12/26/05 NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday Length: 5:07 ~ Listen

Have you ever wondered why there was such an outpouring of wonderful Christmas songs written in America between World War II -- with “I'll be Home for Christmas” -- and the early 1950s -- with “Silver Bells”?

Some people believe it’s what the German’s call Zeitgeist, or the spirit of the times. Christmas Day 2006, What’s in a Song took you on a journey to Beverly Hills, CA, to try to answer this question. We’ll meet Ray Evans who, with his partner Jay Livingston, wrote the Christmas classic, “Silver Bells.” What's in a Song tries to get to the bottom of the creative Christmas spirit of those times and comes up with very little spiritual fodder to help us understand the yuletide inspiration of those days. In fact, Ray Evans, now 91 years old, tells a funny story of just how “Silver Bells” came to be.*

* “Silver Bells” was first heard in the 1951 Bob Hope comedy, The Lemon Drop Kid.