The real meaning of "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire."

I was talking about Irish Coffees at the Buena Vista this morning with a friend and she sent me a YouTube link of a song with lyrics about those very same IC's at the BV. I liked the song but realized that it was a Christmas song.

Even though connected by the Buena Vista line, I thought that listening to a Christmas song on the beginning of a very hot July day was not the way to begin a journey to the DMV hell that I had planned.

Hmmmm, wait a minute. Didn't this very same thing happen once to Mel Torme, the "Velvet Fog"?

I suddenly remembered that Mr. Torme used to tell the story of another extremely hot July day, this one in Los Angeles in the 1940s.

Trying to escape the heat, he drove out to Robert Well's house on Malibu Beach and upon arriving and entering, he found his friend, stone cold naked, sipping a cold one and sitting at his piano. "Just what the hell are you doing?", inquired Torme.

"It's just too damned hot here," came the reply, "I'm trying to write a Christmas song. It's the only thing I can think of that may make me forget about this damned heat!"

Mel then also stripped off his clothes, poured himself a cold one, and joined his buddy at the keyboard.

The little ditty they came up with on this hot July day in Los Angeles was called, simply, "The Christmas Song" with its enduring opening line that we all remember.

So, the next time you hear about "chestnuts roasting on an open fire," perhaps you can get the double meaning of two drunken, naked guys trying to cool down their own chestnuts!

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