As you prepare for the ball drop on 2025, listen to NPR Music's All Songs Considered podcast as we look back at the biggest songs and albums of the year, from the unmissable hits to the fascinating other stuff you might not have heard.

Search for All Songs Considered wherever you get podcasts to hear us run back some of the best of the best of

2025.

Hi, it's Terry Gross, back with another Fresh Air Plus bonus episode.

Just a quick note before we start.

This is a special episode because we're making it available to all of our listeners.

Usually these plus episodes featuring interviews from our archive are just available for our Fresh Air Plus supporters. But in the

spirit of the season, we wanted to give everyone a chance to listen. If you're already a plus

supporter, we want to say thank you. We always appreciate your support. But if you're not yet,

we hope you'll consider joining. It's a great way to support public radio, and you'll get

access to all our weekly bonus episodes, including a Q&A episode I'm doing with our co-host,

Tanya Mosley, next week. So you can sign up now at plus.npr.org slash fresh air. Again, that's plus

dot npr.org slash fresh air. Okay, let's get started with today's episode. To celebrate the holidays,

we're featuring the composers of two of the best-known and most enduring Christmas

songs. We'll go back to 1977 when jazz singer Mel Tour May told me the story behind

co-writing the Christmas song, the one that begins chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Then we'll

hear from Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine, who co-wrote, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

We'll conclude with something recent from last year when John Batiste was at the piano,

playing and talking with me about his favorite Christmas songs. So here's the late jazz singer Mel Tourme

back in 1977, when Fresh Air was still a local program in Philadelphia,

talking with me about co-writing the Christmas song with Bob Wells.

One of the songs that you sing is one of your own songs, which is the Christmas song,

...