Gary North's REALITY CHECK
Issue 407 December 24, 2004
ROASTED CHESTNUTS IN JULY
One of the most popular of all Christmas songs was
written by one of America's great pop singers, Mel Torm�.
It begins, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. . . ."
It's called "The Christmas Song." It was written in 1945
and was turned into a seasonal classic in 1946 by Nat
"King" Cole -- in my book, the greatest of America's pop
singers.
That song illustrates entrepreneurship: the ability to
forecast the future of supply and demand, and then buy low
now and sell high later. You spot the opportunity when
your competitors don't. You can therefore buy low. You
sell into rising demand at the peak of the market. I can
think of no song that better illustrates the art of
entrepreneurship. Here is the story of that song, as
written by Torm�. It began with a trip to the home of his
song-writing partner, Bob Wells.
One excessively hot afternoon, I drove out to
Bob's house in Toluca Lake for a work session.
The San Fernando Valley, always at
least ten degrees warmer than the rest of the
town, blistered in the July sun... . I opened the
front door and walked in... . I called for Bob. No
answer. I walked over to the piano. A writing pad
rested on the music board. Written in pencil on
the open page were four lines of verse:
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.
When Bob finally appeared, I asked him about the
little poem. He was dressed sensibly in tennis
shorts and a white T-shirt, but he still looked
uncomfortably warm.
"It was so hot today," he said, "I thought I'd
write something to cool myself off. All I could
think of was Christmas and cold weather."
I took another look at his handiwork. "You know,"
I said, "this just might make a song."
We sat down together at the piano, and,
improbable though it may sound, "The Christmas
Song" was completed about forty-five minutes
later. Excitedly, we called Carlos Gastel, sped
into Hollywood, played it for him, then for
Johnny Burke, and then for Nat Cole, who fell in
love with the tune. It took a full year for Nat
to get into a studio to record it, but his record
finally came out in the last fall of 1946; and
the rest could be called our financial pleasure.
http://snipurl.com/chestnuts
If you are a writer of pop songs, and you want a
large, thrift-free annuity, you eventually think about
writing a Christmas song. That's what Hugh Grant's father
had done in "About a Boy," and Grant had never worked a day
in his life as a result. He hated the song, but he loved
the royalties.
In 1945, the operational model was already there:
Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," which was written in
1940 and became an instant classic when Bing Crosby recorded
it in 1942. All over the world, 1942-44, American troops
listened to that song every Christmas. It reminded them of
home -- though not my father. He had grown up in southern
California. Stationed for three years in Cairo, he hated
that song. He would turn off the radio whenever he heard
it after the war. For all I know, he still does.
Crosby's version has sold over 30 million copies.
Estimated total sales: 125 million copies -- the biggest-
selling song of all time. Not bad for a Jewish songwriter.
There is nothing like the free market to encourage
ecumenical celebration.
A LUCKY BREAK?
July is not the time of the year when most song
writers would have sat down to write "Chestnuts roasting on
an open fire." But Wells was motivated by the heat of the
San Fernando Valley in an era before home air conditioning
was common to write a few lines about winter's most famous
holiday season. Torm� read it, spotted the opportunity,
and together they spent the most profitable 45 minutes in
song-writing history.
"White Christmas" remained the most popular Christmas
song for six decades. Then it faltered.
According to a 1998 press release from the
American Society of Composers, Authors and
Publishers (ASCAP), "White Christmas" remains the
number one performed Christmas carol, and is the
most recorded Christmas carol (over 500 versions
in "scores of languages"). The other top five are
"Santa Claus is Comin' to Town," Mel Torm�'s "The
Christmas Song," "Winter Wonderland," "Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and Leroy Anderson's
"Sleigh Ride."
[Note: Calling these songs Christmas carols reveals a
decided lack of cultural awareness.]
By 2003, however, "White Christmas" had slipped
to the number two position on their list of
Christmas songs. The number one song was "The
Christmas Song" (Mel Torm� and Robert Wells).
http://snipurl.com/numberone
Think about the chain of events. Torm� walked in the
door, presumably after knocking. His friend was missing.
He called out his name. No answer. He wandered over to
the piano. There was a writing pad with what looked like a
poem written in pencil.
Wham! "Why not a Christmas song?" Why not, indeed?
Forty-five minutes later, stage one of their joint
lifetime annuity was finished.
It is also worth considering that the title, "The
Christmas Song," was still available.
They got on the phone to call around to promote it.
They called Nat Cole.
At this point, luck was fading in causational
significance; personal contacts were growing. Yet even
here, it was not a slam dunk. In 1945, Nat Cole was a
singer and pianist with his own jazz trio. He had been
recording for almost a decade. His one hit, "Straighten Up
and Fly Right" (1943), was no ballad. In 1945, there was
no black ballad singer singing love songs on the radio to
entertain white women. It was with "The Christmas Song"
that Cole made the transition to balladeer in the mind of
the public. What better way to make the transition out of
jazz than a Christmas song? But nobody could have guessed
this in 1945. Cole recorded it in 1946.
Was this a fluke? Surely not a Jed Clampett "struck
oil in mah own back yard" kind of fluke. Torm� had written
his first published song in 1940. Big band leader Harry
James recorded it. It made the hit parade. He was 15 at
the time. By then, he had been a singer on-stage for
eleven years. (You read it right.) He had been a child
radio actor for seven years. He had taken up song writing
at age 14.
When he wrote "The Christmas Song," he was 19. He
turned 20 in September.
Just for the record, Torm� and Wells [Levinson] were
Jewish. Think about that for a minute. A couple of Jewish
kids sat down in July to write a Christmas song, which was
recorded by a black jazz singer the next year. As a
result, they all got rich.
Only in America.
Torm� never again came close to a home run. He worked
as a singer, mostly of ballads, which he didn't like. His
voice was so lush that he was called "the velvet fog,"
which he hated, or called "the velvet frog" by his critics,
which also didn't please him. He wrote 300 songs, none of
which came close to the popularity of "The Christmas Song."
But, Christmas after Christmas, the royalty money rolled
in. This must have consoled him. He died in 1999. The
money is still rolling in, more than ever. This consoles
his heirs.
Although it's been said many times, many ways:
Merry Christmas to us.
Was he lucky? To the extent that an enormous talent
stumbles across an unpredictable opportunity and takes it,
yes. To the extent that it takes enormous talent to spot
the opportunity and take advantage of it, luck has nothing
to do with it.
I don't believe in luck. I bundle luck together with
fate and roast them both alongside those chestnuts. I do
believe in opportunities that self-disciplined people
stumble across as they pursue their occupations (for money)
or their callings (for significance).
Usually, this doesn't happen when you're 19.
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NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS
A week from now, when old acquaintances will be forgot
as surely as the remainder Bobby Burns' lyrics will be,
some of you may be tempted to make one or more New Year's
resolutions. They, too, will soon be forgotten.
My suggestion is that you make only one resolution,
and that you make it today. Take a week to think it over.
Make a few notes about how you plan to achieve it, and
when, and at what price. Then confirm it on New Year's Eve
if it's worth the effort.
Here's how I think you should think about it.
Why it is worth doing?
What happens if you don't do it?
What happens if you do achieve it?
What will you have to give up to achieve it?
If it is worth doing, then you ought to do it. Pay
the price. If you don't have enough money or time or
resources to complete it, find a successor.
Torm�'s friend Wells started the poem to cool off
mentally. That is a peculiar strategy to cooling off. Why
would any normal person do that? Answer: he wouldn't.
Wells was not a normal person. He was a poet, as song
writers must be. But there is little likelihood that he
would have achieved anything with that poem, had Torm� not
walked in the door and spotted the opportunity. Once
spotted, the first stage was completed in 45 minutes.
They had the skills to complete it in 45 minutes.
Most people don't. But in every field in which a person
has an edge, there are opportunities. If you devote
yourself to your craft, as those two did, you can achieve
more than an outsider would imagine. It is a matter of
disciplining yourself in your area of expertise to such an
extent that you see opportunities that others miss.
We don't know when the opportunity will arrive. For
Mel Torm�, it arrived at age 19. Lesson: "Strike when the
iron is hot, even it's a fireplace iron in July."
Gene Autry's wife wanted him to record "Rudolph, the
Red Nosed Reindeer." Autry hated it. She nagged him.
Finally, he consented to do a single take -- no second
chance. It sold over two million copies the first year:
1949. His version has sold over 30 million copies.
Fluke? Autry died one of the three or four richest
movie stars in Hollywood history, the owner of the
California Angels, and the author of 300 songs, including
"Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" (in the top five Christmas
songs) and "Here Comes Peter Cottontail." But he didn't
like "Rudolph."
Where did he find out about the song? It had been
sent to him by the song's writer, Johnny Marks. That, too,
is a great story of entrepreneurship. Marks' brother-in-
law Robert May had written a poem about Rudolph for his
daughter in 1939. May's wife had died that year. The poem
was a way to cheer up the little girl. He worked as a
copywriter for Montgomery Ward. The company bought the
poem from him that year. The company then used it as a
giveaway book for Christmas promotions every year. They
eventually gave away over six million copies.
In 1946, Sewell Avery, the head of Montgomery Ward,
gave the copyright to May. May then licensed the
character. Marks set the story to music. He sent a copy
to Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore. He sent one to Autry, as
an afterthought. Mrs. Autry made the difference.
http://snipurl.com/rudolph
Marks subsequently became a one-man cottage industry
of Christmas songs, writing the ghastly "Rockin' Around the
Christmas Tree" in 1958 and the tolerable "The Most
Wonderful Day of the Year" in 1964. That was a much-
appreciated stocking stuffer for Andy Williams.
CONCLUSION
Causation is mysterious. Odd things happen when you
least expect them -- in July, in the first and final take
in a recording studio, or even in a stable. It's just
amazing how things turn out sometimes.
Christmas is merry. But what you do with it in July
may make all the difference.
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