On that cold December night —December 19, 2023, to be exact — I was driving on Route 92, coming from Manlius into Cazenovia NY where I was living at the time. I had turned the radio to NPR, where some right-wing mouthpiece was being interviewed about the so-called border crisis. America needed to close its doors, he said, to which I immediately replied, to no one in particular, “It’s Christmas. We really need to be opening our doors as wide as we can.”

As soon as I got home, I picked up my guitar and wrote the chorus, which was very close lyrically and melodically to the chorus you now hear.

I liked it right away. It had gravitas, but it wasn’t overly preachy. It had a catchy, singalong chorus that I could hear being sung in an English pub by people who had downed one too many.

I felt like I might actually be on to something.

Quickly and mysteriously, as song ideas are wont to do, the idea for the merry lads and lasses and the red-faced landlord came to me, and I quickly wrote down the following lines:

On a dark December night
as the snow lay round about
some merry lads and lasses were singing “Deck the Halls.”
Outside the old King’s Head,
the red-faced landlord said
“Come into the warm, the drinks are on the house!

Life’s been good to me and mine
and now at Christmastime
I’m giving back some cheer to you and yours
take a seat by the fire
sing and smile for a while
you’re always welcome here inside these doors.

With these lines, I could turn this into something fun while keeping a serious message about giving, about generosity of spirit, about paying it forward. This was the spirit of Christmas I was trying to evoke. This was what I had been searching for.

But then I hit a couple of pretty large stumbling blocks. First, the melody I had chosen for the verses was too close to the melody of the chorus. That made the song too boring, too samey. There needed to be some melodic variation. As the chorus sounded OK to me, I decided to keep that but rework the melody for the verses.

Then, there was the issue of how the story was going to end. Now, if you’ve heard my music, you’ll know that I don’t write story songs as such. I am not that Bruce. But this song was saying to me it wanted to tell a story, and I was prepared to figure that out and follow it wherever it was going to lead. I was bound and determined that this was not going to be another Christmas song idea that withered and died like all the rest.

After a few months playing around, I finally solved the first problem. I stumbled on a chord progression — the one you now hear — that was different enough from the original verse that it would work with the chorus as I had originally conceived it. With a slight tweak to the chorus’ original chord progression, I had tbe basic building blocks of the song.

But that, in turn, created a new problem. The lyric meter of the first draft wasn’t going to work with the new progression. It was back to the drawing board again, this time for the words.

Eventually, I started playing around with some of the original lines, especially “the snow lay round about” from my original draft. I had referenced it from the famous first verse of John Mason Neale’s 1853 Christmas carol “Good King Wenceslas”:

Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the Feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight
Gathering winter fuel

To set the scene more fully, I added the next line of the carol into my own song. And as I reflected on those familiar lines, the idea came to me that I could weave the poor man of the carol into my story and have him come into the sight of the merry lads and lasses.

My direction was finally emerging.

(Here, I should note that Ann Stevens’ beautifully festive illustration to “Throw the Doors Open Wide” features a picture of that same poor man gathering winter fuel adapted from Arthur Gaskin’s 1894 illustrations to John Mason Neale’s carol.)

At that point, the first three verses you hear now fell into place relatively quickly. But the song needed a fourth, concluding verse, and that created a whole new set of problems. My initial ideas were too moralistic, too didactic — we all need to open our doors and let everyone in, regardless of race, creed, color, gender, and so on. I wanted to avoid preachy, yet here it was, staring me in the face.

The solution came, as songwriting solutions so often do for me, on a walk. What if, I mused, I let the poor man have the final word? It was really his story after all. But, in the spirit of paying it forward, what could he share with the happy crew that had taken him in and fed him?

His answer to me was a simple toast — in gratitude for his own current situation, and with an acknowledgement to others even less fortunate than himself. As a poor man, he had nothing, yet he offered all he had, echoing Jesus’ parable of the widow’s mite. To me, it was a heartfelt sentiment that formed a satisfying end to the song.

Unbelievably, with the words of an imaginary beggar borrowed from a 170-year-old Christmas carol, a personal 50-year-old goal had been fulfilled. A new Christmas song had finally entered the world.

Of course, how, or even if, it measures up to those wonderful Christmas songs I grew up with is not for me to say. All I can hope for is that the song, and the poor man’s sentiment, resonates with you in some way, no matter whether you celebrate Christmas or not.

Wherever you’re from.

No matter who.

On that cold December night the snow lay all around
deep and crisp and even and bright and silent on the ground.
Under winter’s magic spell, in that town transformed,
some merry lads and lasses all were singing “Deck the Halls.”

A red-faced landlord heard their song outside The Olde King’s Head
he laughed and waved them all inside and this is what he said:
            “Step inside these open doors
            Let’s drink a toast to you and yours
Life’s been good to me and mine, drink with me this Christmastime!”

CHORUS
Throw the doors open wide
it’s warm here inside
though the wind howl and moan
until the dawn
here you’re safe and secure
what’s mine now is yours
we are one at Christmastime inside these doors

The happy crew drank their fill and left to go back home
when outside St. Stephen’s church, half hidden in the snow,
a beggar brought to bended knees came into their sight
they stopped their song to pick him up and take him home that night
            “Come inside our open doors
            Our celebration now is yours
Life’s been good to all of us, come inside this Christmastime!”

CHORUS

The poor man smiled, then offered from a flask he’d stashed away
a drink to toast in gratitude to all upon that day
            “to the broken, to the lost,
            the stranger and the tempest-tossed
Wherever you’re from, no matter who, what I have I’ll share with you”

CHORUS
Throw the doors open wide
bring the whole world inside
though the wind howl and moan
till Christmas morn
here you’re safe and secure
what’s mine now is yours
we are one at Christmastime inside these doors

DOWNLOAD:

Bandcamp: https://brucepegg.bandcamp.com/track/throw-the-doors-open-wide
iTunes: https://music.apple.com/us/album/throw-the-doors-open-wide-single/1781515903
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0DNSCV8TW

STREAM:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/236sOeImoxlYLIx785PJCv
Pandora: https://www.pandora.com/artist/bruce-pegg/throw-the-doors-open-wide/throw-the-doors-open-wide/TR7ZdrPJw4ptrdc
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/bruce-pegg/ttdow
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/throw-the-doors-open-wide-single/1781515903
YouTube Music: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=CiMIeaMukY0&si=bj3SuISyJf2yBsMk
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/us/album/674583201
iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/artist/bruce-pegg-42576563/songs/throw-the-doors-open-wide-300213646/

Written in Cazenovia and Norwich NY between December 19, 2023 and September 17, 2024; recorded October/November 2024.

Released December 1, 2024.

Bruce Pegg (vocals, guitar)
Will Pegg (electric guitar, organ)
Brandon James (bass guitar)
Mike Santiago (percussion)

The Merry Lads & Lasses: Will Pegg, Brandon James, Mike Santiago, Carolyn Pegg, Hannah Pegg, Suzanne Slingerland

Produced by Will Pegg
Co-produced by Bruce Pegg
Mixed by Ethan Weissman

Art by Ann Stevens