White Christmas

Perhaps no song is as associated with the season of than "White Christmas. "White Christmas" is an Irving Berlin song reminiscing about an old-fashioned Christmas setting. The version sung by Bing Crosby is the best selling single of all time.

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 by Bing Crosby, on his NBC radio show The Kraft Music Hall on Christmas Day, 1941. That recording is not believed to have survived. He later 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. Following its prominence in 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. 

Crosby's "White Christmas" single has been credited with selling 50 million copies, the most by any release. The Guinness Book of World Records lists the song as a 100-million seller, encompassing all versions of the song, including albums.[1] Crosby's holiday collection Merry Christmas was first released as an LP in 1949, and has never been out-of-print since. {Source Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Christmas_(song)} 

As mentioned "White Christmas" has been featured in two Crosby films "Holiday Inn" and "White Christmas". The latter is a 1954 Technicolor musical motion picture starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz and co-stars Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen. Here is Bing Crosby singing the song during the finale of the movie. White Christmas