The Hospital
Scranton, Pennsylvania. 1934. A man in his early thirties is coughing and shivering while propped up in a bed inside a mountainside ward, and he is writing about a snowy adventure that he can no longer participate in. He likely writes to cope with the isolation, psychological stress, and intense boredom involved with his treatment. His miniature story follows a couple falling in love on a walk through fresh snow. They build a snowman and pretend he can marry them. As the writer reminisces about his own snowy childhood in nearby Honesdale, PA, he ponders his uncertain fate.
The Patient and the Tap Dancer
Richard B. Smith was born in Honesdale in 1901. He attended Pennsylvania State College, which eventually became the Pennsylvania State University, where I earned my undergraduate music degree decades later. After graduating, Smith moved to New York City to pursue songwriting in the late years of Tin Pan Alley, and he also managed theaters. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and by 1934 he was confined to the West Mountain Sanitarium in Scranton. Here he wrote the words for which he is most remembered, the lyrics of “Winter Wonderland.”
By 1934, Felix Bernard was already a well-known songwriter, having co-written the hit song “Dardanella” in 1919 with Johnny S. Black and lyrics from Fred Fisher. Ben Selvin’s recording of it was among the first to sell a million copies. Bernard also worked as a conductor, a pianist, and a tap dancer while on the vaudeville circuit. During a brief period of remission, Smith left the sanitarium to travel to New York and share his lyrics with Bernard. Recognizing the potential of Smith’s words, Bernard set them to an upbeat, engaging melody, and the tune was published later that year.
What the Song Does
The musical architecture of the song is a Tin Pan Alley staple, the standard 32-bar AABA form. AABA form consists of two eight-bar statements of the opening melodic unit (A), then a contrasting section (B or “bridge”), followed by a final return to the opening unit (A). Bernard shifts the bridge up by a major third, a chromatic mediant relationship that instantly brightens the sound and adds a fresh contrast to the recurring A section. Similar to other Christmas songs such as “White Christmas” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “Winter Wonderland” has an introduction section which is rarely sung today. Before the ringing of the sleigh bells in the refrain, the narrator sets the stage: a white mantle over the ground, a sky of diamonds, chilly weather, and a love that knows no bounds.
“Winter Wonderland” is written in cut time rather than the usual 4/4 time signature. Cut time is 2/2, marked with a capital C with a vertical line going through the middle. With 4/4, you feel the music in four small steps per measure. With cut time (2/2), you feel the music in two big steps per measure, closer to a moderate walking pace. The notes on the page don’t change between 4/4 and cut time, but the pulse your body locks onto does. This leisurely pace is strategic. The lyrics are built around walking. This compositional literalism is very subtle, and most listeners are not consciously aware of the sensory coherence.
Parson Brown
Something else “Winter Wonderland” shares with “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is more than one set of lyrics. The original 1934 lyrics by Smith are about a couple’s romantic escapade in the snow. In the meadow the couple builds a snowman and then makes believe he is someone named Parson Brown. The name reads today like a nonsense choice made for the rhyme. It is not. The word “parson” entered Middle English by the late 13th century, and its use in the United States peaked in the 19th century as a general term for a Protestant minister. Smith’s Parson Brown, then, is a traveling minister named Brown, the kind who passed through small towns and could marry a couple on the spot. Toward the end of the song, the lyrics describe the couple facing their uncertain future “unafraid.” Smith was writing this from a tuberculosis ward.
A second set of lyrics by an unidentified writer appeared when Bregman, Vocco and Conn, Inc. published a special “Children’s Edition” in 1947 that included both the original lyrics and a new children’s version. The new lyrics drop Parson Brown; the snowman is now a circus clown. The playful marriage proposal is also replaced with a scene of children playing in the snow, frolicking around like Eskimos. The word “parson” was outdated even by 1934, and music publishers were beginning to turn their Christmas marketing towards the burgeoning family market. Between 1934 and 1947, the United States transformed from a country struggling through the Great Depression to a victorious and optimistic superpower at the beginning of a historic baby boom.
No Definitive Version
Singers have mixed the two lyrics freely ever since, Johnny Mathis among them, on his 1958 Merry Christmas album. Mathis begins the song with the original lyrics, but then sings the rarely used introduction section in the middle, before concluding with the newer children’s lyrics. Ever since Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians scored a top-five hit in 1934, “Winter Wonderland” has remained one of the most recorded Christmas songs. The lyrics never mention Christmas. Unlike some songs that are identified primarily with a single artist (like Bing Crosby and “White Christmas”), “Winter Wonderland” has no definitive version. In 2014, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) celebrated its 100th birthday with a list of the top 30 ASCAP holiday songs of all time, and “Winter Wonderland” came in fourth, just behind “White Christmas.” The top 25 ASCAP holiday song list for 2025 included “Winter Wonderland” ninth, with the Eurythmics cover from 1987 and Laufey’s version from 2023 driving the continued popularity of this Christmas favorite.
September 1935
Richard B. Smith’s wife was a nurse, and she had moved from New York City to Scranton to work in the West Mountain Sanitarium so she could be closer to him during his treatment. He was well enough to leave the sanitarium for New York City in 1934, but the remission did not last. He died on September 28, 1935, one day before his 34th birthday
The record of “Winter Wonderland” was less than a year old.
Sources and Further Reading
Sleigh Rides, Jingle Bells, and Silent Nights: A Cultural History of American Christmas Songs, by Ronald D. Lankford Jr. Explores how Christmas music has shaped American culture during the 20th century.
This is Christmas, Song by Song: The Stories Behind 100 Holiday Hits, by Annie Zaleski. Provides behind-the-scenes stories of 20th century Christmas songs and the artists who recorded them.
Footlights and Flickers, Memphis Commercial Appeal, November 29, 1934, by Harry Martin. A firsthand account of Richard B. Smith’s failing health, and one of the first reviews of “Winter Wonderland.”
Listen Along - Recommended Playlist
Listen to multiple versions of “Winter Wonderland,” including the first recording made by Richard Himber and His Ritz-Carlton Hotel Orchestra in 1934, along with the recording later that year by Guy Lombardo & His Royal Canadians which became a top-five hit. Later versions follow, including the Eurythmics, Laufey, and the duo of Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga.
Below the line, for Evergreens: the challenge of researching “newer” songs, and the 1934 Memphis column that says how sick Richard B. Smith really was.