For the fifth of our twelve days of classic Christmas songs we have “Merry Christmas Darling” by the Carpenters. It’s a wistful little tune just perfect for Karen Carpenter’s silky smooth voice.
I was in seventh grade when this single came out and I thought the Carpenters were as boring as white bread. I was wrong. “Merry Christmas Darling” has become a classic and a personal favorite. It’s one of those “missing you at Christmas” songs, and Karen Carpenter sings her heart out on it. Her voice is just so warm and silky smooth, her early death was a real tragedy.
“Merry Christmas Darling” was written by Karen’s brother Richard and lyricist Frank Pooler, but there’s more to the story than that. You see, the lyrics were written way back in 1944 by a then-18 year-old Frank Pooler. Fast forward to 1966 and Mr. Pooler was now the choral director at California State University in Long Beach and Karen and Richard Carpenter were two of his students. The Carpenter siblings were gigging around the area and asked Pooler if he had any ideas for new holiday songs for them to play. Pooler gave them the lyrics of the song he had written 22 years earlier and Richard wrote new music to the old words. (It reportedly took Richard less than 15 minutes to complete the tune.) The Carpenters recorded the song four years later and it became the number one Christmas single of 1970—and a classic that holds up 50 years later.
The track features Wrecking Crew members Joe Osborn on bass and Hal Blaine on drums, who both played on all the Carpenters’ early hits. Richard provided all the keyboard parts, Karen sang lead, of course, and the siblings joined together to record all the backing vocals. It’s a terrific song and a terrific recording and you just can’t beat Karen’s performance, full of longing and desire and just a touch of sadness. It’s perfect.
