The Heatwave Christmas Songs

Robert Wells, Mel Torme, Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne

 

The Heatwave Christmas Songs

by R. Rojas

From Schubert’s Winterreise, to Vivaldi’s “Winter” concerto from The Four Seasons, the winter, the cold, the shivering feeling of frigidness, can inspire a song to be written, a classical piece to be composed.

When one hears especially "Der Leiermann" ("The Hurdy-Gurdy Man"), one can just feel the cold even if one is not fluent in German that the song is sung in, the piercing cool nips our skin.

However, can one feel the cold in the heat?

I was listening to an episode of a Christmas podcast a few months ago, and one of the hosts was banging his head trying to remember the other Christmas song written during a heatwave. I think the podcast hosts were focusing on “The Christmas Song,” but I could be wrong. I’m sure the hosts could kind of hear me yelling at my radio the answer to their question. Well, not a radio exactly in these days of music from phones, streaming music, and wireless speakers, but you know what I mean.

The magic of the “Heatwave Songs” is that they were written in the same month, the same year, the same city, and by two different pairs of Jewish songwriters

“The Christmas Song” and “Let it Snow” were both written during a “heatwave” in July 1945.

“The Christmas Song”

The "Christmas Song" was written by Mel Torme and Robert ("Bob") Wells during a heat wave.(1)

I looked up the highest temperature for Los Angeles in 1945 and it was 97 °F (36 °C for those of you across the pond), which seems a rather tame to us living with global warming. That seems like a cool day in Phoenix, Arizona or in Indio, California in July.

Then again, the air conditioning, if you had it in those days, was very primitive.

James Torme, son of Mel Torme, would tell the story of his father writing “The Christmas Song” during a heatwave in July 1945. From a 2020 National Public Radio story on the song:

 

According to James, it was on a hot, oppressive summer day in 1945 that his father, Mel, went over the house of one of his writing partners, Bob Wells. 'Wells was nowhere to be seen,' James says, 'But there was a spiral pad at the piano. There were four lines scribbled down on it in pencil.' Those four lines were: 'Chestnuts roasting on an open fire / Jack Frost nipping at your nose / Yuletide carols being sung by a choir / And folks dressed up like Eskimos.' When Bob Wells eventually appeared, he told Mel that he had been trying to do everything to cool down on that hot day. Wells said, 'I thought that maybe if I could just write down a few lines of wintry verse, I could physiologically get an edge over this heat.' Forty-five minutes later, the lyrics of what would be "The Christmas Song" were finished.'

 

Nat King Cole performing "The Christmas Song"

Wook Kim, in the article “Music Yule Laugh, Yule Cry:10 Things You Didn’t Know About Beloved Holiday Songs” placed the song writing in 1944. Again, this may be more accurate as temperatures reached 101 °F (38° C) that summer. The peak was in September 1944. That year, the temperature did not go over 100 °F (37 °C) that entire summer until September.

The summer and the temperature, 1944 or 1945, may be apples and oranges, however, the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. Vol. 3 (2nd ed.) has Torme being discharged from the U.S. Army in 1946. NNDB has Torme’s time in the service from 1944-45.(2) 

I could not confirm that Torme lived in Los Angeles in one of those years, but I do know he was based out of L.A. for most of his post-War career. In Torme’s autobiography, It Wasn't All Velvet: An Autobiography, he states that the song was written in California. However, have not found specifically if it was in Hollywood. I am guessing that the important fact that we are missing is where Robert Wells lived at the time. Wells died in Los Angeles County in 1998 and was buried in Westwood.

Regardless of not knowing where in the Los Angeles area Wells lived, Nat King Cole would make and release the premiere recording of "The Christmas Song" in 1946.

Let it Snow

That same summer (1945), in July, “Let It Snow” was written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne. Again, it was in response to the same heatwave. Unlike “The Christmas Song,” “Let it Snow” would be released the same year of its writing, in November 1945. It was first recorded by Vaughn Monroe.(3)

Vaugn Monroe first recording "Let It Snow" in 1945

Both Cahn, Torme, Styne, and Wells came from colder climates. Torme grew up in the Chicago area, Cahn in New York City. Styne born in London, England to parents from Ukraine, then part of Russia (yes, it cold there). His family moved to Chicago when Styne was young (it's cold there too).  Wells grew up in Washington state.

Apparently, great Christmas songs can be written in all climates. If “A Christmas Song” was indeed written in 1945 -- as “Let It Snow” was, and in the same town, by Jewish songwriters feeling the heat -- what a coincidence. (3)

___________

Notes:

1. On a definition of a heatwave:

"Consequently, a heat wave was defined as a period of at least 48 h during which neither the overnight low nor the daytime high Hi falls below the NWS heat stress thresholds (80° and 105°F, respectively), except at stations for which more than 1% of both the annual high and low Hi observations exceed these thresholds, in which case the 1% values are used as the heat wave thresholds."

Robinson, Peter J (2001). "On the Definition of a Heat Wave". Journal of Applied Meteorology. 40 (4): 762–775. Bibcode:2001JApMe..40..762R. doi:10.1175/1520-0450(2001)040<0762:OTDOAH>2.0.CO;2.

However, note this is from a 2001 journal article abstract. What qualified as a heat wave in 1944 or 45 is superfluous that the songwriters in these two songs thought they were in a heat wave and said their songs were written during that heat wave.

Make sure to read our blog post on "Th Christmas Song" and other such "Ambient Christmas Songs": Is there room at the inn for the Ambient Christmas Song? 

2. https://www.nndb.com/people/025/000091749/. Accessed November 23, 2024.

3. A recommended album of all the Christmas hits by Jewish song writers is Jake Ehrenreich's A Treasury of Jewish Christmas Songs (2017). A jazz album, it features the Roger Kellaway Trio. On reviewer Grady Harp states, "A Jewish child of Holocaust Survivors who incongruously grew up loving Christmas music, Jake first explored this theme in his hit Broadway show A Jew Grows in Brooklyn, where the New York Times raved “…a beautiful medley of Christmas Songs written by Jewish composers." Also listen to the album on YouTube. 

On the album, the songs acclaimed to be written by Jewish song writers include "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas, "The Christmas Waltz" (Cahn), "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Winter Wonderland," "Christmas Time is Here," "White Christmas," "I'll Be Home for Christmas," "Silver Bells," "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year," and the two mention in this blog post.

Disclaimer: Regarding the photos and descriptions used above: We do not know whom the owners of these are and infringement is not intended. Photos and descriptions are used for educational purposes only. We will gladly oblige any take down under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Photos and descriptions are used under the allowance made for "fair use" under Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 for the purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. We will oblige any takedown request of any photo on this blog in compliance with the DMCA.

Is there room at the inn for the Ambient Christmas Song?

Is there room at the inn for the Ambient Christmas Song?

by R. Rojas 

I ask the question about the Ambient Christmas Song because I believe this is a true genre of Christmas music. It is a needed genre in which more composers and songwriters need to write/compose in.

The Ambient Christmas Songs are a few Christmas songs that describe the present ambient of a “Christmas time and space.”

Unlike other Christmas songs, there is no dreaming or telling someone they will be home. It is not a joy-luck song or carol.

It’s as if a person was sitting in a Lazy-Boy at the family Christmas gathering and just observing. What he/she observes is described in poetic detail filling the listener with warmth.

Of course, the king of these Ambient Christmas Songs, is the appropriately named “The Christmas Song” written and composed by Mel Torme and Robert Wells.

"The Christmas Song" sung by 

its co-writer/composer Mel Torme

In “The Christmas Song,” the narrator is describing the “now,” talking about “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.” He describes the cold, the sounds, the food, the décor, and the dress of people.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Jack Frost nipping at your nose
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir
And folks dressed up like Eskimos

The narrator goes on to describe the children, “their eyes all aglow,” and describes what is in the thoughts of these children. Again, it is like one is sitting in the corner at your Christmas party observing.

Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe
Help to make the season bright
Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow
Will find it hard to sleep tonight

“Christmas Walz” also does this, and deliberately. Frank Sinatra asked Sammy Cahn for a song like “The Christmas Song,” one Sinatra could make his own.

Again, the narrator is there -- in a certain time and space -- observing:

Frosted windowpanes

Candles gleaming inside

Painted candy canes on the tree

Santa's on his way

He's filled his sleigh with things

Things for you and for me

Although that is the only descriptive part of the song, it still works into describing the ambience of a solitary Christmas moment. “The Christmas Waltz” is short. Just two stanzas, but it does its job.

"The Christmas Waltz" sung Tony Bennett 

with the Count Basie Orchestra

“Christmas Eve” by Carleton Carpenter, most famously sung by Billy Eckstine, is another:

There's a candle in the window
There's a legend we believe
Santa, here's our plea, you can bet that he
wouldn't miss a Christmas Eve

There's a stocking on the fireplace
There are presents to receive
And there's mistletoe, where is Romeo?
Steals a kiss on Christmas Eve

 

“Christmas Eve” should be more popular than it is. In this song, Carpenter’s lyrics describes what the narrator is seeing in the now: “candle in the window.” 

Billy Eckstine performing "Christmas Eve"

He goes on to observe the décor, the presents, and the mistletoe. Then, he gently moves on to describe the nativity scene in a refrain which later repeats:

In the corner, on a table

Underneath a shining star

Is the holy Christmas stable

And three wise men from afar

There is always a final commentary and contemplations from the narrators to end these songs. It’s like a “Merry Christmas” wish, a “Happy New Year,” something more spiritual, saying it “many times, many ways.”

Torme and Wells say:

And so I'm offering this simple phrase

To kids from one to 92

Although it's been said many times, many ways

Merry Christmas to you

Sammy Cahn. in “Christmas Watz” give us:

It's that time of year when the world falls in love

Ev'ry song you hear seems to say "Merry Christmas,

"May your New Year dreams come true"

And this song of mine in three-quarter time

Wishes you and yours the same thing, too.

Carpenter closes “Christmas Eve” with a sort of peace on earth, “wish Christmas can be everyday” request:

All this holiday contentment
All this love should never leave
We'd be doing right if we made each night
More like Christmas Eve

I do not put all songs in this category. I am sure there are lesser-known Ambient Christmas Songs. These songs must be indoors. I do not know why, but the Christmas party goer is observing. I know the chestnuts roasting in “The Christmas Song” are roasting in an open fire. So maybe, it’s outside, at least for that bit.

The Ambient Christmas Song remained largely an American genre. This was at least until the 1980s when John Rutter, from across the pond (UK), took a shot at it.

Take John Rutter’s “The Very Best Time of the Year” where he starts with the ambient description and ends with the closing observance that this is the “very best time of the year”:

Christmas trees and boughs of holly,

Yuletide logs and mistletoe;

Candles burning bright, and meadows frosty white,

And faces in the firelight′s glow;

Sounds of happy children's voices

Singing carols that you love to hear;

Then the silence of the night

And the winter air so still and clear.

Feels like you could reach and touch the sky,

Or catch a star and fly away;

Feels like you could wish for peace on earth,

And all at once it would come, some day.

Families and friends together

Feel a special kind of love and cheer,

Sharing all the joys of Christmas time,

The very best time of year.

The very best time,

That strange, enchanted time,

That shining, magic time of year.

In the John Rutter Christmas Album (Collegium Records, 2002), Rutter states in the liner notes, the American connections to this song. 

"Best Time of the Year" performed by John Rutter, The Cambridge Singers, and the City of London Sinfonia

Written in 1984 as a gift for two “noted American choral musicians who were among the first to welcome the composer into the American choral community….” Rutter’s song is written for chorus. The other Christmas Ambient Songs were written for solo voice but often performed by choirs: “Christmas Walz,” more true for “The Christmas Song.” I have only seen one choral performance of “Christmas Eve,” a video which I cannot find. However, the original recording by Eckstine has a chorus backing him.

"The Christmas Song " (arr. Arthur Harris) performed the Morman Tabernacle Choir (now the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square)

"The Christmas Waltz" performed by the All-American Boy Choir.

"Best Time of the Year" (arrangement 

by Owain Park and Anna Lapwood) 

performed by Pembroke College Chapel Choir

I tried to find other examples. Malcolm Williamson’s “This Christmas Night.”  D. Fraser’s “This Christmastide (Jessye’s Carol).” However, they do not match up.

The simple solitary observation of a room at Christmas makes a great Christmas song and more composers and song writers should give the Ambient Christmas Song a try.

Carpenter's "Christmas Eve" performed by Adam Swanson

Disclaimer: Regarding the photos and descriptions used above: We do not know whom the owners of these are and infringement is not intended. Photos and descriptions are used for educational purposes only. We will gladly oblige any take down under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Photos and descriptions are used under the allowance made for "fair use" under Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 for the purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. We will oblige any takedown request of any photo on this blog in compliance with the DMCA.