by Ace Collins
It had been chestnuts that started Wells’s strange train of thought. He had seen his mother bring in a bag of them to stuff a turkey for dinner. Wells was thrown back to the days when he saw vendors selling chestnuts on New York City street corners. Yet while Wells was after nothing more than an attempt to “think cold,” Mel caught a glimpse of a song in the phrases he had written. With the temperature in the nineties and both men sweating through their clothes, they got to work on what was to become a Christmas classic. It took just forty minutes. The assigned movie title songs were pushed aside as Wells and Torme climbed into a car and drove away to show off their latest song.
Torme knew all the great singers who worked in Los Angeles. They all liked and respected Mel’s work and most of them palled around with the singer. So when Wells and Torme dropped by Nat King Cole’s home uninvited, it didn’t seem out of the ordinary. It was just old, friendly Mel being Mel. Yet the results of that visit were monumental. After a brief greeting, Torme took a seat at King’s piano. On the hottest day of the year, Mel played the new Christmas number. It might not have cooled anyone off, but Cole was deeply impressed.
Nat King Cole had begun his career as a jazz pianist and was one of the best. Yet by the 1940s, it was his smooth baritone that had mesmerized fans all over the world. Even at a time when some of the greatest balladeers in history ruled the airwaves, Cole stood out. The young black man from Chicago’s voice and styling set him apart; his voice and stage presence earned him the nickname “King.”
Cole’s first huge hit came in 1946 with “I Love You for Sentimental Reasons.” A long list of well-loved songs including “Mona Lisa,” “Nature Boy,” and “Too Young” followed. During an era when America was almost totally segregated, Cole’s music erased the racial barriers, at least in music.
From the moment Torme stopped in at Cole’s Los Angeles home and played “The Christmas Song” on his piano, Nat loved it. Sensing the song was a classic, he wanted to record it before Torme could offer it to anyone else. Within days, Cole had rearranged the song to suit his voice and pacing, and cut it for Capitol Records. His instincts about the song’s potential were right. Released in October of 1946, the song stayed in the Top Ten for almost two months. Nat’s hit charted again in 1947, 1949, 1950, and 1954. Though “The Christmas Song” would ultimately be recorded by more than a hundred other artists—including Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, and even Mel Torme himself—none could ever break Cole’s “ownership rights.” The song was instantly and forevermore a Nat King Cole classic.
No one thought about it at the time, but Cole’s cut of Torme’s song became the first American Christmas standard introduced by an African American. The success of that cut helped open the door for Lou Rawls, Ray Charles, and Ethel Waters to put their own spins on holiday classics. It gave black audiences a chance to hear their favorite stars sing the carols that they loved as deeply as all other Christians. Thanks to “The Christmas Song,” for the first time in the commercial marketplace, Christmas was not reserved for “whites only.”
Cole died in his forties of cancer, while Torme lived into his seventies. Both men’s careers hit incredible high notes, and their list of honors and accomplishments set them apart from most of their peers. But no moment for either was as memorable as when they were brought together by words that were meant to simply cool off a body on a hot day.
If there is such a thing as inspired magic, it can be found in this song. When people around the world hear Nat King Cole’s rich baritone singing about cold noses and the wonderful carols that warm hearts at Christmas, they are blessed. The world has lost both Nat King Cole and Mel Torme, but their genius lives on in a song that continues to give millions the special spirit of the season—and the memory of a cool winter’s eve—each and every year.
5
DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR?
The odds of Gloria Shayne and Noel Regney coming together were long at best. Yet somehow, although born worlds apart, a Frenchman and an American found each other in the middle of the world’s busiest city and eventually teamed up to create a Christmas song that was truly inspired.
Noel Regney grew up in Europe with a deep love of music. As a young man, his effort to create new classical compositions was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. Forced into the Nazi army, Regney soon escaped to his native France and joined a group of resistance fighters. Instead of writing peaceful music, he spent the rest of the war fighting to bring peace back to France.
After the war, it was music that brought Noel to the United States, and in the late 1950s he wandered into New York’s Beverly Hotel. There, in the luxurious dining room, he saw a beautiful woman playing popular music on the piano. Though he spoke very little English, Noel was so enthralled that he boldly introduced himself to Gloria Shayne. Within a month, the man who spoke rudimentary English and the woman who didn’t understand French, married.
On the surface, Noel and Gloria’s union was very unique. What could an American woman, determined to write rock and roll, and a Frenchman, in the States to record classical music, have in common? Yet it would take the marriage of both their skill and insight, as well as their cultures and experience, to create a song that would cause millions around the world to stop, look, and listen.
By 1962, Noel had mastered English and been completely exposed to the world of American popular music, thanks in large part to Gloria’s writing a huge rock and roll hit. Teen idol James Darren had cut Shayne’s “Goodbye Cruel World” and took the number to the top of the charts. As her career took off, Gloria’s passion for writing magnified. She spent hours each day at the piano beating out new material.
While Noel saw the financial potential of popular music and heard his wife playing it every day, he still wanted to create something beautiful that would last longer than just a quick trip up the charts. The inspiration that would utilize both the man’s classical imagery and his wife’s contemporary beat was to come from yet another war, this one fought a long way from the American city Regney now called home.
Noel had often prayed that World War II would be the war that would finally end all wars. He couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to revisit the horrors he had viewed firsthand. Yet his prayer had been shattered in the ‘50s by the fighting in Korea. After Korea, Regney watched his native France, and then the United States, become entangled in a bloody jungle battle in Vietnam. As more and more young men were injured and killed, the Frenchman wondered if the world would ever find real peace.
Fighting the depression brought on by flashbacks to his own days as a Nazi soldier and then as a resistance fighter, coupled with the news he saw on television each day, Noel sought out something that would bring him peace of mind. In an effort to put his pain into perspective, he turned back to the one moment in time when he felt the Lord had given men a chance to live life without hate, fear, or conflict.
Picking up a pen, Regney wrote a poem about the first Christmas. Fighting through some of the most difficult moments he had ever faced, Noel pushed away his nightmarish memories of World War II, the news from Vietnam, and the current tension building between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.—a pressure that seemed to be pushing the world into yet another war. As he concentrated on the events leading up to the birth of Jesus, the world around him grew strangely quiet.
His memories took Noel back to a scene of sheep walking through the beautiful green fields of his native France. He considered the innocence of a newly born lamb. This was a creature whose spirit man should emulate, an animal that surely the Creator himself had touched in a very special way. Thoughts of the lamb, and a child who might have cared for it, inspired Noel to write a poem that not only described peace on earth, but which also spoke of the peace that came to earth on that first Christmas night.
“When he finished,” Gloria recalled, “Noel gave it to me and asked me to write the music. He said he wanted me to do it because he didn’t want the song to be too classical. I read over the lyrics, then went shopping. I
was going to Bloomingdale’s when I thought of the first music line.”
When Gloria returned home she discovered that she had inserted an extra note in her melody, causing her music to no longer fit Noel’s lyrics. Listening to what his wife had composed, Noel opted to add a word rather than risk losing what he considered one of the most beautiful melodies he had ever heard. So “Said the wind to the little lamb” became “Said the night wind to the little lamb.” Not only did this addition keep the music intact, but the imagery of God speaking on the wind became even more wondrous. Yet when Gloria asked him to change one more line in the first verse, Noel balked.
“I told him that no one in this country would understand ‘tail as big as a kite,’” Gloria explained. “Yet he wouldn’t change that. As it turned out, he was right. It is a line that people dearly love.”
The couple took the finished song to the Regent Publishing Company. Owned by the brothers of famed big band leader Benny Goodman, it was one of New York’s best music houses. With Noel singing and Gloria playing, the song made its professional debut. Within minutes, Regent had contacted Harry Simeone. It was his group that had scored a huge Christmas hit four years before with “Little Drummer Boy.” Simeone wanted to hear the song right away. Since the couple didn’t have a demo, Gloria recalled that this created a major problem:
“Noel couldn’t play and sing at the same time, and I had to go play for a commercial. I couldn’t break my date, so he went by himself. When he got home he told me that he had botched it up.”
Gloria and Noel had every reason to believe “Do You Hear What I Hear?” would not be recorded. Even if Regney had perfectly performed the song for Simeone, since the David Seville’s comical Chipmunks had recently scored with a novelty Christmas number, it seemed that no one was looking for a spiritual holiday song. Both were shocked when, a few days later, the Harry Simeone Chorale recorded their touching work with plans to release it as a single.
“Noel hadn’t had much success in his classical career,” Gloria recalled, “and he wanted to do something meaningful and beautiful. In this song he did.”
The couple could not have dared imagine the effect “Do You Hear What I Hear?” would have on the nation. At the height of the Cold War, millions, like Noel, were yearning for peace and hope. This carol’s combination of words and music powerfully voiced those prayers. Newspaper stories of the time wrote of drivers hearing it for the first time on the radio and pulling their cars off the road to listen. It seemed that the song didn’t just touch the world; it made people stop, look, and listen.
In 1963, “Do You Hear What I Hear?” became a Christmas standard when it was recorded by Bing Crosby. It was sung by church choirs, became an integral part of television specials, and inspired numerous magazine features and even Christmas sermons.
“We couldn’t believe it,” Gloria admitted. “So many people wrote us to tell how much the song meant to them. We didn’t know it would cause that kind of outpouring of emotion.”
Four decades after they first sang it for their publisher, Noel and Gloria have heard hundreds of different versions of their song. While each is special in its own way, Gloria explained that it was Robert Goulet’s that made even the songwriters step back and listen:
“When Robert Goulet came to the line, ‘Pray for peace people everywhere,’ he almost shouted those words out. It was so powerful!”
Goulet had gotten it right. That shout was exactly what Noel thought the whole world needed to be doing each day—demanding peace for all people everywhere.
The hands of the woman who composed the music have now been silenced by an operation that keeps her from playing the piano. Noel, whose past experiences brought the words to life, recently had a stroke; he can no longer speak, much less sing. Yet thanks to the song that brought both Gloria and Noel to the spotlight, the message of peace on earth and goodwill toward all found in “Do You Hear What I Hear?” touches millions each year.
6
THE FIRST NOEL
The First Noel” is one of the oldest Christmas ballads still sung today. Though it first appeared in print in 1833, the song goes back at least three hundred years prior to that. The exact place and time of its origin are in doubt, with both France and England claiming it as a part of their heritage. The spelling of noel would seem to indicate a French connection, though there seems to be more evidence pointing to this carol migrating from Britain to France rather than the other way around. What cannot be doubted is the faith and spirit of the song’s writer; his Christian witness comes alive each time the old carol is sung!
Just as there are two different points of view as to where this carol was first written, there are also two different ways of spelling the song’s title. In England, and sometimes in America, the spelling of noel is altered and the old carol is known as “The First Nowell.” In France it is always spelled “Noel.” What noel or nowell means in both languages is the same—a joyful shout expressing the exhilaration at the birth of Christ. Yet while the song’s anonymous writer obviously knew enough about language to use this all-encompassing term to begin the chorus, he wildly missed the mark on several scriptural points in this song. This gives us additional insight into the background of the inspired voice behind the carol.
“The First Noel” is one of the few surviving early Christmas standards that can genuinely be earmarked as a folk song. Whoever was responsible for writing this carol was obviously incredibly enthusiastic about Christmas and fully understood the wonder of Christ’s birth, but didn’t have a full grasp on the Scriptures that told the story of that birth. During the Middle Ages, this was often the rule rather than the exception.
When “The First Noel” was written, there were very few Bibles in circulation. Most were either in churches or monasteries and were written in Latin. Common people rarely saw a Bible in person, and even if they would have, they probably wouldn’t have been able to read the words in the sacred book, since most people living in those times were illiterate
This was probably the case with the composer of “The First Noel.” With no ready Bible to guide him, the writer drew from the stories he had been told about the events of Christ’s birth. Most he recounted accurately, but he erred when he depicted the shepherds following the star to Christ’s birthplace. The Bible does not mention the star with the shepherds, only with the wise men.
Another key element of this old hymn—the way in which the sentences are structured—indicates that it was written by a man with no formal language training. Phrasing in the original lyrics, such as “This child truly there born he was,” is simply not the way a learned hymn writer such as Wesley or Murray would have written. Nevertheless, the spirit found in “The First Noel” more than makes up for its lack of professional markers. That spirit, coupled with an annual Scandinavian event, probably guaranteed the survival of the old carol.
The first noel the angel did say
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay—
In fields where they lay keeping their sheep,
On a cold winter’s night that was so deep.
Chorus:
Noel, noel, noel, noel,
Born is the King of Israel.
They looked up and saw a star
Shining in the east, beyond them far;
And to the earth it gave great light.
And so it continued both day and night.
Chorus
And by the light of that same star,
Three wise men came from country far;
To seek for a king was their intent,
And to follow the star wherever it went.
Chorus
This star drew nigh to the northwest,
O’er Bethlehem it took its rest;
And there it did both stop and stay,
Right over the place where Jesus lay.
Chorus
Then entered in those wise men three,
Full rev’rently upon their knee;
And offered
there, in His presence,
Their gold, and myrrh, and frankincense.
Chorus
During the Middle Ages, English peasants had adopted the Viking custom of the Yule log. Each winter a family would go out into the woods, cut down a huge tree, drag it back home, cut away its branches, and hollow out its core. They then filled the hole with oils, spices, and other sweet-smelling ingredients, and set the log in the fireplace. Kindling was sprinkled around the Yule log, and a daughter or a wife would light the fire with a splinter left over from last year’s log. Families that burned a Yule log each year believed that good luck would befall their household.
When those who embraced this custom became Christians, they adapted the Yule log to Christmas. Eventually the timber came to symbolize the wood of the cross, and the sweet packing to represent the beautiful life Christ offered each Christian—His ultimate sacrifice on that cross. The log was brought into the home on Christmas Eve and was lit. It was hoped that the log would burn for the entire twelve days of Christmas, its embers dying January 6, the day the wise men arrived with their gifts for Jesus. If the log lasted that long, it was a sign that the household was blessed.
In England, “The First Noel” was sung each year by many peasants as they lit the Yule log. Therefore, this became the song that started the entire Christmas season. Especially for children, this carol meant the beginning of the most wonderful time of the year. Down through the ages, the tradition of the Yule log carried with it the music of this folk carol. Though its words and music were not written down, “The First Noel” survived.
For the first three hundred years of its existence, “The First Noel,” like all other carols, was not a part of religious services. New songs, even if they embraced a story from the Scriptures, were not allowed in most churches. Because the clergy disdained carols like “The First Noel,” these songs truly became the holiday voice of the people. They related the joy of Christmas, the wonder of God sending a Son to save every man and woman, no matter their station in life. The songs became part of family tradition. Many of the holidays’ most beloved songs would have been lost if common folks had not passed them down from generation to generation.
