There is something about true lounge music that is slightly radical. It’s not another kind of rock n roll. I haven’t had that much egg nog. But still it is a departure for most of these artists because of the audiences they were used to playing to.

You’ve seen them, smoking and knocking down martinis two at a time. Hanging out in the clubs and hotel hideaways on Mad Men. Providing seductive and mysterious backgrounds in old movies. Everybody dressed to the nines, our parents and grandparent’s generations, looking for a late night don’t kiss don’t tell hookup.

But when the biggies of that era of music switch to Christmas music, there’s a bit of a warm and wacky disconnect. Somewhere, deep down, the singer knows he or she shouldn’t be singing in a swanky saloon. The old suave crooner know they should be home with the first wife and her children on Christmas, not showing up sometime before New Years with a limo full of toys.

It’s for the kids, you know? And that damn cowboy Gene Autry made a mint right next to the old corral when he had 15 minutes left in a recording session and relented to his wife’s wishes and recorded “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

All that aside, here is a glimpse at that diamond ring and Cadillac world from a place way in the future. It’s a Marshmallow World of White Russians and Hot Buttered Rums, and baby, it’s cold outside.

The Old School format is slightly different here. I took some mixer’s liberties that this music usually doesn’t experience. It has a more presentational form because it was created for public radio stations around the company to use over the holidays and perhaps move some Santa in the snow to make a small donation to an industry that has received nothing but coal lumps all year long.

So hop on for the ride. It’s slick, its hot, its ritzy and glitzy and downright weird at points. Perfect for a celebration, for background while you are ripping into presets, for whatever floats your Deville. Think of it as mink seatcovers from another time.

Merry Christmas Baby, you sure did treat me nice.

—Professor Mikey

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Hello and happy holidays from the war zone! This edition is mostly about the audio which you can click on above. Subscribers can download it as a podcast. This show was originally aired in 2023, but it is evergreen to go every December from here on out. If you are a member of the Greatest Generation, or have one as friend or family, you will get a kick out of V for Victory and X for Xmas. Compiled from archival sources, it rolls like a tank into Berlin, blaring radio broadcasts, big bands, commentators, celebrities, and many more memories that bring you home for Christmas.

As we get further away in time from the second World War, we tend to lose track of what life felt like during wartime.

America’s entry into World War Two began 17 days before Christmas on Dec 8, 1941. For the next five holiday seasons “peace on earth” went on hiatus.

What you’ll hear is not a history of World War Two, or a sugar plum romp through precarious yuletides. Most of this originated at Christmas time and was constantly by interrupted by breaking bulletins. It is a sound montage that features the newscasters and entertainers of the time communicating with their vast unseen audiences.

It is a dark time. For much of the world, 1941 marks the third year of a war that has seen the German occupation of many European countries. War does not take a holiday.

On the radio, it’s bombs and jingle all the way, starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters, Abbot and Costello, Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, Judy Garland, Francis Langford, Dinah Shore, Glenn Miller, and the men and women of the greatest generation.