Christmas Waltz

Jule Styne, Sammy Cahn

Sometimes a Song this week is the delightful “Christmas Waltz,” a song literally demanded by Frank Sinatra, who was about to throw his hat into the ring with his own release of the extraordinarily popular, White Christmas,” first recorded by Bing Crosby for the Irving Berlin musical, “Holiday Inn.” Frank wanted a really excellent tune worthy to fill the flip side of his version of “White Christmas.”

And who did Frank Sinatra turn to when he needed a song? Sammy Cahn, one of the most prolific and award-winning songwriters of the 20th century, and that’s saying something. Sammy was a splendid lyricist, who eventually wrote so many songs for Sinatra that people in the business jokingly called him Frank’s “personal songwriter.” Sammy Cahn said that all of his music came about as the result of joy, a bright outlook on life and art that he learned from the Vaudeville shows he fell in love with in his early youth in New York. He confessed that most of his songs built to what was then c…