"Snoopy's Christmas"
An analysis
A few days ago I wrote a little piece that included some stuff and nonsense about Xmas songs. And because I am a professional, with standards, I forced myself to listen to all the songs I wrote about. Even “Snoopy’s Christmas”. In fact, I listened to “Snoopy’s Christmas” many times, just to grasp every nuance.
Unfortunately, in the nuance-grasping process, I inadvertently became strangely obsessed with “Snoopy’s Christmas”. So now, like some kind of unwanted and un-sought-for Xmas bonus, I now share with you my shallow deep-dive into the lyrics of “Snoopy’s Christmas” and what they may or may not mean and/or the random thoughts they have triggered in me.
So, play the music in your head (or as a soundtrack) and all together now…
The news had come out in the First World War
In my brain I now have a scene from a Doctor Who Christmas Special where the Tardis, out of control because Donna spilt coffee in its doings (again), materializes somewhere near the frontlines during WW1. But it is not until the Doctor and Donna encounter some British soldiers, weary from all the fighting and the killing and eating rat stew in the trenches, that Donna realises where and when they are. “This is the First World War,” she exclaims in her understated Donna way. The already disheartened soldiers are very taken aback to hear this. “The first World War?” “You mean there are more?” “But we heard this was the war to end all wars.” “Fuck this for a lark,” say the soldiers, as they throw down their weapons and go home to their loved ones.
The bloody Red Baron was flying once more
This is a reference to the fact that this is, in fact, the third time Snoopy and the Baron have tangled. In the much darker “Snoopy vs the Red Baron” Snoopy, being a dog, “challenged the German to a real dogfight”. In said dogfight “Snoopy fired once and he fired twice” with the result being that the “Bloody Red Baron went spinnin’ out of sight.” Snoopy has defeated Manfred von Richthofen, aka the Red Baron. Way to go Snoopy!
Except, plot twist, it turns out, in the cashing-in follow-up “The Return of the Red Baron”, that von Richthofen had bailed out before his plane “burst into a ball of flame”. So Snoopy is called into action and, after “searching in vain for his enemy” he found the Red Baron, which meant that the search wasn’t actually in vain and thus made a mockery of the previous lyric.
When Snoopy finds the Baron, the Baron is, apparently, “a-sweatin’ and a-cussin’ about to go insane” because his (presumably new) plane is broken, which is definitely not exactly the sort of behaviour you’d expect from an airborne killing machine German aristocrat in a novelty song.
[I’m okay with the failure of German technology aspect of this lyric because of the time I had to help a friend push his Porsche 911 back to his house and everyone who saw two blokes pushing a Porsche laughed at us.]
What I am not okay with is that in this song, when Snoopy finds the Baron at his most vulnerable (and apparently sweaty), that he forsakes air-superiority in favour of landing and challenging the Baron to a duel. All very honourable and everything, but seriously, not a great tactical move. Especially when the Baron fires his shot and then runs away, which is just uncool.
The Allied command ignored all of its men
And called on Snoopy to do it again
This is where I need to acknowledge the elephant in the room of this song. Snoopy is a two-dimensional representation of a beagle. Yes, I know WW1 was characterised by some spectacularly bad decision-making by those allegedly in command (hello Gallipoli), but to not send up actual pilots and instead put all your faith in a cartoon dog? That is not good tactical leadership in my book.
Was the night before Christmas, 40 below
I was worried about the potential freezing effects on aviation fuel, sending pilots and dogs up in that sort of temperature. Then I wondered if it was 40-below in Fahrenheit or in Celsius. Then I found out that 40-below is the point at which Fahrenheit and Celsius are exactly the same temperature and my brain kind of exploded trying to figure out how this can be, so I moved on to the next lyric.
When Snoopy went up in search of his foe
He spied the Red Baron, fiercely they fought
With ice on his wings Snoopy knew he was caught
In what little footage that remains of this great aerial duel, Snoopy is flying a kennel. There are no wings. Surely ice on his roof would be what they mean. And while we’re here, Snoopy appears to be wearing only a scarf and some kind of flying hat, so much respect to the insulation properties of cartoon beagle fur.
Christmas bells, those Christmas bells
Ring out from the land
Asking peace of all the world
And good will to man
We will get to the whole bell thing in the fullness of time.
The Baron had Snoopy dead in his sights
He reached for the trigger to pull it up tight
I have double-checked that the lyric here is “to pull it up tight”. No, I have no idea what that means. I always thought it was “to put out the lights” which makes much more sense but is apparently now just another entry in my list of Great Mis-heard Lyrics.
Why he didn’t shoot, well, we’ll never know
My first guess would be that Snoopy dying in a hail of German bullets is probably not ideal for a novelty Xmas song.
Or was it the bells from the village below?
Huge logic alert for me. I would imagine that flying round in a WW1 fighter plane (or fighter kennel), with the open cockpit and the engine right in front of you and the rushing wind and the machine guns, that you can hear absolutely fuck all of anything, let alone some bells from a village several hundred feet below. If someone has done the research that says you actually can hear village bells, in an aeroplane, over the sounds of a dogfight, then let me know in the comments.
Christmas bells etc etc
Like I said, we’ll circle back to this. Much like Snoopy, circling his flying kennel.
The Baron made Snoopy fly to the Rhine
Why? Why not the nearest paddock? Did the von Richthofens have a winter home beside the Rhine and the Baron wanted to introduce this freakish flying dog to his family?
And forced him to land behind the enemy lines
Snoopy was certain that this was the end
When the Baron cried out “Merry Christmas, mein friend!”
Yes, I get the tendency towards sentimentality that Xmas and especially Xmas songs provokes, but “mein friend” is pushing it a bit far for me. Surely “mein prisoner of war” would be closer to the truth. But clearly the truth is the first casualty of war in Xmas novelty songs.
The Baron then offered a holiday toast
And Snoopy, our hero, saluted his host
Host? I think Snoopy might be suffering a bit from Stockholm Syndrome here. You pause from the killing for one drink and suddenly WW1 is like popping round to a mate’s place for a dinner party? No wonder all the soldiers in the trenches thought the airplane mob were wankers.
And then with a roar they were both on their way
Having, presumably, sorted out the icing issues with the non-existent wings on Snoopy’s kennel.
Each knowing they’d meet on some other day
Yeah, at places called shopping malls and supermarkets, every freaking Christmas, for eternity – at least in New Zealand which apparently has a weird love affair with this song.
Christmas bells etc on repeat until the end
The whole Christmas bells bringing peace thing is the one part of “Snoopy’s Christmas” that I wish was true. We live in a world that needs a whole lot more peace, on every day not just Christmas Day, and if the price we have to pay is living with millions of campanologists doing their thing, then I am down with that. Especially as we also live in a world where noise-cancelling headphones exist.
Right, that’s enough of this nonsense for now. Thanks for reading Hey, Writer Guy and, in the great words of the Red Baron, merry Christmas mein friend!