Welcome to Things Worth Remembering, our weekly column in which writers share a poem or paragraph that all of us should commit to heart. This week, Mene Ukueberuwa reflects on ‘White Christmas,’ and how the song that debuted weeks after Pearl Harbor echoed the homesickness of a nation at war.
When you think of “White Christmas,” there’s a good chance you can recall every note of Bing Crosby’s crooning delivery, along with the cooing backup vocals of the Ken Darby Singers. After all, you’ve probably heard it hundreds of times: It’s the best-selling single in the history of the world.
For young and middle-aged folks, “White Christmas” is a quintessential secular Christmas song. The lyrics evoke a man staring out his window, pining for snow and a more innocent past while he writes Christmas cards to distant relatives and friends. The sentiment is beautiful and could be felt by anyone, in any time period.
But to its original audience in 1941, it was impossible not to associate “White Christmas” with war. The song was first performed publicly on Christmas Day that year by Crosby on his NBC radio show The Kraft Music Hall, less than three weeks after a Japanese air raid killed 2,403 Americans at Pearl Harbor and dragged the U.S. into what was certain to be a grinding and deadly struggle. Tens of thousands of men volunteered for the U.S. armed forces that month, and many more had joined or been drafted the previous year. Their families could only dream of a Christmas like the ones they used to know.
The song wasn’t composed in that context. Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas” in 1940 as part of the music for Holiday Inn, a film from Paramount Pictures that had nothing to do with the war and little to do with Christmas. In the film, which would debut in 1942, the lead character played by Crosby opens an inn that takes guests only during holidays. “White Christmas” is one of many holiday-themed numbers in the film; the original standout was “Be Careful, It’s My Heart,” a Valentine’s Day piece.
Legend has it that when Crosby first heard the song, he wasn’t particularly moved by it, and certainly didn’t expect a hit. His only comment to the songwriter after one early rehearsal was: “I don’t think we have any problems with that one, Irving.”
But by the time Christmas season arrived in 1942, his impression—and the song’s meaning—had changed. The thought of snowy treetops and carefree children was a balm to soldiers and sailors who had gone or were preparing to go overseas. Servicemen requested it again and again on armed forces radio stations, and by mid-November, Billboard accurately predicted it would be the top-selling record of the year.
Crosby became as enchanted as anyone else. In a 2016 article, his nephew Howard Crosby recalled: “I once asked Uncle Bing about the most difficult thing he ever had to do during his entertainment career. He said in December 1944, he was in a USO [United Service Organizations] 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 GIs 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.”
The song became even more popular after the war—so much so that the record company, Decca Records, wore out the original master tape by 1947 and summoned Crosby to produce the rerecorded version we know and love today. Seeking to capitalize on the song’s success as well, Paramount released a second movie, White Christmas, in 1954.
The follow-up film captures how the spirit of the song transformed after the war, from longing amid uncertainty to sweet nostalgia in victory. Crosby plays a version of himself: a showman who performs “White Christmas” for soldiers abroad, before later organizing a benefit concert after the war to help a warmhearted general who’s fallen on hard luck.
The film closes with the benefit concert—an enormous Yuletide spectacle. The main cast, including Rosemary Clooney and Danny Kaye, sings “White Christmas” on stage wearing shimmering Santa suits and gowns, surrounded by 10-foot-tall Christmas trees and at least 17 costumed children.
The scene might seem schmaltzy to today’s viewers. But imagine the families who viewed it in theaters. Singing along with every word were young fathers who had found good jobs after struggling for years once they left the service; mothers who had worked on the home front and prayed for their loved ones to return; and children who were beautifully, blissfully unaware of what their parents had been through. During the war, “White Christmas” seemed to say, We’re gonna make it back to normalcy, someday, somehow. Nine years afterward, it said, Thank God almighty, we made it back. The movie draped that feeling in glory and opulence, and it became the highest grosser of the year.
Many of the children who saw the film back then grew up to become the first generation to hear “White Christmas” the way we do today: as a gorgeous Christmas song for any time or place. It’s a privilege to be able to hear it that way. But hopefully, we can also remember the dark moment from which it emerged, and better appreciate each peaceful Christmas we enjoy.
Things Worth Remembering will be back in your inbox next Sunday. In case you missed it, last week, Tim DeRoche made his case for why ‘Gremlins’ isn’t just a classic Christmas movie; it’s a prophetic critique of the modern West.