White Christmas: The Story of an American Song [Paperback]

Jody Rosen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 27, 2007

When Irving Berlin first conceived the song "White Christmas," he envisioned it as a "throwaway" -- a satirical novelty number for a vaudeville-style stage revue. By the time Bing Crosby introduced the tune in the winter of 1942, it had evolved into something far grander: the stately yuletide ballad that would become the world's all-time top-selling and most widely recorded song.

In this vividly written narrative, Jody Rosen provides both the fascinating story behind the making of America's favorite Christmas carol and a cultural history of the nation that embraced it. Berlin, the Russian-Jewish immigrant who became his adopted country's greatest pop troubadour, had written his magnum opus -- what one commentator has called a "holiday Moby-Dick" -- a timeless song that resonates with some of the deepest themes in American culture: yearning for a mythic New England past, belief in the magic of the "merry and bright" Christmas season, longing for the havens of home and hearth. Today, the song endures not just as an icon of the national Christmas celebration but as the artistic and commercial peak of the golden age of popular song, a symbol of the values and strivings of the World War II generation, and of the saga of Jewish-American assimilation. With insight and wit, Rosen probes the song's musical roots, uncovering its surprising connections to the tradition of blackface minstrelsy and exploring its unique place in popular culture through six decades of recordings by everyone from Bing Crosby to Elvis Presley to *NSYNC. White Christmas chronicles the song's legacy from jaunty ragtime-era Tin Pan Alley to the elegant world of midcentury Broadway and Hollywood, from the hardscrabble streets where Irving Berlin was reared to the battlefields of World War II where American GIs made "White Christmas" their wartime anthem, and from the Victorian American past that the song evokes to the twenty-first-century present where Berlin's masterpiece lives on as a kind of secular hymn.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With its references to glistening treetops and sleigh bells in the snow, Irving Berlin's dreamy ballad has become a monstrously popular classic. Since its 1942 debut (softly crooned by Bing Crosby), artists from Doris Day to the Flaming Lips have recorded their own versions of the tune; it's become the world's most frequently recorded song. Music journalist Rosen offers a perfect, compact book chronicling the song's birth, initial reception and rise to popularity, simultaneously giving readers an understanding of the iconic Berlin and 1940s American popular culture. The prolific songwriter couldn't read or write music, yet composed continually, using his "musical secretary," Helmy Kresa, to pen the songs he wrote on the piano. Berlin introduced "White Christmas" to Kresa on January 8, 1940. Rosen explains the song's little-known introduction (which sets the narrator in California, longing for cold weather); offers interpretations of the song's escapist appeal (like so many popular songs of its time, it doesn't acknowledge the Great Depression's hardships); and comments on the prevalence of Jewish composers in that era's popular song business (Berlin himself was an Eastern European Jewish immigrant). The unsentimental writing and thorough research Rosen draws on such sources as Berlin's family and music scholars make this a delightful testament to the power of one simple song.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

New York Times contributor Rosen offers a thoroughly researched book that traces the history of the beloved Irving Berlin song from its conception to the present. In an accessible style, with marvelous turns of phrase, he addresses the phenomenally popular recordings by Bing Crosby, the song's pivotal role in the 1942 film, Holiday Inn, and its iconic status as one of the best-selling song sheets of the 20th century. Rosen delves into Berlin's family life, his repudiation of his orthodox Jewish upbringing, and his compositional technique. In addition, Rosen considers when the song was actually written, its popularity among troops during World War II, and the "competition" between "White Christmas" and "God Bless America" as the favorite Irving Berlin song, especially in the context of 9/11. Along the way, Rosen limns the cultural underpinnings of the song and the role of Jewish Americans in the creative arts, with somewhat mixed results; his intention is admirable, but at times he overstates his case and resorts to odd word or phrase choices. However, these and a few other errors are small distractions from one of the first available titles to treat this specific song. Recommended for all collections.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (July 27, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743218760
• ISBN-13: 978-0743218764
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,126,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Biography for a Christmas Standard, November 29, 2002

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: White Christmas: The Story of an American Song (Hardcover)

It's time to take a good look at the most popular song ever, top selling and most frequently recorded. _White Christmas: The Story of an American Song_ (Scribner) by Jody Rosen not only tells about the song everyone has heard so many times that no one really listens to it anymore, but also about the songwriter, American twentieth century history, and Tin Pan Alley and its descendants. It's a lot of baggage to load upon a pop song, but it is an amazing little song, and the book has a brisk story told with real love of the music and how it was shaped and how it shaped us.

It's a good thing that Irving Berlin didn't write about a Christmas "just like the ones I used to know." He was born Israel Baline in 1888 in a bleak town in Siberia. Russian peasants, drunk with Christmas cheer, often used the holiday as an excuse for pogroms against the Jews, and his first memory is of his house being burned down. Berlin got no formal musical training, but produced hundreds of songs. In January 1940, Berlin worked over the weekend on a song he became very enthusiastic about. He bustled into his office that Monday morning and said, "I want you to take down a song I wrote over the weekend. Not only is it the best song _I_ ever wrote, it's the best song _anybody_ ever wrote." Christmas 1942 was the first that masses of Americans, soldiers and sailors all over the world, would spend away from home, and could only dream of Christmases just like the ones they used to know. Crosby's version was shipped to them in recordings, and it topped the Hit Parade as a patriotic anthem, displacing "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition." The song signaled that recordings and performers were in and sheet music and songwriters were out. In 1957, Berlin tried to squelch an Elvis Presley version, but couldn't.

Rosen's clear, fully researched book is an essential biography of an American song classic, and will improve your understanding every time you inevitably hear the song again. It encompasses important ideas about the history of modern music, Jewish influence and assimilation, patriotism in song, and the evolution of celebrating Christmas. It is not strictly a Christmas book, for it is about much more than just the season. But it would be fine for those looking for serious and interesting reading for the holidays, or as a gift book for readers who think they have already heard all the song has to say.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely wonderful, August 16, 2003

By 

P. Meltzer (Wynnewood, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: White Christmas: The Story of an American Song (Hardcover)

I thought that this book was just outstanding. I would give it 6 stars if I could. I thought that the writing was excellent (I found myself frequently flipping back a few pages just to re-read certain passages over again), and that it was endlessly fascinating. The material on the relationship of Jews to Christmas is particularly interesting, as is the author's discussion of the myth of the "recent" commercialization of Christmas. He treats both Berlin and the song itself in a clear-headed yet loving way. I cannot recommend this little book highly enough and I congratulate (and thank) the author for a marvelously entertaining book.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, Moving, Wonderful, November 23, 2002

By 

"cbcbb" (Jacksonsville, Florida

Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: White Christmas: The Story of an American Song (Hardcover)

This is one most lively, intelligent and orginal non-fiction books I've read in years. Not only does Rosen chronicle superbly Irving Berlin's amazing rags-to-riches story and the story of his most successful song but through both illuminates a larger story of how jewish immigrants - with great creative energy and drive for success and inclusion - transformed American culture. The role that WW II played in the song's massive success is also fascinating (and timely).