Two sons of Chicago put "The Christmas Song" on the holiday music map: Mel Tormé, who co-wrote the tune, and Nat King Cole, who first recorded it and made it a perennial yuletide favorite.
One of the most beloved holiday classics has a legacy that harks back to Chicago. Windy City native Mel Tormé wrote “The Christmas Song” with Bob Wells in July 1945, and the song was first popularized by another Chicagoan, Nat King Cole, who grew up on the South Side. The performing rights organization BMI has cited “The Christmas Song” as the most performed holiday tune of all time.
Often known as “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire,” after its opening line, “The Christmas Song” will be performed by members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Wilkins, in the annual holiday revue Merry, Merry Chicago!, running Dec. 18-23.
Cole, the first to record the song (in 1946 with his trio), made four different versions between 1946 and 1961. The latest recording is one that most listeners know.
Composed in Southern California during a summer heat wave, the song was created as a distraction from the sweltering weather. Inspired by a few lines that Torme saw jotted down in a notepad by his friend and lyricist Bob Wells, while visiting his pal’s home in Toluca Lake, the two quickly realized that they had the start of something special. Tormé then sat down at the piano, and they finished writing the music and lyrics in less than an hour.
In his autobiography, It Wasn’t All Velvet (Viking, 1988), Tormé recalled, “Improbable though it may sound, ‘The Christmas Song’ was completed in about 45 minutes. Excitedly, we called Carlos Gastel [manager of Nat Cole and Peggy Lee], sped into Hollywood, played it for him, then for [lyricist] Johnny Burke, and then for Nat Cole, who fell in love with the tune. It took a full year for him to get into a studio to record it, but his record finally came out in late fall of 1946, and the rest could be called our financial pleasure,” referring to the bountiful royalties the song has generated over time.
Cover art for the album "The Christmas Song: 20 Unforgettable Versions"
