"Merry Christmas, Darling" - The Carpenters

"Merry Christmas Darling" is a Christmas song by the Carpenters (music by Richard Carpenter, lyrics by Frank Pooler), and originally recorded in 1970.

The lyrics were written in 1946 by 20-year-old Frank Pooler, which, according to him, were about a love interest he had at the time. Twenty years later in 1966, when he was choral director at California State University, Long Beach, two of his aspiring music students, Karen and Richard Carpenter, who were beginning to have success as a local band, asked him if he had any ideas for holiday songs. According to Pooler, they had become tired of the standard holiday songs they were singing. Pooler gave them the lyrics of the song he had written from years before, and told them he did not think much of the original melody. According to Pooler, Richard wrote a new tune for the lyrics—the tune currently used—in 15 minutes. Four years later, in 1970, the Carpenters first recorded and released it as a single.