Fresh Air - The Stories Behind Your Favorite Christmas Songs

Episode Date: December 21, 2025

To celebrate the holidays, we’re looking back at four archive Fresh Air interviews discussing popular Christmas songs: First, jazz singer Mel Torme tells Terry Gross about co-writing “The Christmas Song” on a hot summer day, in an interview from 1977. Then we hear from songwriters Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane in 1989 about making “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and then Martin drops in again in 2006 to discuss the song’s long impact. Finally, musician Jon Batiste sits at the piano with Terry in 2024 to play some other favorite holiday tunes live.Listen to an episode of NPR's All Songs Considered podcast on the origin and impact of “The Christmas Song.”Listen to 40+ years of Fresh Air's archives at FreshAirArchive.org. To access bonus episodes, sponsor-free listening and to support public radio, become a Fresh Air+ supporter at plus.npr.org/freshair.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, it's Terry Gross, back with another Fresh Air Plus bonus episode. Just a quick note before we start. This is a special episode because we're making it available to all of our listeners. Usually these Plus episodes featuring interviews from our archive are just available for our Fresh Air Plus supporters. But in the spirit of the season, we wanted to give everyone a chance to listen. If you're already a Plus supporter, we want to say thank you. We always appreciate your support.

But if you're not yet, we hope you'll consider joining. It's a great way to support public radio, and you'll get access to all our weekly bonus episodes, including a Q&A episode I'm doing with our co-host, Tanya Mosley, next week. So you can sign up now at plus.npr.org slash fresh air. Again, that's plus.npr.npr.org slash fresh air. Okay, let's get started with today's episode. To celebrate the holidays, we're featuring the composers of two of the best-known and most enduring Christmas songs. We'll go back to 1977 when jazz singer Mel Tour May told me the story behind co-writing the Christmas song,

the one that begins chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Then we'll hear from Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine, who co-wrote, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. We'll conclude with something recent from last year when John Batiste was at the piano, playing and talking with me about his favorite Christmas songs. So here's the late jazz singer Mel Tourmet back in 1977, when Fresh Air was still a local program in Philadelphia, talking with me about co-writing the Christmas song with Bob Wells. One of the songs that you sing is one of your own songs,

which is the Christmas song, a song that around this time of year, you hear on the radio and you hear just walking along the streets, and you hear it on television, you hear it wherever you go. How chestnuts roasting on an open fire Jack Frost nipping at your nose Yuletide carols Being sung by a choir And folks

Dressed up like Eskimo How did you write it? Very simple story Bob Wells and I wrote the Christmas song together. We were songwriting partners. I went out to his house in Toluca Lake, California, on virtually one of the hottest July days I can remember in 1945. I went out to work.

We worked every day. We wrote every day. Walked into the house, he was nowhere to be seen. And I walked over to the piano. And on the piano was a spiral pad, notepad. And on that spiral pad was written in pencil. 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. Now that's a very key line. Because when Bob finally came into the room, I said, what is this, Bob, this thing on the piano? He said, I'll tell you, I was sweltering today. I was so hot today waiting for you to get here. He said, I thought I'd write something down,

something that would cool me off. I said, hey, that's a great, idea, and you know, this just might make a song. 25 minutes later, the song was finished. And that's the way we wrote it. How did it come to you, like in a musical comedy in the movies where Mickey Rooney's walking down the street and starts writing Manhattan?

No, not really. It actually came to me and to us, to Bob and I, because it was inspired by those four lines. As I say, he wrote the original four lines, and by the way, I want to give due credit. We were a songwriting team. I was the basic composer, but I'm a lyricist too, and I'm very proud of my lyric writing. Bob was a superb lyricist who also had very fine, keen, musical insights as well on a composing basis.

So we were a songwriting team. Bob wrote the most important words to that song, because the first four lines are really the most important. They're the ones that people remember. They're the absolutely most important lines of that song. Bob Wells wrote them. But that triggered the rest of the song. on. That's what inspired it.

It's a beautiful melody. Whose recordings of that are your favorite? Well, there's one. And you know the one, don't you? Nat King Cole. And so I'm offering this sample phrase to kids from one to 92. Although it's been said Many times, many ways, Merry Christmas

To you He was the first and the best And everybody, you name them, have recorded that song There are over 500 different records of the Christmas song That have been printed, published, pressed, whatever you want to call it, But the Nat Cole version, not out of sentimentality, believe me, but out of the pure feeling that he got for the song. And what it means to Bob and I, Bob and me, that's still the best record.

Do you have a wing of your house or a jet plane that is a result of the royalties of that song? Well, not exactly a jet plane, but I could have bought a jet plane with it because the royalties have quite candidly, and I say this with tremendous gratitude, been utterly enormous. We both figured out Bob and I over the years, because we wrote it well over 30 years ago, I remember we wrote it in 45. It came out in 46, by the way.

We were a little bit too late for, even in July, we were a little bit too late for that Christmas season. So it came out in October of 46. We have each made over a million dollars a piece on that song. That's on the level. And it's staggering.

It staggers me. When we finally figured out what our royalties had been, and that, of course, covers records, sheet music, what we call the ASCAP performance ratings on it. It's mind-blowing. It just absolutely kills me. Did anyone tell you, any publishers or music companies tell you that it would never make it, it would never work?

Oddly enough, that's one piece of music that I've been involved in, Terry, where from the very get-go, from the very left-hand corner, from the top of it, they said, hey, this is going to be, a big song but I never dreamed never dreamed and neither did Bob probably neither did Nat Cole that it would become the monster that it became

it's the biggest record that Nat Cole ever had that includes Nature Boy that includes anything that Nat ever did it is a single biggest record he ever had this message comes from Wise the app for using money around the globe when you manage your money with Wise you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit wise.com. T's and C's apply.

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Dignity Memorial. When you think about the people you love, it's not the big things you miss the most. It's the details. What memories will your loved ones cherish when you're gone? At Dignity Memorial, the details aren't just little things, they're everything. They help families create meaningful celebrations of life with professionalism and compassion. Find a provider near you, visit DignityMemorial.com. That interview with Mel Tourmet was recorded in November, 1977. Tourmet died in 1999.

Next up is an excerpt from my 1989 interview with the songwriting duo Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine. They wrote my favorite Christmas song, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. It's just one of the songs that wrote for the classic 1984 Judy Garland musical, Meet Me in St. Louis, which Turner Classic movies almost always plays around Christmas. Here's Judy Garland.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Let your heart be light. Next year all our troubles will be out of sight. Have yourself a merry little Christmas Make the Yuletide game Next year all our troubles will be miles away Once again You're Martin and Ralph Blaine, welcome to Fresh Air.

Thank you, Terry. Thank you for having us. One of the things I really love about Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is that, well, so many of the Christmas songs have these, like, cheerful platitudes, and this is such a kind of brooding song about loss in a minor key.

Tell me the story behind writing the song. Well, it began with the melody. I found a little magical-like tune that I liked but couldn't make work. So I played with it for two or three days, and then I threw it in the waistbasket and forgot about it. But Ralph, bless his heart, tell her how you reacted. I remembered that little melody, and it kept haunting me. And I came into the room from then, I said,

Hugh, what did you do with that little melody that you were fooling around with at the piano? Like a madrigal? He says, I threw it in the waistbasket. I said, oh, no. I think I've got a great idea You mustn't do that We dug around in that waistbasket And we found it

Thank the Lord we found it Yes And then we wrote a lyric Which nobody liked Especially Judy Because it was extremely sad And tragic Can you sing it the way it was around

Have yourself a merry little Christmas It may be your last Next year we will all be living in the past Have yourself a merry little Christmas Pop that champagne cart Next year we will all be living in New York York. And we thought that was just dandy because it was a sad scene, but they said, no, no, it's a sad scene, but we want a sort of an upbeat song, which will make it even sad if she's

smiling through her tears. So then we wrote the one that you know in the movie, and then there was another version, Ralph. Then one day, Frank Sinatra called us and said he wanted to record the song, but he couldn't sing, have the line about mud, until then we'll have to muddle through somehow. So he said, give me a happy line and I'll record the song. It was because of the title of his album, which was a jolly Christmas. He wanted us to jolly it up a bit. And Hugh came up with the line Hang a Shining Star upon the highest bow, and Sinatra was delighted and recorded the song. In fact, he's recorded it three times. Hang a shining star upon the highest bar.

And have yourself A merry little Christmas night. That was an excerpt of my interview with songwriters Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine from 1989. Blaine died in 1995, but I had Martin on again in 2006 when he was 92 years old. He revealed something about Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas that he felt he couldn't mention in the interview we just heard. He also had just recorded a lovely version of the song. Hugh Martin, Merry Christmas and welcome back to Fresh Air. I think about you all the time around Christmas

because I hear your song Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas all the time What's it like for you at Christmas When your song is all over? Well, I just received a little demo from my publisher with about 11 new versions of Have Yourself And I tell you, it really had an emotional impact on me It made me feel so connected

with a generation that's not my generation I really was moved to tears by it. What are some of your favorite, like all-time favorite versions of the song? Well, my all-time favorite versions are from the olden days. It was Judy Garland, of course, always tops with me. And Mel Tor May, who wrote a beautiful new verse for it, which is really out of this world. Once again as in olden days, happy golden days of yours.

Loving friends who are dear to us Will be near to us And Frank Sinatra You can't beat Mr. Blue Eyes And the strangest versions you've ever heard The strangest version was by a group called Twisted Sister Have you ever heard of them? Yes. I don't think I know their version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

That was really weird. Are they sang it? Well, I think as we speak, our producers are looking for a copy of that, and by the time this is over, I bet we will have it. Oh, another beautiful one is, have you heard of this group called Celtic Woman? No, no, I haven't. Well, there are a bunch of Irish girls with beautiful voices, very high, and they are beautiful. Merry Little Christmas Make the U-Type game Now, you once told the story on our show

About how you and your late partner, Ralph Blaine, wrote Have Yourself and Merry Little Christmas. Can I ask you to tell it again? Well, first of all, I feel rather self-serving, admitting this, but Ralph didn't really write it, honey. We wrote our song separately, so it's words and music by me. Oh, well, good. So now you're really able to tell the complete story of your music.

I can really tell the complete story. Ralph was working in one room, and I was working in another on Meet me in St. Louis. And I played the first 16 bars of Have Your Super Marital Christmas over and over and over and got stuck. I couldn't find a bridge for it. and so I just put it aside and decided not to work on it. And Ralph, who had heard it through the walls, came to me the next day and said, whatever happened to that little madrigal-sounding melody that you were playing? And I said, well, I couldn't make it work, Ralph, and so I discarded it.

And he said, well, you find it and finish it because I have a big feeling about it. And so we did find it, and I did finish it. but the original version was so lugubrious that Judy Garland refused to sing it. She said, if I sing that to little Margaret O'Brien, they'll think I'm a monster. So I was young then and kind of arrogant, and I said, well, I'm sorry you don't like it, Judy, but that's the way it is, and I don't really want to write a new lyric. But Tom Drake, who played the boy next door, took me aside and said, Hugh, you've got to finish it.

It's really a great song potentially, and I think you'll be sorry if you don't do it. So I went home and wrote the version that's in the movie. Now, I should explain that in the 1944 movie musical Meet Me in St. Louis, when Judy Garland sings this, she and her younger sister are very, it's Christmas time, but she and her younger sister are very unhappy because their father's job is taking him from St. Louis to New York, and he's going to move the whole family to New York, and they don't want to go.

leave their friends behind. So the younger sister, played by Margaret O'Brien, is crying, and Judy Garland tries to comfort her by singing the song. Now, you said that the first version was lugubrious. What made the lyrics lugubrious? Well, I'll sing for you. Have yourself a merry little Christmas. It may be your last.

Next year, we may all be living in the past. Pretty sad. But you changed that. lyric, didn't you? Yeah, I did. The one in the movie was, let's see, have yourself a middle of Christmas. Oh, until then we all will be together if the fates allow. Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow. That was one who was in the movie. Then I got a phone call from Frank Sinatra saying I'm doing an album called A Jolly Christmas and I love your song, but it's just not very jolly. Do you think you could jolly it up a little bit for me? So then I wrote the line about

have you hang a shining star upon the highest bow. And Frank liked that and recorded it. And people, they do, sometimes they do that line, and sometimes they do the muddle through line somehow. I like the muddle through one. I like the muddle through one better, too. My guest is songwriter Hugh Martin, and here's Twisted Sister from their album, A Twisted Christmas.

As you'll hear, they use the line Martin wrote for Sinatra. Oh, ho, ho! Let's go! Ho! Let's go! Have yourself the Merry Little Christmas. Let your heart be light. From now on,

our troubles will be out of sight. Have yourself the Merry Little Christmas. Make the Yuletide day Right now on The troubles will be miles away Here we are as in olden days That peak golden days Love your

Faithful friends Who are dear to us Yeah the near to us once more Through the years We all will be together If the plane's so loud Hang a shining

Star above the highest Pearl And have yourself A Merry Little Christmas now Let's go. Ho, ho, ho! Let's go! Ho! Ho! Ho! Let's go!

Let me ask you to share with us your favorite Christmas memory, since we all have your song playing in our soundtrack of Christmas. Well, my favorite Christmas memory was of being six or seven years old, and my mother decorating the tree. And she was a very artistic woman, and she did sensational Christmas trees. So it was a real joy every year when she would decorate it. And it was a very wonderful moment. That was my favorite Christmas memory.

And what's Christmas like now? Oh, do I have to say? You don't. I'm really upset by Christmas now. I just hate the Santa Claus and the jingle bells and reindeer and the wrapped packages and the holiday push. I hate all of that. I just loved it when it was, well, all my life ago, the 90 years ago.

You liked it when it was less commercial? Oh, yes, didn't you? Well, of course, you're not old enough to remember when it was so beautiful. But I loved it when it was old-fashioned. We didn't even have electric lights on our tree. We'd have candles. Well, that's considered very dangerous now. Well, I know it is, but we didn't have any problem.

It worked out okay. We're about to hear a version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas that you recorded a year ago. That's right. And was released earlier this year in a CD that's called Hugh Sings Martin. Right. And this features recordings that you've made, you know, throughout your career, particularly like in the, I guess, in the 40s and 50s. That's right. But it has this new recording from a year ago.

You made this recording when you were 90? I was 90 years old. I don't know how I got through it. And you're at the piano, playing, and singing. It's quite beautiful. Do you want to say anything about making this recording before we hear it? Well, I just want to say, Terry, that I never would have continued singing at all if it hadn't been for you. Because you did an interview with Ralph and me in 1989, I think it was,

when St. Louis opened on Broadway. And you played a little recording of me singing the trolley song. And I was just about to stop singing because I wasn't getting all that much encouragement. But when at the end of the cut, you said, ooh, I like your singing. I like it a lot. And that thrilled me so, but I kept on singing. Well, it thrills me to hear you say that, and I still really like your singing. Thank you.

And I want to wish you a Merry Christmas, and I want to thank you for writing such a great Christmas song. Some of those Christmas songs tend to wear thin. Well, God really blessed me. Your song is so enduring. It's just one of the most beautiful and moving, I think, of all the Christmas song. So thank you so much, and thank you for talking with us again. Thank you deeply for saying that. And Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, Terry. And happy New Year, and I hope it's a very healthy one for you. I think it will be. Bye-bye. Here we are, as an olden days, happy golden days of your faithful friends who were dear to us, Gather near to us once more. Merry little Christmas now. My interview with songwriter and musician Hugh Martin was recorded in December

2006. He died in 2011. Finally, I want to play an excerpt of my interview. with pianist and singer John Batiste when he joined us at the piano last year and played and talked about some of his favorite Christmas songs. Batiste became famous as the first band leader for the late show

with Stephen Colbert. He's won Grammys and an Oscar. Let's listen. So as we speak, Christmas is coming up soon. And I don't know how you feel about Christmas music. In my opinion, some of it is just really fun. Some of it is kind of transcendent.

And some of it is so irritating, causing like the worst earworms and like just like, please don't play that again. I never want to hear that again. So what's your take on Christmas songs? Well, you know what I mean?

Charlie Brown. I love this when Vince goes. That's a deeply existential decision. And then a blues. Oh, let's see, uh, the other one. Oh, let's see, uh, the other one.

Christmas time. Yeah, aren't those both from Vince Geraldi's Charlie Brown Christmas? Yeah, I associate a lot of that series, and Vince Garaldi in general, with Christmas. I know he's done a lot more than Christmas music, but that soundtrack, that album really changed me a lot. A lot of that influence comes in to my music. Is there a hymn that you especially love That's kind of Christmas oriented And could you play and sing it

Let's see if I got Oh you know that one God Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ooh, that's got a song. God rest, ye, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay. Remember Christ, the Savior was born on Christmas Day. Satan's power

when we had gone astray oh good tidings of comfort and joy comfort and joy oh good tidings of comfort and joy

I love that melody God rest ye merry gentleman It's got a blues thing to it Let nothing you dismay. Ooh. Huh. Our, um, um,

Pems, what about, um. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know that one? That's Greenslears. Yeah. Oh, man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, over the part of the other. Yeah. The little child is this who lay to rest. And shepherds watch your sleeping. similar type of melodies you know that sound it's so it reminds me of bells ringing and in the dead of night on Christmas Eve and just snowfall and and there's a majesty to that there's a majesty to that time in that moment for many reasons obviously but there's something about that space in time

that, you know, certain Christmas music is able to manifest that feeling and that, that environment into sound. It's able to make it sound. You know, it's funny, like, what child is this that you just played? And when you played God Rescue Merry Gentleman, I never heard it as kind of minor key and dark as you played it. Oh, yeah, yeah. I like it like that. I don't know. Yeah, me too.

What uh, you know what I, uh, you know what I'm thinking. Wow. I don't know that. That's a, Ocome, O'Kam, Emmanuel. I grew up with those, too. That's amazing that those songs just have that same sound. What was church like for you? when you were growing up.

In a Catholic family, right? Yeah, yeah. I grew up in the Catholic. My mother, she grew up Baptist, and then we went to Catholic Church, but also sometimes go to the Baptist Church, and then eventually the AME Church. So I had this experience with mostly Catholic,

but then also in New Orleans, there's a lot of different manifestation of the Roman Catholic tradition is very tied to the culture and to Mardi Gras in ways that are, you know, very interesting. but it was beautiful in particular on Christmas where we'd go to midnight mass

and we would experience these hymns and people would sing and just have this majesty and this real allure for me I actually connected to it most during that time and I also learned a lot from Bach's music we talked about Bach in the past and just how Bach is somebody who in history

you know him and Duke Ellington they composed so much music but one function of why Bach was able to compose that much music besides the fact that maybe he was an alien is that he wrote for the church every Sunday and that ritual and I imagine

at some point I don't know when in my life or when I would have the setup to do that but I want to I want to participate in some sort of ritual in service to the creator where I'm composing and sharing that music, just like I experienced when I was growing up. My two favorite Christmas songs, one of them is secular, and one of them is more, you know, about Christmas and about Jesus.

So the secular one is have yourself a Merry Little Christmas from the film, Meet Me in St. Louis. And, you know, you were just talking about, like, sounding like church bells before, the opening chords of this are so church bells. And the more religious song is Oh Holy Night, which I think is just such a beautiful song. Could you play either or even both? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have yourself a merry little Christmas.

Let your heart be. Be light. Next year, all our troubles will be out of sight. That one, right? Yeah, and it's a part, the by next year part, is a part that sounds like church bells, the chords there. By next year, yes. Wow.

Wow, ooh, Terry, you got a ear. You hear that? Terry, that's it. Because, yeah, troubles will be out of sight. I love that. That lyric has, wow, wow. That lyric is one of my favorites, actually. Not that you mention it.

It has irrelevance to our time. And a great line in it, too, is until they, then we'll have to muddle through somehow. That's the one I was thinking, okay. Yeah. Someday soon, we all will be together if the fates allow. Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow. So have yourself.

A merry little Christmas now Nicely done That's a great one I'm just remembering these This beautiful stuff Do you like O Holy Night? Oh yeah, yeah, that's a No Holy Night

The stars are brightly shining It is a night It is the night, our dear, of our dear Savior's birth. Uh, long lay the world in sin and air repining, till he appeared, and the soul felt all its worth. Uh-da, wada. That's how that goes, right? Yes.

Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to remember. Oh, God, that sounds, it reminds me of this. Yeah, that's more Beethoven. And that's one of the And that's one of the Beethoven things that you reimagined on your new Beethoven blues album. of a different mind. The holy night, the stars are brightly shining. Like, this is what I'll do.

I'm hearing, like, the symmetry of both of those melodies. And the holy night, you hear that stars are brightly shining. It is the night our dear Savior's birth. Wow. There's something there. You've given me an idea. Oh, good. It is the night part, that descending line. I think that has so much drama in it. Oh, yeah. Just like the musical line.

Yes, yes. What's the part on the breath? That's the fall on your knees. That's the other drama part, the fall on your knees, yeah. Angel voices Oh night Divine Divine

Oh night Oh night Divine Oh yeah Yeah, wait Woo That's a good turn On your knee

Anytime you go to that chord It's a minor three chord That's one of my favorite progressions. You got the one chord, and then you go to the three, one, two, three. Ooh, that transition. Oh, you need that transition. It gives me chills. The angel voices.

Divine. Yeah. That's blues, see that? Yeah. I'd like you to choose. I'd like you to choose the last piece. And whether whether you want it to be. a Christmas song or a Beethoven composition or anything else whatever mood you feel like playing Is that too wide open for you? I'm going to figure it out as I play

Okay Okay Thank you. Thank you. Don't stop dreaming Don't stop dreaming Don't stop believing Because you know that our time is coming up

So let's soak up the day And dance the night away So with all you've got Don't stop I secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord

but you don't really care for music do you? It goes like this the fourth the fifth the minor fault in the major lift the baffled king composed

hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah alleloo alleloo um um Wow.

It was wonderful. And so it started with Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, went to what I think is probably an original song that I'm not familiar with, and then into Leonard Cohn's Hallelujah. Beautifully done beautiful connections in there. What was the middle piece that I didn't recognize? Yes, that's a piece entitled Don't Stop.

It was the final track from my first album, Hollywood Africans. That was beautiful. Thank you for being so generous and so interesting and illustrating so much music for us. I so appreciate it. And I also wish you a Merry Christmas. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure every time.

Thank you very much for your gift to the world. and for who you are. Much love. Oh, gosh, thank you. That was John Batiste on our show, recorded in December of last year. One quick note, if you want to hear more about the history

of Nat Cole's version of the Christmas song and what's made it special, you can listen to an episode about it on NPR's All Songs Considered podcast from December 18th. It's a great deep dive into the history of American Christmas music. A link to the episode is on our show,

notes. Our Fresh Air Plus bonus episodes are produced by Chow Too. Our engineer was Adam Stanishefsky. I'm Terry Gross. Thanks for your continued support of our work here at Fresh Air, and happy holidays.