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Tuesday 28 May 2019

White Christmas

Irving Berlin wrote "White Christmas" a song that paints a picture of holiday nostalgia for the 1942 film Holiday Inn. It is the most performed Christmas song in history, with more than 500 versions recorded.


Irving Berlin foresaw its success when he wrote "White Christmas", telling his secretary, “I just wrote the best song that anybody's ever written!”

Berlin was tapped to present the Best Original Song at the 1942 Academy Awards. The Winner turned out to be "White Christmas"  and to this day Berlin remains the only Oscar presenter to present the award to him/her self in any category.

Bing Crosby's version of "White Christmas" is the best-selling single of all time, having sold more than 50 million copies. He originally recorded it on May 29, 1942 with help from the Ken Darby Singers and John Scott Trotter's Orchestra. At the advice of Bing's record producer Jack Kapp, the original first verse about being sunny in California was cut as it made no sense outside of the context of the film.


"White Christmas" became a huge hit, spending 11 weeks on the Billboard sales charts in late 1942 and early 1943.

This recording was so successful that repeated pressings supposedly wore out the master. Crosby returned to the studio on March 19, 1947, using the same backing singers in an attempt to re-create the original recording as closely as possible. The new version was the one that was a hit almost every year from 1947 through 1962. It was honoured with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1974.

Ironically Christmas was always a bittersweet time for the Berlin family. Irving and Eileen Berlin's only son, Irving, Jr., died at only a few weeks old, of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, on Christmas Day, 1928. Every year, on Christmas Day, the Berlins would lay a Christmas wreath on his grave, a tradition their heirs carry on today.

Irving Berlin was so offended by Elvis Presley's 1957 rock 'n' roll version of "White Christmas" that he had his staff call radio stations across the country, urging their personnel not to play it.


'White Christmas' ended the Vietnam War in 1975 – it was used as the radio code signal for the evacuation of Vietnamese people who had assisted the US from Saigon.

Source Songfacts

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