Annie Zaleski

But I think this is another one where his vocal performance just nailed it.

He just nailed the... You're not having a good Christmas, basically.

If you're having... Anyone who's having a melancholy Christmas and not having a great year, he really captured it.

And it's funny enough, the writer actually was inspired by Gloomy Day when he actually wrote it, Jay Johnson.

And he was actually known for penning scripts for radio shows.

He wasn't necessarily a songwriter.

He was commuting from Connecticut to New York City, and it was a rainy day.

And he basically wondered why someone hadn't written a holiday song with some blues in it.

And so he decided to write one himself.

And he teamed up with a composer friend named Billy Hayes, and they put it together.

So she actually wrote it with a collaborator of hers, Walter Afanaseff, who he also co-wrote Hero and One Sweet Day.

And so they were writing a lot of songs together, you know, and she loved Christmas.

I mean, I think that's obvious if everyone looking at it now, she really leans into it because of the song, but she loved Christmas.

And so she basically wrote this song, you know, it was a silly love song, you know, a whimsical love song, not silly, but whimsical, that she's basically waiting for her beloved, you know, that she's going to be underneath the Christmas tree, you know, waiting underneath the mistletoe, waiting for them to come up.

You know, and it's one of these songs that I'm still trying to figure out why it's become so popular and why it is just endured and why that one in particular has become a standard.

And I think it's probably because, you know, you have her, she really leans into the vocal performance.

She really goes for it.

And the instrumentation as well is, you know, kind of old fashioned.

You know, you have sleigh bells, you have piano, you know, with a little bit of a different production that could have come out in another decade.

You said that and I immediately started singing that in my head because, yeah, it is one of those memorable songs that like her hook with that.