“The Christmas Song”: Nat King Cole’s Timeless Holiday Classic

“The Christmas Song,” which is sometimes called “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” or “Merry Christmas to You,” is a Christmas song written in 1945 by Robert Wells and Mel Tormé. The Nat King Cole Trio first recorded the song in June 1946. Cole requested a second recording of “The Christmas Song” be made in August. This version became a massive hit on both the pop and Rhythm & Blues charts. Cole re-recorded “The Christmas Song” in 1953 and 1961. The 1961 version is generally regarded as definitive, while the original 1946 recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1974. Do you believe in Jack Frost?

“The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole

According to Tormé, “The Christmas Song” was written in July 1945 during a very hot summer. When it was surprising, he wrote a song about Christmas. It was in an effort to “stay cool by thinking cool” that the most-performed Christmas song of all time was born.

“I saw a spiral pad on his (Wells’s) piano with four lines written in pencil”, Tormé recalled. “They started, ‘Chestnuts roasting…, Jack Frost nipping…, Yuletide carols…, Folks dressed up like Eskimos.’ Bob didn’t think he was writing a song lyric. He said he thought that if he could immerse himself in winter, he could cool off. Forty minutes later, “The Christmas Song” was written. I wrote all the music and some of the lyrics.”

Major Recordings of “The Christmas Song”

First recording

Recorded on June 14, 1946, it was not issued until 1989, when it was included on the various-artists compilation Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits (1935–1954).

Second recording

Recorded on August 19, 1946. The song was available on the Cole compilation CDs Capitol Collectors Series and Christmas for Kids: From One to Ninety-Two, as well as on a CD called The Holiday Album, which has 1940s Christmas songs recorded by Cole and Bing Crosby.

Third recording

Recorded on August 24, 1953, it was the song’s first magnetic tape recording. This recording is available on the Cole compilation CD Cole, Christmas, & Kids, as well as on the various-artists CDs Ultimate Christmas and Casey Kasem Presents All Time Christmas Favorites. It was also included, along with both 1946 recordings, on the Mosaic Records box set The Complete Capitol Recordings of the Nat King Cole Trio.

Fourth recording

Recorded on March 30, 1961. This rendition was the first of “The Christmas Song” recorded in stereo, and it is the version that is widely played on radio stations during the Christmas season. Cole’s 1960 album “The Magic of Christmas” replaced “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” The song today is available for streaming, download, and on vinyl and CD. This recording of “The Christmas Song” has also been included on numerous compilation albums of Christmas pop standards.

Covers

There were several covers of Nat Cole’s original record in the 1940s. The first of these was said to be by Dick Haymes on the Decca label, but his was released first, not recorded first. The first cover of “The Christmas Song” was performed by pop tenor and bandleader Eddy Howard on Majestic. Howard was a big Cole fan, and also covered Nat’s versions of “I Want to Thank Your Folks” and “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons,’ among many others.

Nat King Cole

Nat King Cole was born Nathaniel Adams Coles on March 17, 1919, and he died of Lung Cancer on February 15, 1965. He was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole’s career as a jazz and pop vocalist started in the late 1930s and spanned almost three decades, during which he found success and recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts. “The Christmas Song” was one of his biggest hits.

Cole began his career as a jazz pianist in the late 1930s, when he formed the King Cole Trio, which became the top-selling group (and the only black act) on Capitol Records in the 1940s. Cole’s trio was the model for small jazz ensembles that followed. Starting in 1950, he transitioned to become a solo singer billed as Nat King Cole. From 1956 to 1957, Cole hosted the NBC variety series The Nat King Cole Show, which became the first nationally broadcast television show hosted by a Black American.

Some of Cole’s most sucessful singles include “Unforgettable,” “Smile,” “A Blossom Fell,” “Nature Boy,” “When I Fall in Love,” “Let There Be Love,” “Mona Lisa,” “Autumn Leaves,” “Stardust,” “Straighten Up and Fly Right,” “The Very Thought of You,” “For Sentimental Reasons,””Embraceable You,” and “Almost Like Being in Love.”

His 1960 Christmas album, “The Magic of Christmas” (also known as “The Christmas Song”), was the best-selling Christmas album released in the 1960s and was ranked as one of the 40 essential Christmas albums (2019) by Rolling Stone. In 2022, Cole’s recording of “The Christmas Song” broke the record for the longest journey to the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100, when it peaked at number nine, 62 years after it debuted on the chart, and was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry.

Cole received numerous accolades, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (1960) and a Special Achievement Golden Globe Award. Posthumously, Cole has received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1990), along with the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award (1992), and has been inducted into the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame (1997), Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2000), and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame (2020). NPR named him one of the 50 Great Voices.

Conclusion

“The Christmas Song” is one of the most played Christmas songs of all time. It is a song that is associated with the Christmas season. Written by Bob Wells and Mel Torme, it was performed by Nat King Cole.