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A few days ago, I listened to a Beach Boys Christmas album, and I noticed something about their version of "Blue Christmas." At about 2:00, some brass instruments (I think French horns) quote a phrase from George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. I can't find a score of the Rhapsody in Blue in order to look up the notation, and the phrase is too complex for my novice notation skills, but in "Blue Christmas," the phrase is D, Eb, F, and then an F an octave lower. In the Rhapsody in Blue, it's G#, A, B, and then a B an octave lower. (In the recording of Rhapsody in Blue I have by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, it's at about 11:31.) It's the same phrase, just transposed down for "Blue Christmas." (For what it's worth, it's also the phrase that starts "Rhapsody in Blue (Reprise)" on Brian Wilson's Reimagines Gershwin album, although that's E, F, G, and then a G an octave lower).
I did some research and discovered (in the entry for 18 June 1964 in Keith Badman's The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America's Greatest Band on Stage and in the Studio) that the Beach Boys' version of "Blue Christmas" was arranged by Dick Reynolds. While Wilson didn't arrange it himself, he probably had a hand in putting in that quotation because he's acknowledged Gershwin's influence and mentioned Rhapsody in Blue in particular. The Reimagines Gershwin album provides ample evidence.
Purely as a reference, it's also interesting because "blue" is in the title of both works (and in the lyrics of "Blue Christmas"). To some degree, quoting Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue gives more depth to "Blue Christmas." There's the feeling of "Blue Christmas" itself, but then - because of that quotation - there's an injection of the feeling of the Rhapsody in Blue too.
I transcribed "Blue Christmas" when I listened to the album a second time, and I found something interesting about the song itself, not just the Beach Boys' version. The lines in the first verse all have line-ending rhymes ("without you" rhymes with "about you," and "tree" rhymes with "me"), but that same structure isn't in the second verse. The first two lines rhyme ("certain" with "hurtin'"), but not "You'll be doin' alright with your Christmas of white / But I'll have a blue, blue Christmas." Instead of line-ending rhymes, there's internal rhyme in the third line ("alright" and "white") and no rhyme at all in the fourth line, either within the line itself or with any other line. That surfeit of rhyme in the third line and the lack of rhyme in the fourth poetically mirror the lyrics themselves. "You'll be doin' alright" with internal rhyme, "But I'll have a blue, blue Christmas" with no rhyme at all.I'm still sticking with just Pet Sounds and the SMiLE sessions for now, but I found this Gershwin quote in "Blue Christmas," and I felt I should reblog it here.
