[Editor's Note: We here at the Scene are blessed to work with J.R. Lind, in part because we get to experience — daily — his lengthy Slack screeds expounding his theories on a wide variety of subjects. For example, why The Bellamy Brothers' "Let Your Love Flow" is a Christmas carol, how Dirty Dancing is an allegory about the history of the American left after World War II, and why orderly bison are to blame for our city's transit woes. Rather than keep this bricolage of verisimilitude to ourselves, we've asked him to share some of his declamations with our readers.]
Occasionally, people ask me for a trivia question. My go-to is "Which four colleges have produced both an American president and a Super Bowl-winning quarterback?"
Invariably, any Michigan alum within 25 miles will shout the name of their alma mater, and that would be correct, as Gerald Ford and Tom Brady were both Wolverines. Rounding out the quartet: Stanford (Herbert Hoover; John Elway and Jim Plunkett), the United States Naval Academy (Jimmy Carter; Roger Staubach), and of course, Miami of Ohio (Benjamin Harrison; Ben Roethlisberger). If Joe Biden should ever become president, the University of Delaware would make No. 5 with Joe Flacco elitely winning Super Bowl XLVII. If Ryan Fitzpatrick ever gets a ring, add Harvard as well.
Anyway, my second go-to question is "Which song has appeared on the Billboard charts each of the 25 years since its debut, but never hit No. 1?" That would be Mariah Carey's holiday classic "All I Want for Christmas Is You," which has charted every year since its 1994 release (note that it did not make the Billboard Hot 100 until 2000 because, amazingly, it was never released as a single, and prior to 2000, that was a requirement for that particular chart), but never got higher than No. 3.
Until this week, when Carey will hit the top of the pops, marking her 19th No. 1 hit.
Now I have to find a new answer.
Officially, "All I Want for Christmas Is You" is the second Christmas song to go to No. 1, joining (I swear) "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)" by Alvin and the Chipmunks, which took the top spot in 1958.
But there's a case to be made that there's a third member of that club: the 1976 banger "Let Your Love Flow" by The Bellamy Brothers.
"Now, J.R.," you are saying. "C'mon. While obviously a perfectly crafted mid-1970s country-pop song, there's no way it's a Christmas carol. There's nothing about trees or presents or Santa or reindeer or drinking to excess with members of your extended family."
Let me stop you there, as I'll concede the point — because the truth is "Let Your Love Flow" isn't a secular Christmas song. It's a religious one.
Here are the opening few lines:
There's a reason / For the sunshine day / There's a reason / Why I'm feelin' so high / Must be the season / When that love light shines all around us.
As those ubiquitous yard signs remind us: Jesus is the reason for the season. And numerous times in the Bible is Jesus described as light. In the Logos Hymn in John 1; In Matthew 4 and John 8, both of which echo the prophecy in Isaiah 9.
As if encouraging listeners to get caught up in the spirit, The Bellamy Brothers then urge: "Let that feeling grab you deep inside / And send you reeling / Where your love can't hide."
Now granted, the next lyric is about stealing away with your lover, which doesn't exactly jibe with my thesis — until you read Song of Solomon, I guess.
Anyway, then the bros hit you with that chorus about letting love flow and grow, and show and then, for good measure, they add, "It's the season."
As if to drive the point home, they compare love to a bird (like a dove, maybe?) and then say love can tie you to all living things, which is a great message, if a little Transcendental for what is, according to me and other correct people, a Christian song. But they had to get their message played on the radio, which probably wasn't going to happen if there was a 10-minute explanation of anthropocentrism-versus-biocentrism or stewardship-versus-ownership.
But the second verse is where The Bellamy Brothers really hit their Yuletide stride.
"There's a reason for the candlelights."
"Must be the season when those love rites shine all around us."
Even the most committed New Atheist could take a break from bleating about rationality to recognize the obvious Christmas tropes here: candles, warm nights, rites and so on.
Before repeating the chorus, the Bellamys sing, "Let your wonder take you into space," echoing the refrain of "We Three Kings," which refers to the "God of Wonder. "Lay you under its loving embrace" reminds anyone who read all 9 gazillion pages of the Institutes that John Calvin said, “Faith is not a distant view, but a warm embrace of Christ, by which He dwells with us, and we are filled with the divine Spirit.”
Despite the song's January release (maybe the Bellamy Brothers are into the traditional 12 Days of Christmas thing), the case for "Let Your Love Flow" as one of the great pop Christmas carols of the modern era is clear. Sure, OutKast's debut "Player's Ball" was, in its original version, Christmas-themed (it was bowdlerized after it charted in an effort to keep up airplay after the holidays), but it's a Christmas song in the same way Die Hard is a Christmas movie: It's set at Christmas, but there's nothing particularly Christmassy about it, other than some sidelong glances at the holiday spirit, some hip-hop "Now I have a machine gun, ho ho ho" if you will.
"Let Your Love Flow" was written by Larry E. Williams, who was a roadie for Neil Diamond, who, it should be noted, had a double-platinum Christmas album in 1992. When Diamond passed on it, it was recorded by Gene Cotton, who — fun fact — spent most of the 1990s and early 2000s railing against the construction of Interstate 840 and even ran for Tennessee House in a 2001 special election. The winner of said election? A guy named Glen Casada.
The Bellamy Brothers put the cut on their album, also called Let Your Love Flow, and it went No. 1 in seven countries.
Like all great Christmas songs, it has staying power and still shows up in commercials and on movie soundtracks and in TV shows, including a 2015 episode of HBO's The Leftovers.
That episode's name? "No Room at the Inn."
Quod erat demonstrandum. Merry Christmas.
