Interesting Stories V: Christmas Edition

I know have a reputation for not bringing much of the festive joy to the table at this time of year, but here is my vague effort at overcoming that. This latest in our collection of interesting stories and anecdotes surrounding musicians we know and (sometimes) love, takes on a few that have a Christmas theme.

Christmas in the Summer! Mel Tormé and Bob Wells wrote the classic seasonal tune, The Christmas Song - you know, the one about "chestnuts roasting". The Nat King Cole Trio were the first to record it, in 1946 - he was so into it, he recorded it again with a string section which became a massive hit. He recorded it again, this time with a full orchestra conducted by Nelson Riddle, and guess what, he laid it down a fourth time in 1961. That last version is regarded as the definitive one (and the one saved in the Library of Congress), while the 1946 version is the one in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

But that isn't even the interesting bit of the song's story. It was written in July 1945, during a particularly hot summer. The pair were trying to think of cool things in order to stay cool, but what Wells initially thought was just an exercise in thinking cool thoughts, became a song once Tormé saw the words and added some music and more lyrics.

Nat King Cole: The Christmas Song (tv performance)

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Similarly, the same year, in that same Hollywood heatwave, Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne embarked on a similar exercise in staying cool in the excessive heat. The result was the penning of another staple of the season, Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

It is not overtly a Christmas tune, that word does not feature in the lyrics; but there are ample references to Christmas-time things, like snowstorms, fireplaces and popcorn. The original 1945 version by the perhaps less well known Vaughn Monroe was actually the highest charting in the US, but it is probably the one by ol' blue eyes that is better known.

Frank Sinatra: Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let Me Know! (official video)

Old-School Composition:

Love it or hate it (guess which camp I fall into 😁), but All I Want For Christmas Is You is something you will almost certainly hear at least one trillion times each holiday period.

The first of its eight thousand releases was back in 1994, becoming what The New Yorker inexplicably described (the writer was clearly drunk at the time) as being, "one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday cannon." It is somehow the biggest selling Christmas song of them all - at least 20 million singles sold, and royalty payments are currently estimated (in 2023) at over $100 million!

Other magazine writers were also obviously over-indulging while listening; Emma Green, writing in The Atlantic, referred to the songs "Hegelian dialectic of Christmastime desire, taking the conflicting notions of abundance and specificity and packaging them neatly into an earworm for the generations." I don't want to do Ms Carey a disservice, but I just don't see her as a staunch follower of eighteenth century German idealist philosophy!

What is perhaps less known is that Mariah Carey started the composition of this 'classic' on an old school Casio keyboard in a small room in the house she was living in at the time (Upstate New York) - adding words that reminded her of Christmas and feeling festive.

A sad festive story:

Now we have a somewhat sadder tale to bring you. Lyricist, Richard Smith was being treated for tuberculosis at the West Mountain Sanitarium in Pennsylvania in 1934.

To help him get through some awful days he reflected on seeing Honesdale Central Park (also in Pennsylvania) covered in snow; he set about composing the lyrics that would become one of the definitive classics, Winter Wonderland. The composer Felix Bernard added the now legendary tune - and it was first recorded later that year by band leader Richard Himber.

It has been recorded now by well over two hundred artists, from Guy Lombardo and The Andrews Sisters, to Perry Como and Johnny Mathis. Like the first story, Tony Bennett liked it so much, he recorded it no less than three times - in 1968, then again with the Count Basie Orchestra, and then as a 2014 duet with Lady Gaga.

Sadly, Smith died in 1935, never recovering from his bout of TB, and never saw his song achieve all of that success.

Tony Bennett: Winter Wonderland (live at his A Swingin' Christmas)

Have yourself a very metal Christmas:

Not sure what your young relative should be doing over the Christmas holidays? Well how about get someone famous to read them a special festive story? How about that person is the totally not scary front man for legendary metal band, Metallica. Yes, hot off the press in 2025, you can let the child in your life relive Twas The Night Before Christmas, read by James Hetfield!

This anonymously released poem of 1837, since attributed to Clement Clarke Moore (or possibly Henry Livingston Jr) has had the Metallica treatment. As their website suggests, "Grab your cocoa and settle in by the fire before your long winter's nap for a reading of Twas The Night Before Christmas by Papa Het."

James Hetfield: Twas The Night Before Christmas (audio only)

Not only that, you can follow that up with Metallica's drummer Lars Ulrich reading The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas! This is a story originally apparently written by two members of that musical colossus, McFly. Ulrich read it word for word for Jo Whiley's BBC radio show a few years back - but sadly, the recording is not currently available on their site.

Festive Surgery:

Now, we bring you a story pretty fresh off the press: When an East Yorkshire man had a nasty accident switching the blade on his angle grinder, an urgent trip to Hull University Training Hospital was needed. John Dawson was in danger of losing his fingers as a result, so went in for surgery. He was offered the chance to play something festive in the operating room, to take his mind off things during the procedure.

It turned out that Mr Dawson has played in a local covers band, Chapter Four, for well over five decades - and during the Covid pandemic he penned a festive tune of his own, Santa's Still In Lockdown. So, he chose that one, with the medical team realising it was his song when he started singing along to this tune. Surgeon Majid Al-Khalil admitted, "We've never put on a song that a patient wrote - that is very unusual!" Whatever,  it must have worked, as he has been told he has a great chance of playing his guitar again

Christmas Code:

Okay, when we talk about Christmas classics, we have to start and end with Irving Berlin's White Christmas. It has been recorded by dozens of famous singers down the years, but perhaps the definitive version is that by the King of Crooners himself, Bing Crosby. But, did you know, his version took on extra significance in 1975.

In the spring of that year, things were not going well for American forces in Vietnam, to the point where they were looking at how to safely evacuate all of the military and civilian personnel from Saigon. White Christmas was designated as the secret code that the evacuation was about to commence.

On 30 April 1975, not a particularly festive time of the year, Armed Forces Radio had the message for the people in Vietnam's capital, "The temperature in Saigon is 105 degrees and rising", followed by the playing of the song, and people knew it was time to go....

Bing Crosby: White Christmas (official video)

Given yesterday's sad news - it would not be right to sign off by paying brief tribute to Chris Rea, who died aged 78, just a few days before Christmas.

The Middlesbrough singer-songwriter who penned one of the most enduring festive tune, Driving Home For Christmas. He wrote it ten years before it finally came out in 1988, spurred on by a time when he was poverty stricken, banned from driving and had to get his girlfriend (and later wife) to come and pick him up from London to take him home for Christmas.

To stay on brand, as an interesting aside, he joined local band Magdalene in 1973, replacing a certain David Coverdale, who had recently left to join Deep Purple!