Jerome Kern was once asked to describe Irving Berlin’s place in American Music and he replied “Irving Berlin has no place in American music. He is American music.” One song he wrote early in the 1940’s proves the point. The song I’m referring to is none other than “White Christmas.” Around for nearly eight decades and still beloved today—whether referring to the song or the 1954 movie—brings wonderful memories for many. Today’s blog explores the history of the melodious tune and how it became a classic.
There’s a story that says that Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas,” while staying at the La Quinta Hotel in La Quinta, California, though the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, Arizona, insists that Berlin wrote it there. It’s unknown for certain. At one point, he told his secretary, “I want you to take down a song I wrote over the weekend. Not only is it the best song I ever wrote. It’s the best song anybody ever wrote.” The song was introduced to Bing Crosby, though Crosby initially wasn’t a fan of the song. He doubted its potential, but little could he have ever predicted how synonymous the song was going to become with his career.
Crosby first performed the song on his NBC Radio show The Kraft Music Hall on Christmas Day, 1941, not long after Pearl Harbor. He would later record the song with the Ken Darby Singers and the John Darby Orchestra playing the tune at Radio Records in Los Angeles. The song was later written into Paramount’s Bing Crosby/Fred Astaire-led film Holiday Inn (1942). Although “Holiday Inn’s,” “Be Careful, It’s My Heart,” was the bigger hit at first, “White Christmas,” won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and it rose to the top of many radio charts, including Billboards, where it remained for 11 weeks. Despite “hit” status, Bing Crosby continued to deny its success, also being quoted as saying “a jackdaw…could have sung it successfully.” But Crosby’s alliance with the song still wouldn’t stop.
Irving Berlin initially began negotiations with Paramount for a film based on his song as early as 1948, though it wasn’t made until 1953. Paramount had intended to reunite Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire from “Holiday Inn,” and Blue Skies (1946). Astaire declined due to disliking the script and his desire to be released from his Paramount contract. He was replaced by Donald O’Connor who later quit due to illness. He was replaced by Danny Kaye, with Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen as Crosby and Kaye’s respective love interests.
“White Christmas,” was Paramount Pictures’ first film produced in the VistaVision process, which was a widescreen format invented by Paramount, which doubled the surface area of 35 mm film. The film became a universal hit, and was the highest-grossing film of 1954, earning 12 million dollars in theatrical rentals. It even earned Berlin another Best Original Song Oscar Nomination for the song “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep.”
Bing Crosby’s original 1942 recording was damaged from constant playing, though it was rerecorded in 1947 by Crosby, and the Darby Singers with the Trotter Orchestra. That is the version most often heard today, and has sold about 50 million copies. One of those copies caught the attention of a five-year-old Michael Buble, which triggering his interest in jazz. Buble himself recorded the song as a duet with Shania Twain on his Christmas album in 2012. Their duet was re-recorded by the cast of Glee that same year. Gwen Stefani and Meghan Trainor also recorded their own versions: Stefani sang the duet version with Seth McFarlane in 2017, and Trainor sang her solo version in 2020.
The movie-musical “White Christmas” was adapted for Broadway in 2008. It opened at the Marquis Theatre on November 23rd, 2008 and played a total of 53 performances. The show received two Tony Award Nominations for Best Choreography and Best Orchestrations, and in addition to including many of the film’s beloved songs, the show also featured Berlin songs that were not written for the movie, including “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm,” and “Let Yourself Go.” The show was revived the following year in 2009, and played again the Marquis for a total of 51 performances.
Transitioning from pages of music, to movie screens, to the Broadway stage, “White Christmas,” is a special song for many reasons. It’s a song that’s about the kind of Christmas we all want and/or hope to have with lyrics like “Where treetops glisten and children to listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow.” And the irony is, even if we don’t get to experience a white Christmas (which we usually don’t in Texas), just listening to the song itself can still warm our hearts during the holiday season: “May your days be merry and bright. And may all your Christmases be white!”
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