|
|
|
Merry Christmas everybody!
I trust this finds you sitting around the fireplace, your feet propped up and sipping on some hot cider or cup of Joe, while listening to some of your favorite Christmas music.
This is the time of the year when even folks from Texas are thinking snow.
Spread a little of that heavy snowfall from the northeast around. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, how about you?
Music has always played a big part of the Christmas holidays because it lifts the spirit. It helps you to refocus on all that goes on this time of the year.
We wish you a Merry Christmas.
There is one song known as “The Christmas Song,” but most of us know it by the first line: “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,” which is the song’s first line, not its title.
And perhaps you already know that it isn’t as old as some of the other popular Christmas songs.
It was written back in 1944 by two men who were in show business.
Mel Torme was a famous singer, songwriter, and performer and his friend, Robert Wells, wrote song’s lyrics.
One summer day in California, the two men got together because they’d been hired to produce songs for two new movies.
Two heads are better than one, so collaboration was in order.
Neither was a stranger to working as a team, and together they made a good one.
The day was sweltering hot, and when Torme arrived at Wells’s house, he found him trying to cool off by thinking of winter scenes. Sounds logical to me.
Torme saw that his friend had written down some of these icy thoughts such as “Chestnuts roasting,” “Jack Frost nipping,” “Yuletide carols,” and “Folks dressed up like Eskimos.” Torme was inspired.
Instead of working on their assignment, the two men put their heads together and made Wells’s words into a song. As they say, the rest is history — a little of which I will continue to share.
A whopping 40 minutes later, the music and lyrics were finished.
They hurried across town to see another friend, the famous singer Nat King Cole.
When they showed him their song, Cole like it so much he wanted to record it.
Of course he did, and when it was released in 1946, “The Christmas Song” climbed to the top of the music charts.
They were singing it everywhere. It soon became a Christmas favorite.
The incredible song reached the Top 10 four more times during the next eight years.
It was eventually recorded by more than 100 other artists, including Mel Torme himself.
Another popular Christmas song is “Joy to the World.”
This carol wasn’t the work of just one person. One man wrote the words, and another composed the popular tune, nearly 100 years apart!
In 1674, Isaac Watts was born in Southampton, England.
When he grew up, he complained to his father about how boring he thought church music was.
He wished that it could be more lively and inspiring.
So, Watts’ dad asked him why he didn’t he take the responsibility to write something better. And that’s just what Watts did.
Eventually he composed more than 600 hymns and hundreds of other poems that endeared him to the Christian world.
One of these works was “Joy to the World,” based on words from Psalm 98 in the Bible.
During Watts’ time, the poem was sung to the tune of another well-known hymn instead of the one we sing today.
Here’s where the next character in the story comes in.
Lowell Mason was born in 1792 in Medfield, Mass., not far from Medford, Mass., where James Pierpont would later be born.
Many people thought he had musical talent. But he moved to Savannah, Ga., and worked as a banker.
Still, he spent time on his music and sent a book of songs that he composed to several publishers up in the northeast. The publishers rejected it.
But several years later a musical society in Boston agreed to print his songs.
Later, Mason moved to Boston, where he became the musical director for some area local churches.
Much like Isaac Watts, he wrote hundreds of new hymns that have blessed the church.
In 1836, Mason wrote a tune inspired by parts of a famous musical piece, “Messiah,” by George Handel.
Three years later, he paired his new tune with Isaac Watts’ poem, “Joy to the World,” and a popular new hymn was born.
Yes, songs have always been an important part of the Christmas story.
I guess the angels had a hand in that, didn’t they?
Randy Sheridan of Burleson is a speaker, counselor and mediator. He can be reached at drsheridan@aol.com.
Top of Page
|
