[Dixielandjazz] White Christmas, Long, delete if not interested

[Robert Ringwald]

The Best-Selling Record of All
'White Christmas' and the reasons it endures
 by Roy J. Harris Jr.
Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2009

It was a peaceful song that became a wartime classic. Its unorthodox, melancholy
melody -- and mere 54 words, expressing the simple yearning for a return to happier
times -- sounded instantly familiar when sung by America's favorite crooner. But
67 years after its introduction, some still are surprised to learn that Bing Crosby's
recording of the Irving Berlin ballad "White Christmas" became not only the runaway
smash-hit for the World War II holidays, but the best-selling record of all time.
Such unrivaled success reflects everything from record-industry trends to the sweep
of global history. But it all begins with the songwriting genius of a Russian immigrant,
born Israel Baline, who had just turned 54 when Decca recorded the track on May 29,
1942, and already had to his credit hundreds of hits like "Alexander's Ragtime Band,"
"Blue Skies," "How Deep Is the Ocean?" and "God Bless America." (Berlin, 101 when
he died in 1989, would have many more across a seven-decade career.)
Equally brilliant, though, was Berlin's insistence that "White Christmas" be introduced
by the internationally popular Crosby. Perfectly suited to the casual, romantic style
of the then-39-year-old, Berlin's lyric and tune blended the message, about longing
for past Christmases, with suggestions of a love song, resonating with families being
separated by war.
"'White Christmas' is an icon that transcends analysis for me. It has the simplicity
that Berlin always tried to imbue his songs with," says Michael Feinstein, among
the premier interpreters of the American Songbook. But Berlin's kind of simple is
anything but to the ears of some music commentators.
"We know the song so well that we barely know it at all," Slate's Jody Rosen writes
in his 2002 book "White Christmas: The Story of an American Song." Berlin biographer
Philip Furia believes the songwriter's lack of formal musical training -- he composed
mostly on the black keys of F-sharp, often transposing songs with a specially modified
piano -- led to songs that "subtly depart from the most fundamental tenets of songwriting."
While others might have stressed "dreaming" and "Christmas," for example, "Berlin
deftly emphasizes the seemingly unimportant 'I'm' with a whole note, then races over
the other syllables" before the next whole note, "white."
Rob Kapilow, playing as he is interviewed, notes how "White Christmas" eschews the
usual "bridge": the countervailing melody normally following a song's first 16 measures.
Berlin's opening bars "take you up the scale of yearning in their chords," and repeating
them immediately heightens the impact. "Hear the minor chords for 'listen' and 'glisten'?"
asks Mr. Kapilow, known for his "What Makes It Great?" lecture series. "It's heartbreaking."
Exactly where and when Berlin composed "White Christmas" is a mystery, because he
offered varying accounts. He wrote in his New York and Beverly Hills homes and in
hotels, often depositing songs in what he called "the trunk" for later use. "White
Christmas" started as escapist Depression-era fare -- a mournful satire for a Broadway
review. The song's introductory verse, expunged by Berlin from some early sheet music,
and infrequently performed today, places the singer in "Beverly Hills, L.A.," "longing
to be up North." (The verse, Mr. Feinstein notes, "weakens the impact by forcing
the listener to interpret things in a certain way.")
Berlin finally pulled "White Christmas" from the trunk for the movie "Holiday Inn,"
in which Crosby and Fred Astaire tell a story through a calendar full of songs. During
production, though, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Crosby gave its first public
performance -- unheralded and unrecorded -- on his Dec. 24, 1941, "Kraft Music Hall"
radio program. The Decca 78 rpm wasn't released until just before the film's September
premiere, as American recruits streamed overseas, many to snowless Pacific climes.
"Songs make history, and history makes songs," Berlin told an interviewer weeks before
Decca's recording, suggesting that he expected good things for "White Christmas."
(He once bragged that it was not only "the best song I ever wrote, it's the best
song anybody ever wrote.") Still, he later conceded that the extent of its success
shocked him. Irving Berlin Music Co., which collects royalties for his heirs, won't
discuss totals. But a spokesman says he's "comfortable" saying that "Crosby's single
is the best-selling record of all time." Guinness World Records puts its sales at
more than 50 million copies, with album and other sales taking the total above 100
million.
Berlin had worried how "Holiday Inn" would showcase the song -- reportedly hiding
behind a set to observe Crosby singing it to co-star Marjorie Reynolds. He paid scant
attention to orchestra leader John Scott Trotter's rendition with Crosby, backed
by the Ken Darby Singers. In the 1940s, though, partly because of the war, radio
broadcasting turned from live to recorded music. Disc jockeys, playing Crosby's "White
Christmas" repeatedly, fueled demand for 78s to mail overseas.
Longing for Christmas snowfall was hardly a common image before Berlin's song. And
Christmas carols, not secular songs, dominated the seasonal music scene. (After the
success of "White Christmas," songwriters followed with similarly wistful hits, including
"I'll Be Home for Christmas" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.")
What had inspired Berlin? As a Jewish youth in Brooklyn, he experienced Christmas
as an outsider, at neighbors' homes. Some biographers suggest that the death of his
infant son, Irving Jr., from a heart ailment on Christmas Eve 1928 sharpened his
sad holiday associations. But Berlin loved Christmastime, hating only how his film
work often made for holidays away from his family back East. In 1937 a movie-industry
friend surprised him with a short film designed to cheer him. Shot in advance, it
pictured Berlin's family waving to him from a wintry home, as snow fell outside.
Mr. Furia suspects that Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" also
might have influenced him, since the poem and song both use "the simplest of rhymes
and barest of imagery to evoke a beautiful but melancholy scene." Jody Rosen writes
that Berlin owes a debt to the poignant American "Home Songs" of Stephen Foster.
Whatever Berlin's inspiration, Mr. Kapilow figures that the power of repetition in
the war years laid the groundwork for its later success. Carl Sandburg may have explained
that early popularity best in an article marking Pearl Harbor's first anniversary:
"We have learned to be a little sad and a little lonesome, without being sickly about
it. This feeling is caught in the song of a thousand juke boxes and the tune whistled
in streets and homes, 'I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas.' When we sing that song
we don't hate anybody.... Away down under, this latest hit of Irving Berlin catches
us where we love peace."

_____

Mr. Harris is a journalist and author in Hingham, Mass.
 

--Bob Ringwald K6YBV
rsr at ringwald.com
Fulton Street Jazz Band
916/806-9551

Check out our latest recording at www.ringwald.com/recordings.htm

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those
who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
Thomas Jefferson, 1762-1826
 

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