Mummers, comfort, children: Musicians reveal inspiration behind their Christmas music
Bud Davidge says his iconic song about mummering is a 'picture frame'
As winter rolls around, covering the streets with now (or rain, depending on your weather) and people put up strings of lights, Christmas music fills the air.
It can be a nostalgic time, and CBC recently asked some well-known musicians to talk about their seasonal music that brings back a sense of a certain time.
Bud Davidge, who formed Simani with the late Sim Savory, wrote their perennial Christmas hit Any Mummers Allowed In by drawing upon the traditions they grew up with.
"I was from a little tiny isolated community down in Bay du Nord, Fortune Bay," Davidge said.
"'Any mummers allowed in' was a salutation when mummers would knock on the door… we did that custom right through Christmas, after Christmas Day, right through to the end of Christmas."
Davidge says the song was easy to write because it was like a "picture frame" of the custom, taking the listener along for the ride.
They wanted to follow in the footsteps of many other artists who came out with a Christmas album. Simani launched theirs in 1983 with big success, he says.
The song in particular was a hit with audiences, inspiring anepisode with CBC's Land & Sea and later a children's book.
"I think why it caught on, particularly for many, many people, was that with all of our small communities around Newfoundland [and] Labrador, many people were doing exactly the same thing," he said.
Reconnecting and
Some Christmas songs take listeners to a closer past, like the song Cause It's Christmas by The Once.
Released in 2012 as part of their Christmas album This Is A Christmas Album, the song explores reconnecting with someone during the holiday season, a year after their first meeting, says singer Geraldine Hollett.
She says loneliness shows up during the holidays like a darkness and can take hold of a person.
"There's this feeling of being comforted by the person that you were with last year and maybe having the same feeling that you had," Hollett said.
"It's about finding them and moving forward and maybe finding an actual romance. Who knows?"
Hollett says that, for her, a good Christmas song carries a story listeners can connect with, as though it were speaking about their own lives.
"No matter how I feel," she says, "just knowing that you connect with people and bring them joy, that brings you joy."
She says The Once is working on a new Christmas album for next year.
The eyes of a child
Some Christmas songs look to the future, like watching children grow, from their first Christmas night and on.
Brad Tuck released a Christmas album with Rosemary Lawton in 2023. The first song in their collaboration was Child's First Christmas. The song is a parent singing to their child as their first Christmas Day unfolds.
Tuck says a year earlier, his daughter was born. He poured into the song his wishes as a parent to watch her grow, waiting for her to experience each year anew.
"She'll be three now in February, so Christmas is becoming more and more exciting every year," he said.
"It just really brings me back to that first Christmas we had with her…looking down at her as a newborn and saying, you know, 'I can't wait to watch you grow and see what you develop into and the things you do.'"
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With files from Newfoundland Morning
