Buttkickin’ Holiday Songs: “A Marshmallow World” – Dean Martin & Frank Sinatra (1967)

It’s a marshmallow world in the winter
When the snow comes to cover the ground
It’s time for play, it’s a whipped cream day
I wait for it the whole year around
Those marshmallow clouds being friendly
In the arms of the evergreen trees
And the sun is red like a pumpkin head
It’s shining so your nose won’t freeze

I don’t know about you, but love me a good old-fashioned, carefully arranged masterpiece of a holiday song.

You know the type: lushly produced, layers of vocals, harmonies, and instrumentation. An elevated sense of epic Christmas grandeur. We’re talking where every last drop of atmospheric holiday pomposity and nobility is ladled like a thick, rich, delicious syrup of Yuletide splendor and epic spirit of goodwill. Over flapjacks of Peace on Earth.

And maybe that holiday song instills the strongest possible hope that maybe, maybe, we have that spirit of divinity flowing through our veins. Even for a second. And that love, comfort, and joy for all mankind is within reach. At long last.

We all love those holiday songs.

But then there’s A Marshmallow World, which in 1967 became the audio equivalent of two uncles sneaking away from Christmas dinner to check on the bourbon. Which I guess was the Mad Men-era equivalent of the post-Thanksgiving walk with your cousins.

And here we have Sinatra and Martin, coming back to the table lit as hell and bringing all the giddy, silly, and extremely human Christmas joy. Without thumbing its nose at the Reason for the Season.

Dean Martin had already recorded this bouncy number for his 1959 album A Winter Romance, and that number is already a cozy little snowball fight of charm and fun.

But when Frank comes to the party? It’s the crown jewel, baby.

The two of them radiate A Marshmallow World together with synchronized, telepathic Rat Pack perfection. And while they never actually recorded the song together in studio, they performed it live together on the 1967 television special The Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra Family Christmas Show. PBS plays it often, but I’m sure you can find the whole thing on YouTube or the like.

Watch the entire show. But when they open with A Marshmallow World? These legends can barely conceal the fun they’re having. And even if they aren’t really having fun — and that’s a mighty huge if, pilgrim — they make it look like they are anyhow, and make it look effortless.

Because that’s what freakin’ talent does.

This isn’t Christmas nostalgia; it’s Christmas swagger. It feels loose and improvised, fun and silly, but never anything less than musical sweet-spot engagement. I mean it’s Martin and Sinatra, after all. They’re half-singing, half-laughing, fully vibing. It’s warm, it’s mischievous, and it has just enough “live TV in the 60s” chaos energy to make you wonder if the marshmallows themselves went for a bourbon break as well.

When December feels colorful, fun, joyful, cold and warm all at once, and you’re slightly buzzed with friends and family you actually love (or at least really like) and life is good? That’s when you’re living in A Marshmallow World.

Oh, it’s a yum yummy world made for sweethearts
Take a walk with your favorite girl
It’s a sugar date, but if spring is late
In winter it’s a marshmallow world