White Christmas/Bing Crosby

"White Christmas" is an Irving Berlin song reminiscing about an old-fashioned Christmas setting. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the version sung by Bing Crosby is the best-selling single of all time, with estimated sales in excess of 50 million copies worldwide.

Accounts vary as to when and where Berlin wrote the song. One story is that he wrote it in 1940, poolside at the Biltmore hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. He often stayed up all night writing — he told his secretary, "Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I've ever written — heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody's ever written!"

The first public performance of the song was also by Crosby, on his NBC radio show The Kraft Music Hall on Christmas Day, 1941 and the recording 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 Holiday Inn. 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 overshadowed by the film's first hit song: "Be Careful, It's my Heart". By the end of October 1942, however, "White Christmas" topped the "Your Hit Parade" chart. It 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. The Armed Forces Network was flooded with requests for the song.)

In 1942 alone, Crosby's recording spent eleven weeks on top of the Billboard charts. The original version also hit number one on the Harlem Hit Parade for three weeks, Crosby's first-ever appearance on the black-oriented chart. Re-released by Decca, the single returned to the #1 spot during the holiday seasons of 1945 and 1946 (on the chart dated January 4, 1947), thus becoming the only single with three separate runs at the top of the U.S. charts. The recording became a chart perennial, reappearing annually on the pop chart twenty separate times before Billboard Magazine created a distinct Christmas chart for seasonal releases.

Following its prominence in the musical Holiday Inn, the composition won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. In the film, Bing Crosby sings "White Christmas" as a duet with actress Marjorie Reynolds, though her voice was dubbed by Martha Mears. This now-familiar scene was not the moviemakers' initial plan; in the script as originally conceived, Reynolds, not Crosby, was to sing the song.

The familiar version of "White Christmas" most often heard today is not the one Crosby recorded in 1942. He was called to Decca studios on March 18, 1947, to re-record the track; the 1942 master had become damaged due to its frequent use. Efforts were made to exactly reproduce the original recording session, and Crosby was again backed by the Trotter Orchestra and the Darby Singers. Even so, there are subtle differences in the orchestration, most notably the addition of a celesta and flutes to brighten up the introduction.

Crosby was dismissive of his role in the song's success, saying later that "a jackdaw with a cleft palate could have sung it successfully." But Crosby was associated with it for the rest of his career. Another Crosby vehicle — the 1954 musical White Christmas — was the highest-grossing film of 1954.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Christmas
• seasonal
• vocal
• Bing
• Crosby
• Irving
• Berlin

[karrolciaaa93]

what movie is this ?

[CookiesDen2]

Holiday Inn.

[jmom54]

Nobody can sing this like Bing.

[samwstines]

I love it

[FacesOfTheWorld]

@MumboJumboisallitalk Bloody hilarious and original, Mumbo!! *LMFAO*

[MumboJumboisallitalk]

@fearofclowns1989 - Why??... Well...Thankyou!!

[disnukka79]

What's he doing with his hands... Because there certainly isn't any piano playing in the music

[ace4160]

@CookiesDen2 I love that movie sooo much

[Mythicalpoppy811]

Ha he beat his kids

[globehunter2]

The cozy fire side mood captured in this vintage scene is priceless.Bings voice

had that bellowry tone with resonating deep depth.He truly made this song the

best Christmas song ever.

[legoadict525]

@karrolciaaa93 white christmas

[IloveyouLenaKatina]

wow, what a gem!

[TheXxnukespawnerxx]

like if ure watching this wen its not christmas cuz u like it sooo much!!!!11