hit they’d had with “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in ’49. Although “Frosty” didn’t quite make it to Number 1, it was still a top-ten hit at Number 7.
Interestingly, whereas “Rudolph” was a song based on a children’s book (published in 1939 through Montgomery Ward), “Frosty” was a song that was subsequently adapted into a children’s storybook. Of course in the 1960s both characters were featured in their own animated television specials that have since become holiday classics in their own right, and were watched, no doubt by little Fiona Apple McAfee Maggart, who was born in Manhattan in 1977.
Now known as Fiona Apple, she was raised in a household full of performers – her mother was a singer, her father an actor, her grandmother a popular revue dancer, her grandfather a big band singer, her elder sister a cabaret performer, and then there are the two half brothers, one a successful film director, the other a successful actor.
Signed to a record deal at the age of 17, the musician, songwriter and singer (with a contralto range) released her debut album, Tidal, in 1996. Not only did the album go “triple platinum” but “Criminal” one of the tracks released as a single, garnered her the Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, while another, “Sleep to Dream” won the MTV Music Award for Best New Artist.
Today’s selection was included on the 2003 Alternative Rock collection, “Christmas Calling.” Surprisingly, to those who listen to this song, Apple is well-known for her brooding, angst-ridden demeanor. Hmmm, I wonder if she too was once saddened by poor “Frosty’s” demise.
LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Friday 21 December
Frosty the Snowman
Frosty the Snowman
Was a jolly happy soul
With a corncob pipe and a button nose
And two eyes made out of coal
Frosty the Snowman
Is a fairy tale they say
He was made of snow
But the children know
How he came to life one day
There must have been some magic
In that old silk hat they found
For when they placed it on his head
He began to dance around
Frosty the Snowman
Was alive as he could be
And the children say
He could laugh and play
Just the same as you and me
Frosty the Snowman
Knew the sun was hot that day
So he said, “Let’s run
And we’ll have some fun
Now before I melt away”
Down to the village
With a broomstick in his hand
Running here and there
All around the square
Saying, “Catch me if you can”
He led them down
The streets of town
Right to the traffic cop
And he only paused a moment
When he heard him holler, “Stop!”
Frosty the Snowman
Had to hurry on his way
But he waved goodbye
Saying, “Don’t you cry
I’ll be back again some day”
