It is hard to write a good Christmas song. With the traditional carols and the sentimental tunes from the 1940s and 50s and the “Nutcracker” and other more serious music and each listener’s personal memories of the Holidays, anything that a person writes would almost necessarily fall short. Years ago, I thought that I had come up with the perfect new Christmas song, but no one has ever wanted to listen to it all the way through. I would say, “Listen to this. It starts like . . .”
Don’t stand under the mistletoe with anyone else but me,
Anyone else but me
Anyone else but me . . .
By that point, whoever was listening thought I wasn’t serious and walked away.
Steve Goodman is someone who actually did write a good “modern” Christmas tune; and since Christmas is a time for families, his words are meaningful for me. Steve was born in Illinois, just a few miles from my birthplace, and about 4 months after me. He was a gifted song writer, best known for “City of New Orleans,” but he passed away too young, in 1984, from complications of leukemia.
You may not know it, but there are many forms of leukemia. Steve Goodman was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia while he was still in college, in 1968. Eventually he developed a more serious form – myelodysphasia. He received a stem cell transplant and had periods of remission, but eventually the cancer did what cancers do.
As I was growing up in Colorado, the person with whom I spent the most time was my brother, Lonny. Many years later, he was diagnosed with a bone marrow disorder called myelofibrosis. He also received a stem cell transplant, for which I was the donor. It looked as though the procedure had been a success, but a year later he developed acute myeloid leukemia, a condition that could not be cured. He passed away a little over two years ago.
I don’t mean to be maudlin. I am happy and grateful for all my family and friends and for the Holidays which are here once again. I just wanted to explain why this last-week-before-Christmas Song of the Week is the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band version of Steve Goodman’s “Colorado Christmas” – and it is not a sad song.
Merry Christmas!