Rosenblum: Minneapolis songwriter may have a new Christmas classic

Jeremy Messersmith won’t be home for Christmas. The local singer-songwriter will be sunning on a beach with his wife, Vanessa, and who can blame him for wanting to escape?

Besides, Messersmith, who was singled out by Time magazine as one of 14 musicians to watch in 2014, has dropped an invaluable gift on the Twin Cities that’s nothing short of a miracle:

He wrote a Christmas song — “Let’s Ditch Christmas” — that’s really good.

Trust me. I’m a professional.

Actually, I’m just a Jewish girl who’s crazy about Christmas music and have been since I was a little girl. I drag friends to Christmas concerts, collect CDs and set my car radio to 24-hour holiday tunes beginning the day after Thanksgiving.

Somehow, it never occurred to me until this year that there was a reason radio stations play, and vocalists cover, the same 20 songs over and over and over. And over.

It’s because there aren’t any other good ones.

“To write a great Christmas song, you have to get in something about the romance and the spirit of the season,” said Kevin Bowe, a veteran Twin Cities producer and songwriter known for his blues rock, as well as collaborations with the Replacements and Etta James.

“The reason it’s so hard to write a great blues song is that most of the best ones have already been taken,” he said. “It’s the same with Christmas music. That genre has been so mined.”

Messersmith’s producer Andy Thompson agrees. “Fifty years ago, people were not afraid to be sentimental,” Thompson said. “That’s a big part of Christmas. I made a mix for my own family. You put on a fire, you have the Christmas tree, and the sound of those old tunes is warm and gooey.”

Most Christmas megahits were written between 1930 and 1960, including “Winter Wonderland” and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” (both in 1934), “White Christmas” (1942), “The Christmas Song” (1946) and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (1949). They celebrated American values such as family bonds, fires burning, hearts yearning, sleigh bells ringing and a bullied caribou who gets the last laugh.

A few fresher hits joined the club later, such as “Feliz Navidad,” gifting us with welcome diversity in 1970; Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas” in 1984, and Mariah Carey’s happy “All I Want for Christmas Is You” 20 years ago, in 1994.

A decade ago, Bowe wrote a ’50s-rock-inspired “Little Miss Christmas” for his wife, Ruth, “who loves Christmas.” He’s a bit of a holiday curmudgeon himself, he said, but only if you make him go to the mall.

That tune landed on “a horrible TV show called ‘She Spies,’ featuring the iconic Gina Gershon,” he said. Not a hit, song or show.

He followed that up with “Funky Little Drummer” and a steamy “When Santa Gets the Blues” sung by sultry-voiced Alison Scott, which includes the lyrics People say he’s jolly/People think he’s happy all the time/But mistletoe and holly can make you melancholy in your mind.

(Be kind to Santa, everybody.)

Despite Bowe’s doubts about the enduring value of his songs, he said he was “happy to try my little Jewish hand at writing them. It’s kind of a tall order.”

But most of what we enjoy are fresh versions of beloved oldies, which allow us to sing along, which, to the horror of my kids, I do.

That’s why Thompson was “a little surprised” when Messersmith mentioned that his label, Glassnote, had introduced the idea of a Christmas song. The two talked about the usual Messersmith fare — “small, acoustic.” Then Messersmith got a crazy idea.

“He was over one night and we were playing board games,” Thompson recalled, “and he said, ‘Big band!’ ” Thompson went along, pulling in 10 musicians, including three horn players and three rhythm players, and “Let’s Ditch Christmas” was born:

It’s that magic time of year/ When friends and family gather near/ And the long cold nights are filled with thoughts of home/ Wherever you are there’s one thing everybody knows/ No one should spend Christmastime alone/ Let’s ditch Christmas together/ Let’s get out of the cold/ Say goodbye to Old Man Winter/ Pack your summer clothes/ Island breeze, Pacific scenes/ Daiquiris in the heat/ Who needs snow and mistletoe/ When you’ve got the beach?

“It was totally out of his wheelhouse,” Thompson said with a laugh, “which is probably why he wanted to do it.”

He needn’t apologize for wanting to spend Christmas in his bathing suit, free from stuff he doesn’t need or want, and with the woman he loves.

The song’s a hoot, with staying power, if you ask me. Besides, Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas” while sitting beside a pool in Los Angeles.