Wednesday, December 5, 2007

White Christmas- the classic Christmas song

Christmas songsTalk about all time hit Christmas songs, Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" is surely to be included in the list. I first heard the song when I was seven or eight year old kid and it was played at the Christmas party. This Christmas song was written by the American composer and lyricist Irving Berlin in early 1940. It is said that Berlin worked for whole night and the next morning he told his secretary-""Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I've ever written — hell, I just wrote the best song that anybody's ever written!"

It was Bing Crosby who first made the public performance of the song on Christmas, 1941 in his popular radio show The Kraft Music Hall but unfortunately the recording is said to have destroyed. He introduced this Christmas song in the 1942 musical Holiday Inn where he sang the song in a duet with Marjorie Reynolds. In the film, however, Reynolds' voice was dubbed by Martha Mears. Initially the song was not so popular but during the end of the year, it remained at the top of the charts for eleven long weeks. "White Christmas" went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Later in 1945 and 1946, it returned to the top of the charts, being the only song to be on the chart busters for three seasons. People are mainly familiar with the 1947 version of "White Christmas" that Crosby recorded in Decca studios due to the damage of the original record. However I have got the classic clip of the original "White Christmas" from the film Holiday Inn sung by Bing Crosby.



You can find the lyrics online. More than 50 million copies of this Christmas song by Crosby has been sold and in the Guiness Book of World records this song is listed as a 100million seller encompassing all versions of the song.

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