Christmas Regrooved in July

In the record business, July is Christmas prep time. Bill Crowley, one of my best friends in the industry and a VP at Koch Entertainment asked me to compile a second volume of electronic holiday music as a follow-up to the album Christmas Regrooved that I had produced 4 years ago.

He asked that we include a version of "March of the Wooden Soldiers"

Now I, like most people have in our heads a song that we all "THINK" is March of the Wooden Soldiers" from the operetta "Babes In Toyland" by Victor Herbert. You know, it goes: dada dum da da dada dum da da dada dum da da da dadada.

So I ask one of my remixers Geoff Abramczek to take on the task and then set out to find a mp3 or midi file for him to listen to.

AND........... I can't find it. I find MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS from Tchaikovsky's Nutcrackers suite, but that's not it. Then I find MARCH OF THE TOY SOLDIERS from "Babes In Toyland" but as it turns out that's not it either.

I go to iTunes and search for March of The Wooden Soldiers and find one that sounds just like the one I'm looking for. But others with the same title in iTunes are actually the Tchaikovsky.

I call my friend Roger Englander and hum the tune for him and he says: "That's the March of the Wooden Soldiers" from Babes in Toyland, I say "No it's not".

(a note) I am starting to think that this kind of day will get more and more common as I get older, not a happy thought.

Finally I listen to the lyrics of the "wrong" March of the Wooden Soldiers" on iTunes and write down some of the lyrics and do a Google search of those lyrics and EUREKA!!!! It's not MARCH of the Wooden Soldiers by Tchaikovsky, or March of the TOY Soldiers by Victor Herbert, it's PARADE OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS by Leon Jessel written in 1905 and featured in the Betty Boop cartoon of the same name from 1933.

Here's a link to the cartoon.

http://www.archive.org/details/bb_parade_of_the_wooden_soldiers

So, Merry Christmas in July to all and to all a good night!