Philip Bauer performing White Christmas

Philip Bauer performing White Christmas at the Centennial Rodeo Opry in OKC's Historic Stockyards City on the December 20th, 2008

"White Christmas" is an Irving Berlin song whose lyrics reminisce about White Christmases. The morning after he wrote the song — Berlin usually stayed up all night writing — the songwriter went to his office and told his musical secretary, "Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I've ever written, I just wrote the best song that anybody's ever written!"

Berlin wrote the song in early 1940 while sitting poolside at the Arizona Biltmore Resort and Spa in Phoenix, Arizona. The original verse pokes fun at a well-off Los Angeleno who, amid orange and palm trees, longs for traditional Christmas "up north." Berlin later dropped the verse but kept the now-famous chorus. The "There's never been a day in old L.A." verse regarding Los Angeles can be heard on the famous album A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector, also known as the Phil Spector Christmas Album, in a soulful rendition performed by Darlene Love.

However, in the Wikipedia entry for Irving Berlin: According to Mr. Howard L. Gorr, a long time friend and collaborator of Mr. Berlin's, it was during one of Mr. Berlins weekend retreats at his country cabin, located in up state New York, in the small hamlet of Lew Beach that he was inspired and subsequently wrote White Christmas.

"White Christmas" was introduced by Bing Crosby in the 1942 musical Holiday Inn. In the film, he sings it in a duet with Marjorie Reynolds. The song went on to receive the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Though Marjorie Reynolds was the actress playing Linda Mason, her voice was dubbed by Martha Mears for the movie, and in the script as originally conceived, Reynolds, not Crosby, was to sing the song.

The first public performance of the song was also by Crosby, on his top-rated NBC radio show The Kraft Music Hall on Christmas Day, 1941; the recording of that performance is not believed to have survived. He recorded the song with the John Scott Trotter Orchestra and the Ken Darby Singers for Decca Records in just 18 minutes on May 29, 1942 and it was released on July 30 as part of an album of six 78-rpm songs from the film. At first, Crosby did not see anything special about the song. He just said "I don't think we have any problems with that one, Irving." The song initially performed poorly and was far overshadowed by the hit song of Holiday Inn, "Be Careful, It's my Heart".[2] By the end of October, "White Christmas" topped the "Your Hit Parade" chart and remained in that position until well into the new year.(It has often been noted that the mix of melancholy — "just like the ones I used to know" — with comforting images of home — "where the treetops glisten" — resonated especially strongly with listeners during World War II and the Armed Forces Network was flooded with requests for it. In 1942 alone, the song spent eleven weeks on top of the charts. It returned to the #1 spot again during the holiday seasons of 1945 and 1946 (on the chart dated January 4, 1947), thus becoming the only single in history with three separate runs at the top of the U.S. charts. Eventually, Crosby's "White Christmas" single sold more than 50 million copies. The Guinness Book of World Records currently lists the song as a 100-million seller (this encompassing all versions of the song, including on albums).

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