The Christmas Waltz

"The Christmas Waltz" is a Christmas song written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne for Frank Sinatra, who recorded it in 1954 as the B-side of a new recording of "White Christmas",[1] in 1957 for his album A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra,[2] and in 1968 for The Sinatra Family Wish You a Merry Christmas.[3]

Cahn recalls, "One day during a very hot spell in Los Angeles the phone rang and it was Jule Styne to say, 'Frank wants a Christmas song.'"[4] Cahn resisted. "Jule, we're not going to write any Christmas song. After Irving Berlin's 'White Christmas'? The idea's just ridiculous."[4] Styne was emphatic, however. "'Frank wants a Christmas song.'"[4]

The two met in Styne's apartment to begin work on the project, and Cahn asked the composer, "'Hey, Jule, has there ever been a Christmas waltz?' He said no. I said, 'Play that waltz of yours.' He did so,"[4] and Cahn began work on the lyrics of "The Christmas Waltz", which many other artists have also recorded.

Referring to the line that goes, "And this song of mine, in three-quarter time," Cahn writes, "You'll notice there's an impure rhyme in that lyric, 'mine' and 'time'."[5] He notes that another of his collaborators, Jimmy Van Heusen, would not have let him get away with such an imperfection but that Styne was not quite so rigid.[5]

For what would become the B-side of "White Christmas", Sinatra first recorded "The Christmas Waltz" with a chorus as well as an arrangement by Nelson Riddle on August 23, 1954.[6] On July 16, 1957, Gordon Jenkins took over the arranging, and The Ralph Brewster Singers provided backing vocal on the recording for A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra.[6] On August 12, 1968, Riddle again provided arrangements, but it was The Jimmy Joyce Singers who lent their voices to the recording for The Sinatra Family Wish You a Merry Christmas.[6]

In 1992 Mel Tormé made a recording of the song for his first-ever Christmas album, for which the liner notes indicate that "Mr. Cahn wrote a new full set of additional lyrics as a personal gift to Mel."[7]

There was not a version of the song that reached any of the various charts in Billboard magazine, however, until the 2003 holiday season when Harry Connick Jr. reached number 26 with it on the Adult Contemporary chart during a two-week stay that began in the issue dated January 3, 2004.[8]