“White Christmas” The words conjure up a mood of longing and melancholia and are perhaps America’s favorite song. That, of course, is a claim backed up by the fact that it is the highest selling Christmas song of all time, the best Christmas song in history and according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the best selling single ever to be recorded. But there is a tragedy behind white Christmas which not many know about.
White Christmas was first aired on 25th December 1941 on the Kraft Music Hall Radio Show hosted by Bing Crosby. Crosby’s soulful and somber rendition echoed a melancholia that had gripped a nation entering war. Pearl Harbor had just been bombed and Americans were coming to grips with an uncertainty of the next four years. Sons and fathers were going overseas to fight and the words “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas” was perhaps the mood of the hour. But!! This wasn’t the sad element behind the song, this of course was the atmosphere it conjured up, the real story is sadder than you think.
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Irving Berlin was perhaps the greatest composer-songwriter in American history. He had already delivered hits for Broadway and songs like “This is the Army Mr. Jones”, “ Annie get your Gun”, “God Bless America”, “Easter Parade”, and “Happy Holidays”. Berlin wrote hundreds of songs making him a legend in his time.
White Christmas” was to be his greatest song ever and yet he was a Jewish and did not celebrate Christmas. So why did he write the song?
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Irving Berlin faced two tragedies in his life. His first marriage to Dorothy Goetz ended just after six months when his wife died of typhoid. However, that did not impact him to write the song. Years later he married again but death would return to haunt him a second time. He lost his firstborn son on Christmas day in 1928. The child was just three years old. Since then, Berlin and his wife marked Christmas day by visiting their baby’s grave every year.
Berlin’s loss touched him grievously and prompted him to write the song “White Christmas”. Although various sources state that he wrote the song while staying with a friend in Banning California, Jody Rosen author of White Christmas: The Story of an American Song, says otherwise.
"The kind of deep secret of the song may be that it was Berlin responding in some way to his melancholy about the death of his son," This was the real tragedy behind White Christmas.
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According to Rosen, this was Irving Berlin’s way of coping with his profound loss. It is devastating for anyone to lose a child but on Christmas day? Christmas will be meaningless. His sadness and deep sense of longing was reflected in the song.
White Christmas was written primarily for the musical and used in the movie Holiday Inn. It went on to win Berlin an Oscar for best song. White Christmas was ultimately made into a Hollywood musical by the same name starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Vera Lynn and Rosemary Clooney.
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Bing Crosby’s rendition set the mood for White Christmas which induced a nostalgic homesickness in troops on the war-front and in the trenches especially during Christmas. It became the most popular request where Crosby says he never really wanted to do the song because of the sadness and longing it induced in men. "Heaven knows, I didn't come that far to make them sad. For this reason, several times I tried to cut it out of the show, but these guys just hollered for it."
White Christmas will always be America’s favorite Christmas song synonymous and symbolic of those yearning to be close to families and loved ones during Christmas. It has been covered by all great artists including Elvis Presley, Jim Reeves, Nat King Cole and a host of modern artists.
Here’s the original White Christmas video as Crosby sang it in 1941.