1942Released
2:57

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about White Christmas. By Songfacts®.

This 8-line song that paints a picture of holiday nostalgia was written by Irving Berlin for the 1942 movie Holiday Inn, where Bing Crosby sings it from the perspective of a New Yorker stranded in sunny California during Christmas. In the film, the song begins with this verse: The sun is shining, the grass is green The orange and palm trees sway There's never been such a day In Beverly Hills, LA But it's December the 24th And I'm longing to be up north Crosby recorded a version of the song for release as a single with the Kim Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra on May 29, 1942 - a few months before the movie hit theaters. At the advice of Bing's record producer Jack Kapp, this original first verse was excised as it made no sense outside of the context of the film. Now starting with the familiar, "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas," the song became a huge hit, going to #1 on the Billboard chart (measuring sales) in October, and staying in the top spot for 11 weeks, taking it through the first two weeks of 1943. Irving Berlin wrote another holiday song that Crosby also sang in the film: "Let's Start the New Year Right." This was released as the B-side of the "White Christmas" single.

The song enjoyed a sales resurgence every Christmas after it was first released in 1942. It went to #1 that year in America, and again reached the top spot in 1945 and 1947. The song appeared on various Billboard charts every year until 1963 when it finally dropped off the Hot 100. A perennial seller for an entire generation, the song is by far the biggest-selling Christmas song of all time, and most likely the biggest-selling single of all time. Sales figures from the 1940s and 1950s are rough estimates, especially the worldwide numbers, so there's no way to know for sure, but Guinness World Records estimates "White Christmas" at #1 with 50 million sold (they picked a nice round number), far ahead of the estimated 33 million for Elton John's 1997 tribute to Princess Diana, "Candle In The Wind '97," at 33 million. The only other song sometimes mentioned in this discussion is Bill Haley's "Rock Around The Clock."

Bing re-recorded the song on March 19, 1947, again with the John Scott Trotter Orchestra because the original masters had been worn out from all the pressings. This is this version that is most often heard today.

Top Listeners

Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of White Christmas.
AKey
MajorMode
3/4Time Signature
131BPM

Album

The album White Christmas is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released White Christmas.
Geffen
© 2017 UMG Recordings, Inc.
A Geffen Records Release; ℗ 1942 UMG Recordings, Inc.

See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.

Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.

5.8MArtists
73.5MSongs
12.3MAlbums
6.3KGenres
2.5MLabels
493KPlaylists