It's beginning to look...

December 25^th has come and gone but in a lot of places it is just beginning to look a lot like a winter wonderland.

 With that being the case I want to take a quick look at part of the song winter wonderland.

 Winter wonderland was written by Felix Bernard and lyricist Richard Bernhard Smith. These lyrics seem to be used by Bing Crosby.

 I want to look at who or what is the snowman.

The line is sung twice, the first time:
In the meadow we can build a snowman,
then pretend that he is Parson Brown.

And the second time:

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
And pretend that he’s a circus clown

I don’t think there is any debate on what a Circus Clown is but who is Parson Brown?

This is a heavily debated topic and you can find all sorts of articles on it. My conclusion has been that Parson Brown was the generic title used for traveling pastors that would tend to small towns. This would include weddings and that is when the line makes sense in context.

The logical problem with the idea that it is all a generic title then why is it not he’s a Parson Brown the same way we see in the circus clown line?

It is very possible that Brown is a name that was simply thrown in, although, that was never my understanding of Parson Brown it does line up with how the line is written.

Here is a link to the original recording as well as one of my favorites.

And a fun version of It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas. 

Thanks for stopping by and remember – Think Before You Sing.