They’re not exactly DREAMING of a White Christmas in parts of the United States today. But here’s the original version of White Christmas as sung by Bing Crosby in the 1942 film “Holiday Inn”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mjb4yLMeK8
“Rat Pack” member Dean Martin, a singer who was influenced by Crosby, also recorded a beautiful version of this Irving Berlin standard:
But it was Crosby’s song and his version remains timeless — inescapable year after year from the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas day. He sang it throughout his life until his death on a Spanish golf course in 1977. Here’s PBS promo that shows him singing it during different stages of his television career:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-alYjZZwvQ
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.