Baltimore Christmas Memory: Sing It Outdoors!

It never ceases to amaze me how much can be found on "teh internets" these days! The flotsam and jetsam of a misspent youth in front of the TV or hiding in a movie theater can be easily retrieved with only a Google search. One day, the ipod in my brain shuffled up a song that I heard every holiday season when I was a kid. The song was called "Sing It Outdoors!" and it was played during the commercials for John Donnelly & Sons Advertising. It went like this.

I believe they were mainly into billboard advertising, so the title of the song had a duel meaning. It seems like they are singing about carolers, but the implication is that you can sing the praises of your company or product outdoors through billboard advertising. Get it? I was rather proud of myself that I figured that out when I was six or so.

I don't recall Donnelly & Sons running TV ads any other time of the year but Christmas, and for an advertising firm, the ads were surprisingly chintzy. The Christmas ad consisted of the aforementioned song while we were treated to abstract representational drawings of choirs, bells, and other Christmasy images. Just before the final line was sung, a syrupy announcer voice came on and would tell us how Donnelly Advertising wanted to wish us a Merry Christmas. No Happy Holidays back then. They were putting the Christ in Christmas, baby! It was fun not to be PC.

During the week between Christmas and New Year's, Donnelly & Sons ran a slightly different TV ad. As I recall, it would start off with a similar song and some more poorly rendered images of streamers and champagne bottles popping, and then the announcer would jump in with, "Rrrring out the old, rrring in the new, with all our best wishes! We at Donnelly Advertising wish you..." When he would say, "rrrring out the old," a graphic with the current year would appear, and when the announcer said, "rrrring in the new," a graphic with the next year would appear. For example, it might show "1972," and then jump to "1973." I remember one year - I think it was 1973 or 1974 - and they mistakenly put up one of the old commercials because it showed "1965" and "1966." I got a chill because I suddenly thought I had been transported back in time.

Those commercials disappeared around the mid-70s and became yet more fond holiday memories to put on the brain pile. God knows why the song popped back into my head on a warm spring day more than 30 years after I had last heard it, but my mind tends to work like that. Just for fun, I did a Google search using the song title and found this blog site. Apparently, the song on the commercial was part of a complimentary record album that Donnelly & Sons gave away to clients at Christmas time. One side had music for Christmas, the other side featured dance tunes for your New Year's Eve party. The blog author, Ernie, provides a link where you can download the Christmas songs along with some photos of the album, which I've used here, with his kind permission.


One of the coolest aspects of this album is the fact that the record itself was made out of green vinyl. Take a look:


Be sure to check out www.ernienotbert.blogspot.com for more great, obscure Christmas music. He's currently running a 27 Days of Christmas series with a new Christmas album featured each day.