Things you didn't know about Bing Crosby's White Christmas! Behind the Christmas Hits

It is not at all a stretch to say that this is one of the most important songs to ever be recorded in music history. This is the story of White Christmas.

Written by Irving Berlin and sung by Bing Crosby for the 1942 movie, Holiday Inn. Crosby played Jim Hardy – an entertainer who turns his farm into a vacation spot that would only be open on holidays. 

Irving Berlin was commissioned to write a song about each of the different major holidays.

Legend has it that he told his musical secretary back in January 1940 to type up the lyrics to a song he had written over the weekend in La Quinta, California, just outside Palm Springs. He said, tongue-in-cheek, “not only is it the best song I ever wrote, it’s the best song anyone ever wrote.”  

Once the call came for Holiday Inn, he pulled White Christmas out of his trunk.  
 
During production of the movie, and still months before it would be released, Bing Crosby sang the song for the first time on his live radio program on Christmas Eve, 1941, 18 days after the attack on Pearl Harbour. Crosby announced that he would debut a new Irving Berlin song from his upcoming movie. He wouldn’t actually record the song in a studio until the following May.

When the movie premiered in August of ‘42, it was the Valentine’s Day song “Be Careful, it’s My Heart” that was released as the first single. And looking back, few critics even mentioned White Christmas specifically in their reviews. Remember – there was a song for every holiday.  
 
Some people think Christmas music starts earlier now than it used to. Well consider this, White Christmas was released on October 3, 1942 and was #1 on the Billboard chart by Halloween. It remained at #1 until January 1943. In fact, it’s wild success is credited by some for shifting the entire focus of the music business. During the 30’s and early 40’s, selling sheet music was huge. That’s how the writers of the tin pan alley era, including Irving Berlin, made a lot of their money. With the enormous success of Bing Crosby singing White Christmas, people didn’t want to learn how to play it – they wanted to hear to Bing sing it. 

Copies of the song would be bundled up and sent to troops overseas. Christmas 1942 was American servicemen’s first holiday away. Some have wondered if the US had entered the war sooner, would the song have struck the same chord that it did in 1942? 
 
Whether it would have or not, doesn’t really matter. White Christmas became the world’s best-selling single of all time. 50 million copies sold…and that’s just the Bing Crosby version. If you add in everyone else’s, it’s over 125 million. 
 
The song would usher in a new wave of Christmas music. Prior to White Christmas, traditional hymns like Silent Night or novelty songs like Santa Claus is Coming to Town dominated the season. The success of White Christmas directly led to more nostalgic feelings of home expressed in songs like I’ll Be Home for Christmas and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.   
 
It won the Oscar for Best Original Song of 1942 and of course, inspired a movie of it’s own with Bing, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen in 1954.   
 
Over the years, Bing Crosby recorded a few different versions – the one heard most often now was recorded in 1947. If you hear the flutes at the beginning, you know that’s the version you’re listening to. 

Thanks for joining us! For more stories Behind the Christmas Hits, hit subscribe!