The world's favorite Christmas solo was actually panned at first! French poet Placide Cappeau wrote the lyrics, which became Cantique de NÉl, later presenting them to the esteemed composer Adolphe Adam, who wrote the music in only a few days. French clergy questioned whether either man was of sufficient piety to create such a thing, and one French bishop even decried the work for its "lack of musical taste and total absence of the spirit of religion." By 1855, however, the work had spread to mul...