A little about this project

Writing a Christmas song has been something I've wanted to do for a long time. Yet every holiday season, when I would sit down to write, I couldn't come up with anything good. As silly as this may seem, writing Christmas music is really hard. During the Christmas of 2007, however, I wrote two songs that I was satisfied with. Taking a break from working on my album "Winters Daughter". I recorded the two Christmas songs, plus a cover of John Lennon's "Happy Christmas". I made a CD of these songs to give to friends and family, and released it on my website. Here is little background on the inspirations and stories behind these songs:


“The Ghosts of 1914”

It was Christmas Eve, 1914, during the First World War. The British and French were fighting the Germans, on the western front in Ypres, Belgium. The mood was a bit more cheerful then usual. The holiday spirit had begun creeping into the trenches. It was then, at the threshold of Christmas, when an unimaginable truce came about. It wasn't the generals or the bureaucrats running the war that brought on this truce. It was the foot soldiers, the cannon fodder, the ones who were actually fighting the war, that brought it on.
It started with the Germans singing in the trenches, the British joined in, then the French. They began joking with each other across “no mans land”, and eventually abandoned their trenches in want of each other’s company. On the battlefield, where these men were once killing each other, they were now talking and trading tobacco and drinks and treats; singing songs and being merry. There were even a few accounts of them playing football (soccer). The truce lasted until the 26th of December, 1914. Both sides returned to their designated trenches, but the battlefield was silent. Neither side wanted to fire the first shot at their new made friends.
In the following years of the war, the military heads made sure to keep their soldiers busy during the Christmas holidays. They'd order artillery bombardments and rotate men from different fronts. This made it harder for unauthorized fraternization, with the enemy, to happen. There are stories of other Christmas truces, and all in my opinion are beautiful. But this one sticks out as the first of modern warfare. Where death is dealt from afar, and we rarely have to see our enemy’s faces.

This is a brief synopsis of the story, but you get the idea. It's one of my favorite Christmas stories of all time. And yes, it really did happen.

Here's a link to a site that gives a more thorough account of the 1914 Christmas Truce.


“The Ghosts of 1914”
-lyrics-

Christmas eve and
no mans land is dead
our bayonets have
set the precedent
I hear singing from the trenches
of our rivals and our friends
now I thinking what's the difference

we are a family
we are the same tree
never forget who you are

distance is blurring
the blood of our siblings
never forget who you are

Christmas morning
and our hearts are rent
the whole world seems
like some accident

one by one we jump the parapet
dropped our guns for heavens sakes and then
all the sudden
the soldiers were gone

cause we are a family
we are the same tree
never forget who you are

distance is blurring
the blood of our siblings
never forget who you are

la la la


“Happy Christmas” (war is over)
Written by John Lennon

This is one of my favorite Christmas songs; I just wanted to do a cover it.


“Christmas Transmission, I want to go home”

This last one is an instrumental. The story its drawn from, is that of an astronaut in orbit around earth on Christmas day. He's looking through the little window in the space ship, wishing he was home. Imagine that this song is playing through the speaker in his space ship. A Christmas transmission from the universe.



Song Credits:

All songs written and recorded by Richard J Colado
except "Happy Christmas" which was written by John Lennon.
All music was performed and arranged by rickoLus and recorded at the Green Shed Studio in Jacksonville Beach, FL.