"Nearly every pop music holiday song written in the past 80 years owes at least some of its DNA to one Christmas tune in particular: "White Christmas," written by Irving Berlin and sung by Bing Crosby, which he first recorded in 1942. It's reportedly still one of the best-selling songs of all time in any genre, though chart data from decades ago is unreliable."
"Songwriter Irving Berlin wasn't destined to be a Yuletide magic maker. He was born Israel Baline in Siberia to an Orthodox Jewish family; his father was a cantor turned kosher butcher. But Berlin embraced assimilation he married an Irish Catholic woman and had Christmas trees in his house. Even so, for Berlin, Christmas was a holiday shadowed by personal tragedy."
"The infant Irving Berlin Jr. died suddenly, less than a month after he was born. And at its heart, "White Christmas" is a deeply melancholic song. Most Christmas carols and pop songs were unabashedly joyful. Berlin's song represented a turn, Rosen said: "It was strange to have a song that was all about this nose-pressed-up-to-the-glass feeling." It also set a certain standard for Christmas songs that are about nostalgia, about some lost Christmas past."
White Christmas was written by Irving Berlin and first recorded by Bing Crosby in 1942. The song is one of the best-selling of all time and the Guinness Book of World Records named it the best-selling physical single in 2012. The song established a formula for modern secular holiday songs by centering melancholic nostalgia rather than unabashed joy. Irving Berlin was born Israel Baline in Siberia to an Orthodox Jewish family; his father was a cantor turned kosher butcher. Berlin embraced assimilation, married an Irish Catholic woman, and kept Christmas trees. Berlin's only infant son died on Christmas Day 1928, and the song reflects deep sadness and longing.
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