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[0:00] David Armstrong: Let's watch the old year die with a fond goodbye, and our hopes as high as a kite. How can our love go wrong if we start the new year right?

[0:38] David Armstrong: Welcome to the second of two special holiday bonus episodes of Broadway Nation, the podcast that tells the extraordinary story of how immigrants, Jews, queers, African Americans and other outcasts invented the Broadway musical and how they changed America in the process. I'm David Armstrong, and I call this episode, White Christmas, the Story Behind the World's Most Popular Song, Part 2. Just like Part 1, this episode is an audio version of a Broadway Nation live show that we performed at the Vashon Center for the Performing Arts in Washington State in December of 2019. And if you would prefer to watch a video of this performance, you can stream it on their website at vashoncenterforthearts.org. In Part 1, we explored how the Jewish-Russian immigrant songwriter Irving Berlin, in addition to being one of the prime inventors of the Broadway musical, also invented an entirely new category of popular song, The Christmas Standard.

Today, we're going to explore how Berlin was aided in that endeavor by the son of Irish and German immigrants from Washington State who became one of the most popular performers of all time, Bing Crosby. Along with Judy Garland, I call Bing one of Broadway's greatest stars who never appeared on Broadway. But first, we start with Albert Evans and his in-depth analysis of the genius of Irving Berlin and the inspiration and craft that is behind the most popular song of all time. As you will remember, the last episode ended with me introducing Albert and asking him this one question.

[2:06] David Armstrong: Albert, I've asked you here tonight to answer one question and one question only.

[2:10] Albert Evans: Uh-oh.

[2:11] David Armstrong: Why? Why is White Christmas the best-selling song of all time?

[2:15] Albert Evans: Well, I've actually thought about this a lot because I love the song White Christmas, but I feel that sometimes a song can be so familiar, so much a part of our lives, that we really don't hear it anymore. It's difficult to actually get a first impression when you've heard it a thousand times. So, I want to take a few minutes to sort of look under the hood and see what makes it run. And it might be helpful to look at the music and the lyrics separately. So, first the lyric, I'm dreaming of a white Christmas just like the ones I used to know. Well, immediately we're in two worlds, the present and the past. I'm dreaming. How much more evocative that is than I'm thinking or I'm hoping for a white Christmas.

You hope for something in the future, but you can dream of something that is lost, something in the past. And the singer seems to be daydreaming in a somewhat melancholy reverie, remembering something forever gone, just like the ones I used to know. Childhood, family, security. Hanging on Berlin's office wall was a portrait of Stephen Foster, the mid-19th century songwriter who specialized in heart-tugging songs about the old home, like Old Folks at Home, My Old Kentucky Home, and many, many more. And Foster's narrators tend to wander up and down the whole creation, sad and weary, looking for their lost childhood, where the young folks roll on the little cabin floor, all merry, all happy, and bright.

Until, of course, hard times come a-knocking on the door. Foster's compositions led to a whole genre of nostalgic home songs, a genre that still flourished when Berlin was beginning his own songwriting career, and he wrote a share of them. He wrote songs like Homesick, I Want to Go Back to Michigan, When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabama. He even wrote a song called The Call of the South, which is designed to be sung in counterpoint with Old Folks at Home. So let's continue with the White Christmas lyric. After setting this mood of wistful reverie, Berlin paints the scene a bit more vividly, where the treetops glisten. This is our first indication that we're probably in the country. This doesn't sound like a city snow scene.

And children listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow. And these few images, snowy treetops, children, sleigh bells, these are surprisingly the only specifics about this dream, and yet they conjure up a whole sort of courier and I've seen. A cozy, warm homestead nestled in a snowy landscape. The hush that falls on the world with fresh snowfall. Children peering out the ice-covered window. A prancing horse pulling an old-fashioned sleigh. And the only sound, the jingling of sleigh bells. It's a New England winter, probably, where the gloss of memory transforms what must have been the actual very harsh reality into a cherished portrait of family happiness. And of course, children and sleigh bells also prompt thoughts of Santa and his reindeer.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas with every Christmas card I write. So suddenly, we're back in the present. Our narrator is now a grown-up. He's sending cards, he or she, to reach out to now distant family and friends, separated by time and distance, in an attempt to somehow recreate that lost family circle, the old folks at home. Now remember Stephen Foster's young folks rolling on the cabin floor, all merry, all happy and bright. Well, they reappear now in an almost subliminal sort of echo. May your days be merry and bright. Well, Foster's merry now links with the familiar greeting Merry Christmas, and the hoped-for bright days ahead surely are a reference to a wish for a happy new year. And the final line is a true stroke of genius.

And may all your Christmases be white. May the holidays rekindle the warmth, the wonder, the love and safety of a fondly remembered childhood Christmas. It's a masterful lyric. Simple, everyday words, mostly of one and two syllables, spare and poetic, with just enough information to allow us to add our own memories to this scene. Now, Berlin seems to have invented the phrase white Christmas, which is now, at least in the snowy states, a sort of weather report cliché. Will it be a white Christmas? With luck, we'll have a white Christmas this year. Or hopes for a white Christmas were dashed when blah, blah, blah. But even in places where it seldom, if ever, snows, a white Christmas has come to mean an ideal holiday. And palm trees and tropical plants are now festooned with artificial snow and plastic icicles. So let's turn our attention now to the music. Here's the opening phrase of white Christmas.

[7:23] Albert Evans: The melody moves stepwise. There are no sudden jumps, no tricky leaps in the tune. In fact, the melody moves chromatically. Let me explain that. Instead of moving up and down the major scale, which is the usual practice in pop songwriting, keep it simple, Berlin moves by the smallest possible amount, by half steps. A less daring writer might have written it like this. But Berlin induces a mood of cautious reverie with his chromatics, sort of curling like a wisp of smoke. And notice how the melody lifts so beautifully on the word Christmas. And then like the sun breaking through the clouds, the chromatics give way to familiar scale tones in this beautiful arch. So with this, we've shifted from the uneasy chromatic present into the warm, comforting past.

And we've also, importantly, we've reached the highest note that we'll ever have to sing in the whole song. So baritones and altos can relax. And now comes the very first melodic leap. Uh-oh, how are we going to do that? How do we know what note we're going to go to? Because every note until now has been right next door to its neighbor. But Berlin makes it easy on us. He lets us drop to the tonic note, which is the home base in the key, the easiest pitch to find. So we bend. So easy. Where the treetops glisten. And now the melody becomes more adventurous, leaving its stepwise path to introduce a couple of evocative and highly unexpected tones. The first is on glisten, and it's in the harmony.

Where the treetops glisten. Now, this sounds lovely. But if you take away all but these two notes, there's this really kind of nasty dissonance in there. But it's softened by the chord. Still, there's that slight dissonance. And I think somehow that makes the chord shine. And then Berlin repeats the phrase, but now in a slightly warmer tone. But still there's that dissonance right in the middle there. And children listen. It's lower, it's warmer, it's more hushed, so that the children can hear. They can hear those sleigh bells. There's not a lot of noise in whatever household this is. And now after that slight trickiness, Berlin takes pity on the amateur singer and reverts to easy stepwise motion.

To hear sleigh bells in the snow. We are now halfway through the song. Now Berlin now repeats the melody we've just heard, but changing only the very last few notes. So we do, I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. Just with every Christmas card I write. May your days be merry. And at that point, every note has been exactly the same as in the first half. But now it's time for a big finish. So instead of dropping down as in, and children listen. We go up to the same note, but an octave higher. Days be merry and bright. Now that's the payoff. It's the money note. It's the one that you close your eyes and hold. Yet it seems strangely easy, because it's not a stretch at all. The trick is this, we've actually sung higher in the song.

In just like the ones I used to know. And with every Christmas card I write. So days be merry and bright. Is a step lower than we've, the highest note we've sung. So at this point it feels like a piece of cake. Now there's a bit of musical sleight of hand here, and it's not in the melody, but it's in the harmony. As we hold bright, our joyful, confident, everything is going to be okay note. The underlying harmony suddenly shifts to a minor chord. While we're singing bright. It introduces a grownup shadow of concern. Maybe we're not out of the woods yet. Let's do that one more time. May your days be merry and bright. It's so happy, but. And then for the final lines, instead of climbing up to a big throat-busting climax, like the Star Spangled Banner, Berlin sort of eases us down to our lower register.

[12:55] Albert Evans: And may all your Christmases, and that note is the lowest in the whole song. This is a very unusual way to end a song. The vocal range of White Christmas is just over an octave. And so anyone, even me, can find a comfortable key and sort of sing like Bing. David?

[13:22] David Armstrong: Albert Evans, everybody. Thank you. Bing Crosby's radio debut of that song took place just 17 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. And by the time the movie premiered eight months later, America was deep into its first year of involvement in World War II, with no end in sight. Those little touches of melancholy and worry that Albert just described made White Christmas an emotional blockbuster, both for the troops overseas and those anxiously awaiting their return back home. It became a why-we-fight song, a song that was a potent reminder of home, family and country. Now that you've heard Albert so brilliantly break the song apart, let's welcome Eric Ankrum back to the stage to put it all back together.

[14:11] Eric Ankrum: I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

[14:30] ♪ Musical number: "White Christmas" — performed by Eric Ankrum ♪

[16:42] David Armstrong: Don't go away. Broadway Nation will be back right after this short break with the story of Bing Crosby. One year following the triumph of White Christmas, Billboard Magazine reported that while in the past songwriters had avoided laboring over holiday songs because experience had convinced them that the tunes were generally played on that day alone and cleared off the retail counters the day after, it was now clear after White Christmas that Christmas songs can become modern classics and that might return year after year just like traditional carols. And indeed, the holiday season of 1943, one year after White Christmas, had its own holiday hit, I'll Be Home for Christmas. It was written by veteran songwriters Kim Gannon and Walter Kent who clearly designed it as a knockoff of White Christmas.

To replicate the success, they even got Bing Crosby and the same orchestra to record it. And while the music has its own charm, the lyric is clearly very reminiscent of Berlin's. The song is written in the voice of what must have seemed at the time like that of a serviceman overseas writing a letter. He promises that Christmas Eve will find him back home with snow and mistletoe where the love light beams. He'll be home for Christmas if only in his dreams. In other words, he's also dreaming of a White Christmas. However, with the war still raging, this song struck an emotional melancholy chord and spent 15 weeks on the pop charts, rising as high as number three. And it's since become another holiday standard.

And we have to give Bing Crosby a great deal of the credit for that success. Harry Lillis Crosby Jr. was born in 1903, just a few miles from where we are tonight at 112 J Street in Tacoma. The house that was built by his father is still there. But just three years later, when he was three years old, the family moved to Spokane, where his father built another house on Sharp Avenue. Today, that house is on the campus of Gonzaga University and serves as the Bing Crosby House Museum, housing more than 200 artifacts about Bing's life and career. There are several versions of how Harry Jr. got the nickname Bing, but they're not very interesting, so we're not going to go into them tonight. But what is interesting, I think, is that the nickname stuck.

And from grade school on, everyone called him Bing. Friends, family, parents, and even teachers. He always loved music, but he really got the show business bug during high school when he took a summer job as a prop boy at Spokane's largest theater, the Auditorium, which was torn down in 1934. There he got to study up close many of the top stars of the day, especially Al Jolson, who we heard about earlier. He was touring in his Broadway musical Robinson Crusoe Jr. Bing would later say, I hung on every word and watched every move he made. To me, he was the greatest entertainer that ever lived. Now, at 14, Bing knew exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to be in show business. And he became a major force immediately in both the Glee Club and the Drama Club at Gonzaga High School, and even more so when he went to college and was involved in the choirs, the plays, and the musical performances at Gonzaga University.

In 1924, he bought a bass drum by mail order, and this got him invited to be in the band of a high school student named Al Rinker, who was five years younger than Crosby. Rinker was the brother of soon-to-be jazz great Mildred Bailey, and both of them were Native American, and they grew up on the Coeur d'Alene Reservation. The band had some success, and Bing and Al also formed a duo. The act was called Two Boys and a Piano. And they performed between the movies at Spokane's Clemmer Theater, which is still there and today is called the Bing Crosby Theater. This was Crosby's first job as a professional singer, and the gig lasted five months and gave the boys enough money and enough, you know, courage and confidence about their talents for Bing to drop out of college and take off with Al for Hollywood.

After a very brief period of struggle, they were invited to join Paul Whiteman and his orchestra, the biggest, most famous band in show business at that point. And they hooked up with a songwriter named Harry Barris to form a trio called the Rhythm Boys. This was very successful, but then in 1931, Bing broke off on a solo career, and the rest, as they say, is history. His emerging stardom coincided with the invention of the microphone. He's one of the first singers to understand what a microphone could do for you, and he became a pioneer, actually, of every new technology that was involved in entertainment in the 20th century, phonograph records, radio, and television. He was among the first in each of those mediums.

As a singer, he made more studio recordings than any act in history. 396 records of his made the pop charts. No one else even comes close. Sinatra had 209, Elvis 149, and the Beatles 68. And 38 of those recordings became number one hits. Again, nobody else is close. The runners-up are the Beatles at 24 and Elvis at 18. In the movies, he appeared in 110 films and was the number one box office star in America for five consecutive years in a row during the 1940s, and was among the top ten box office stars in 15 years. In 1944, he received an Academy Award as Best Actor for his performance in Going My Way. He was a major radio star longer than anybody else with his own radio show from 1934 to 1954 when he made the jump to television with equal and long-lasting success.

Among his hundreds of television performances, perhaps best remembered, are his 17 Christmas specials. His final appearance on television was in 1977 on a show called Bing Crosby's Merry Old Christmas. That's where he sang The Little Drummer Boy with David Bowie and closed the show singing White Christmas one final time. He died while playing golf just a few weeks after the show was taped, and it was aired in his memory. During his unprecedented 50-year career, he was without a doubt one of the most popular entertainers of all time. But I keep getting ahead of myself. We're going to jump back to 1944. The war is still raging, and another hit movie introduces a third enduring Christmas song. And although it was created for a story set in 1903, it also perfectly captured the bittersweet zeitgeist of that time.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas was introduced by Judy Garland in the nostalgic film Meet Me in St. Louis in that unforgettable scene where she desperately tries to cheer up her despondent little sister, Margaret O'Brien. It's a perfect movie moment. But 14 years later in 1957, Frank Sinatra told the two songwriters of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine, that they had to rewrite the lyrics. He told them his new album was going to be called A Jolly Christmas, and their original lyrics were just too depressing. Well, when Sinatra tells you to do something, you do it. And those revised lyrics are the ones you hear most of the time in most every recording that's been made since Sinatra's. But tonight, I've asked Kamen to sing for us the original lyrics, the ones that connected so strongly with listeners in December 1944, when the Battle of the Bulge was underway.

[25:02] Kamen: Have yourself a merry little Christmas

[26:51] ♪ Musical number: "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" — performed by Cayman Ilika, Eric Ankrum, Chris DiStefano, and Albert Evans ♪

[27:50] David Armstrong: Well, the song was right. Next year the troubles were out of sight. The war was over, and post-war optimism ruled the day. And in its wake followed a series of holiday-themed Christmas movies that are still favorites. Christmas in Connecticut in 1945, It's a Wonderful Life in 1946, Miracle on 34th Street in 1947, and Jumping in 1955, a hit movie entitled Irving Berlin's White Christmas, starring Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Danny Kaye, and my favorite dancer, Vera Ellen. And the post-war baby boom that came after the war coincided with the rise of television and brought us decades of animated specials and star-studded Christmas spectaculars. Most significantly, however, for our purposes, in the wake of White Christmas, every holiday season from 1945 to 1970 would introduce a brand new Christmas pop song that would capture the hearts of America and join the pop canon of holiday hits.

Even the advent of rock and roll couldn't slow this down. They just joined in, which brought new pop Christmas hits and some of the old standards brought back with backbeats and rock rhythms. Albert's put together an amazing medley of that incredible 15-year period, and it gives us great pleasure to present to you our holiday cavalcade of song.

[29:12] ♪ Musical number ♪

[32:25] David Armstrong: Thank you very much. But I'll have a blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue Christmas.

[32:37] ♪ Musical number: "Jingle Bell Rock" — performed by Cayman Ilika, Eric Ankrum, Chris DiStefano, and Albert Evans ♪

[36:39] applause

[36:43] David Armstrong: Nearly every major singing star over the past 70 years has recorded a holiday album. From Andy Williams, Tony Bennett, and Johnny Mathis, to Elvis, The Carpenters, and Barbra Streisand, on to Dolly Parton, Gloria Estefan, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey. This year alone, you can hear new Christmas albums from John Legend, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Las Lobos, Idina Menzel, the third holiday album from the band Chicago, and Christmas at Downton Abbey. Not surprisingly, almost all of them include the song White Christmas. Now that you know the song inside and out, this evening would not be complete without inviting all of you to join all of us in singing the world's favorite song.

[37:32] ♪ Musical number: "White Christmas" — performed by Cayman Ilika, Eric Ankrum, Chris DiStefano, and Albert Evans ♪

[38:01] David Armstrong: Broadway Nation is produced and written by me, David Armstrong, with additional writing by my special guest, Albert Evans. I especially want to thank our performers, Cayman Ilika, Eric Ankrum, Chris DiStefano, as well as Tom Spear and the staff and crew of the Vashon Center for the Arts, and of course everyone at the Broadway Podcast Network. Happy New Year! And may all your Christmas be white. Merry Merry Christmas!