White Christmas: History of a Classic Song

The morning after Irving Berlin had stayed up all night writing White Christmas, he walked into his office and demanded of his 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!"

It was 1940, and Berlin, who was arguably prophetic in his statement, had been assigned the task of writing a song for each major holiday of the year for an upcoming movie, Holiday Inn. Being Jewish, he’d found Christmas to be the most challenging part of his assignment. Bing Crosby, who starred in the movie, verified Berlin’s initial assessment after he heard the song. He agreed that Berlin had, indeed, written a winner. It would take years as a building phenomenon, but White Christmas would become the best-selling Christmas single of all time, a classic and a staple of the annual holiday music scene.

The public got the chance to hear the song for the first time when Crosby introduced it on his NBC radio show, the Kraft Music Hall, on Christmas Day, 1941. Unfortunately, no physical evidence of that broadcast survived the War. He then recorded the song for Decca Records in May of 1942 and ultimately, it sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. The movie, Holiday Inn, was released in August of that year.

The song hit its stride immediately, and the public couldn’t get enough of it. It remained so popular that a decade-plus after initial release, a movie was written around the lyrics, titled exactly as the song, and White Christmas, the movie, became the leading box office draw of 1954. Again, Bing Crosby starred.

It isn’t all that widely-known that the original master was damaged due to constant use. Crosby was called back to the recording studio in March of 1947 to re-record the already famous song. Great pains were taken to reproduce the original session, using the exact same orchestra, the John Scott Trotter Orchestra, and the Ken Darby Singers, who had accompanied the first recording. The resulting re-issue is the one that has become most familiar to the public.

Berlin’s words, penned on that fateful over-nighter in 1940, were simple and universal in their meaning. He wrote about the emotion surrounding the season and, in doing so, captured the essence perfectly. While some may live in warmer climates, most everyone has forever in modern day equated Christmas with cold and snow, and many memories have been built, as in the song, on the promise of a crisp, white Christmas morning.

The song is a musical greeting, a hope for good times and happy days. The significance of a “white Christmas” plays on the promise of a bright future and gives just as much meaning to what is implied as it does to what is literally said. The message is very childlike and since the clearest, most common feelings surrounding Christmas are pure, Berlin’s words evoke the simplest of winter pleasures. . . .

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas // Just like the ones I used to know // Where the treetops glisten // and children listen // To hear sleigh bells in the snow

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas // With every Christmas card I write // May your days be merry and bright //And may all your Christmases be white