“The Christmas Song” by Nat “King” Cole, Friday, December 22, 2023

 

In 1944 or 1945, Mel Tormé  and Robert Wells wrote the song “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” Tormé talks about writing the song on a hot summer’s day as a list of cold weather fantasies he and Wells, his songwriting partner, brainstormed in order to think cool thoughts. The Nat King Cole Trio first recorded the song in June 1946, under the name “The Christmas Song” (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire). The group re-recorded the song in August, which became a hit on pop and R&B radio. Nat “King” Cole, as a solo artist, would record the song two more times throughout his career. Cole’s 1961 version, his fourth and final, is the version most played on radio and streamed today. That version is also in the Library of Congress to be preserved by the United States National Recording Registry.

SO, I’M OFFERING THIS SIMPLE PHRASE. On a 2021 holiday episode of Hit Parade, host Chris Molaphany talks about the phenomenon of classic hit-makers becoming reduced to their holiday legacies in what he nicknames “Chestnut Roasters.” Looking broadly from the times of Nat King Cole and Dean Martin to the birth of rock ‘n’ roll with Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” to The Waitresses’ 1981 hit to Michael Bublé’s discography, Molaphany looks at radio and streaming data, comparing the holiday tracks to the artist’s non-holiday hits. Cole was a prolific artist in his short 45-year life with multiple hits-- “Nature Boy,” “Orange Colored Sky,” “L-O-V-E”--yet “The Christmas Song” is the best-remembered song from the artist. It’s a kind of defacto one-hit wonder in the public consciousness because the public that remembers has mostly died. But that’s not the case for Michael Bublé, nor Relient K, whose Christmas catalog dominates their Spotify play count until long after the holidays. Even Mariah Carey, who has 19 Billboard Hot 100 number 1 hits over four decades, is celebrating her status as a one-hit wonder. 

TO KIDS FROM ONE TO NINETY-TWO. The disappearance of Nat King Cole and older artists’ legacies has been bothering me as I think about musical heritage. I studied jazz guitar briefly, learning some of the standards from the ‘30s to ‘40s, but even almost 20 years ago those songs were just known by the wealthy elderly as instrumentals. It makes me wonder how much of the music I love will be just a product of my time and future generations won’t care about it. Music has been recorded, books have been published, and now everything is on the Internet, a search term away--and yet who’s going to care about that article in which Paris Hilton carries a Versace bag rather than a Prada? It’s just bits of data. Is that all P.O.D., Anberlin, or  The Fray will be? Kansas, a group with a reliance of 9 million monthly listeners, said “All we are is dust in the wind,” but it seems that we’re all bits of data a solar flare away from a memory wipe. Okay, that’s maybe too pessimistic. I’ll stop. After all, in 2023 Christmas is still relevant, despite the imaginary “War on Christmas.” And as long as Christmas is relevant, the one song that gets to call itself “The Christmas Song” sung by the man who popularized the tune will be remembered, even if you prefer a lasagna to a turkey.

Read the Nat King Cole version on Genius.