Bing Crosby's White Christmas hit has devastating backstory and played important role in wartime
It’s the most famous Christmas song of all time. White Christmas, first performed by Bing Crosby in 1941, has now sold over 50 million copies, and has also been recorded by artists including Michael Buble, Shania Twain, Gwen Stefani, Frank Sinatra, The Drifters, Bette Midler, Lady Gaga and Meghan Trainor. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, having featured in the 1942 movie Holiday Inn, and was also the inspiration for the 1954 movie White Christmas.
Acclaimed composer Irving Berlin reportedly wrote the song in 1940, although it is believed he may have been working on the tune as far back as 1935. He was Jewish and didn’t celebrate Christmas, but his son Irving Jr died on Christmas Day in 1928 when he was just three weeks old, and each year Irving and his wife Ellin would visit their baby’s grave. “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,” says Jody Roslin, author of White Christmas: The Story of an American song.
Bing Crosby recorded the song for the musical movie Holiday Inn, in which he starred with Fred Astaire, Marjorie Reynolds and Virginia Dale. Another song written by Irving for the movie, Be Careful, It’s My Heart, was expected to be the film’s big hit, but White Christmas went on to top the American charts in October 1942, and stayed there for 11 weeks.
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The song became popular with troops who were away fighting during the Second World War, many of whom were touched by lyrics such as “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, Just like the ones I used to know,” and “May your days be merry and bright, And may all your Christmases be white,” words that were especially poignant for those stationed in hot countries abroad.
The Armed Forces Network was flooded with requests for the song, copies of the single were sent in care packages to boost troop morale, and Bing was always asked to sing it when he performed overseas.
“I once asked Uncle Bing about the most difficult thing he ever had to do during his entertainment career,” his nephew Howard Crosby said in an interview. “He didn’t have to think about it. He said in December, 1944, he was in a USO show with Bob Hope and the Andrews Sisters. They did an outdoor show in northern France. … At the end of the show, he had to stand there and sing White Christmas with 100,000 G.I.s in tears without breaking down himself. Of course, a lot of those boys were killed in the Battle of the Bulge a few days later.”
Bing rerecorded the song in 1947 and again for 1954’s White Christmas, in which he starred with Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen. In 1972, while being interviewed by Michael Parkinson, Bing revealed how important the song was to him.
“White Christmas did so much for me and I am eternally grateful to Irving Berlin for writing it and making it. The song is now identified with me and used every Christmas, it’s the song that had the most influence on anything I have ever accomplished.”
