Good Evening Talk

I don't know. You think that worked with kids today?

Probably not. They went Super Nintendo or Tickle Me Elmo

Is that what the big one is? Good evening, everybody

Welcome to our part of the program this evening

Welcome to our little Christmas concert here at Constitution Hall

What a pleasure it is to be back in Washington on a cold, dreary day

But very happy to be with you tonight and thrilled to death

To sing with the National Symphony Orchestra. (Applause)

We're going to sneak them in a little bit at a time, you see

Now, although this is a Christmas concert iguess most of the songs

I'll be doing tonight are Christmas songs

But at the end, I thought I'd maybe do a couple of my own songs

Just sort of. (applause)

You just did that to make me feel good

And it worked we thank you very, very much for coming out

This song is one that I wrote quite a few years ago

At the request of Frank Sinatra. As a matter of fact

Frank's daughter had just given him a granddaughter

A little girl whose name was Angela

And Frank called me back in Aspen and said

That this had somehow changed his life

That he had a completely new perspective on everything

Out of the miracle of this little baby in his life

And he asked me if I could somehow

Maybe write a Christmas song about that

Well, I had a brand new little baby boy

At that time whose name was Zachary

And I sat down with my friend Joe Henry

And we talked about what Christmas meant to us

And how it changed over the years

And this is the song we came up with