"Christmas Time Is Here" Charlie Brown

On this episode of Christmas Merry and Bright, Raymond Arroyo, an award-winning broadcaster, New York Times best-selling author and acclaimed vocalist, unveils the hidden backstory of "Christmas Time Is Here" by Vince Guaraldi and Lee Mendelson and how they had to fight to bring us this wonderful tune.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Raymond Royo, and this is Christmas Mary and Bright
play backstories. We're revealing the origins, the backstories of some
of the most beloved songs of Christmas, really of all time. Now,
this next song has been a part of our Christmas
playlist for more than fifty years. It is a classic
that almost wasn't. The composer had a hit called cast

(00:22):
Your Fate to the Wind in nineteen sixty two. A
TV producer, Lee Mendelssohn heard the song on the radio,
liked it, and approached the musician to write some music
for a TV special he was producing. Well, that didn't
pan out, but in nineteen sixty five, Mendelssohn called this
jazz musician again to write music for Christmas special. This

(00:45):
is probably the most famous tone he wrote. But that's
not all. Vince Garaldi wrote CBS, the network that commissioned
to Charlie Brown Christmas, hated the slow animation, hated the
biblical references at the end, and they especially the jazz score. Well,
thank goodness, Lee Mendelssohn, the producer, fought for all of

(01:06):
the above, and he particularly loved one ditty Giraldi had
written for the scene in the middle of this special.
It was such a nice stretch of music that Mendelssohn
thought it needed lyrics, so he called up Johnny Mercer
and some other lyricists he knew to write them, but
nobody had time. So Mendelssohn took matters into his own hands,

(01:26):
and he wrote the lyrics you are about to hear
himself at his kitchen table, exactly two weeks before the
show aired. He called it Christmas Time is here. Garaldi
recorded the lyrics with the children's choir in San Francisco.
They slipped the song into the show at the last minute.
I love it because it's both sweet and true and

(01:48):
a little anxious. Remember the first line of a Charlie
Brown Christmas when he says, Charlie Brown, I think there
must be something wrong with me, Linus, Christmas is coming,
but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm
supposed to feel. I just don't understand Christmas. I guess
I like getting Christmas and sending Christmas cards and decorating
trees and all that, but I'm still not happy. I

(02:10):
always end up feeling depressed. And Linus responds, Charlie Brown,
you're the only person I know who can take a
wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem