Irving Berlin’s Christmas

The twelfth piece in the concert is entitled Irving Berlin’s Christmas. It is a medley of five songs by Irving Berlin (see below) associated with Christmas, though four of them actually make no mention of Christmas. This medley was written in 2010 by Michael Brown (see also below), and can be performed with a choir or string orchestra (though we are only performing the band arrangement in our concerts).

The medley begins (after a brief introduction evoking themes from “White Christmas”) with “Happy Holiday” which was composed by Irving Berlin during 1942 and published the following year. It was introduced by Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds (dubbed by Martha Mears) in the 1942 film Holiday Inn in a scene when the Inn opens for the first time. While it is commonly regarded as a Christmas song, in the film it is performed on New Year's Eve, and expresses a wish for the listener to enjoy "happy holidays" throughout the entire year.

The second song in the medley is “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm”. It was written in 1937 and introduced in the musical film On the Avenue by Dick Powell and Alice Faye. Although not strictly a Christmas song as the lyrics make no mention of the holiday, the tune has been recorded for many artists’ Christmas albums and is a standard part of the holiday song repertoire in the U.S.

“Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep”, the third song in the medley, was used in the 1954 movie White Christmas. It is commonly performed as a Christmas song, although the lyrics make no reference to the holiday.

The song arose from a personal experience of Berlin when his doctor suggested he try “counting his blessings” as a way to deal with insomnia brought on by stress. In a letter to 20th Century Fox executive Joseph Schenck, Berlin wrote:

“I’m enclosing a lyric of a song I finished here and which I am going to publish immediately…You have always said that I commercialize my emotions and many times you were wrong, but this particular song is based on what really happened. ... The story is in its verse, which I don’t think I’ll publish. As I say in the lyrics, sometime ago, after the worst kind of a sleepless night, my doctor came to see me and after a lot of self-pity, belly-aching and complaining about my insomnia, he looked at me and said “speaking of doing something about insomnia, did you ever try counting your blessings?”

Berlin then incorporated the song to the film White Christmas to advance the relationship between the characters played by Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney. The sentimental theme reminds listeners to remember how much they are blessed instead of fretting about short-term problems.

It was nominated for an Academy Award as “Best Song” but was defeated by “Three Coins in the Fountain”. It was performed on the 1955 Academy Awards telecast by vocalist Peggy King.

The fourth song of the medley, “Snow”, is also from the 1954 film, White Christmas. Again, there is no mention of Christmas. In fact, in the film, the song is performed in the dining car of a train, as the singers are headed to a resort in Vermont. Ironically, when they arrive, there is no snow (an important plot element in the film).

The final song in the medley, “White Christmas”, reminisces about an old-fashioned Christmas setting. The version sung by Bing Crosby is the world's best-selling single with estimated sales in excess of 100 million copies worldwide. Other versions of the song, along with Crosby's, have sold over 150 million copies.

Accounts vary as to when and where Berlin wrote the song. One story is that he wrote it in 1940, in warm La Quinta, California, while staying at the La Quinta Hotel, a frequent Hollywood retreat also favored by writer-director-producer Frank Capra, although the Arizona Biltmore also claims the song was written there. Berlin often stayed up all night writing, and according to legend, told his secretary, “Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I've ever written—heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody's ever written!”

The first public performance of the song was by Bing Crosby, on his NBC radio show The Kraft Music Hall on Christmas Day, 1941. He subsequently recorded the song with the John Scott Trotter Orchestra and the Ken Darby Singers and Chorus for Decca Records in just 18 minutes on May 29, 1942, and it was released on July 30 as part of an album of six 78-rpm discs from the musical film Holiday Inn. At first, Crosby did not see anything special about the song. He just said “I don't think we have any problems with that one, Irving.” The song established and solidified the fact that there could be commercially successful secular Christmas songs, in this case, written by a Jewish-American songwriter, who also wrote “God Bless America”.

The song initially performed poorly and was overshadowed by Holiday Inn's first hit song: “Be Careful, It's My Heart”. By the end of October 1942, “White Christmas” topped the Your Hit Parade chart. It remained in that position until well into the new year. It has often been noted that the mix of melancholy—“just like the ones I used to know”—with comforting images of home—“where the treetops glisten”—resonated especially strongly with listeners during World War II. It was just a few weeks after the attacks on Pearl Harbor that Crosby introduced “White Christmas” on a Christmas Day broadcast. The Armed Forces Network was flooded with requests for the song.

In Holiday Inn, the composition won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1942. In the film, Crosby sings “White Christmas” as a duet with actress Marjorie Reynolds, though her voice was dubbed by Martha Mears. This now-familiar scene was not the moviemakers’ initial plan. In the script as originally conceived, Reynolds, not Crosby, would sing the song. The song would feature in another Crosby film, the 1954 musical film White Christmas, which became the highest-grossing film of 1954.

Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin, 1888 – 1989) is widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history. Born in Imperial Russia, Berlin arrived in the United States at the age of five. He published his first song, “Marie from Sunny Italy”, in 1907, receiving 33 cents for the publishing rights, and had his first major international hit, “Alexander's Ragtime Band” in 1911. He also was an owner of the Music Box Theatre on Broadway.

Over the years he was known for writing music and lyrics in the American vernacular: uncomplicated, simple and direct, with his stated aim being to “reach the heart of the average American,” whom he saw as the “real soul of the country”. He wrote hundreds of songs, many becoming major hits, which made him a legend before he turned thirty. During his 60-year career he wrote an estimated 1,500 songs, including the scores for 20 original Broadway shows and 15 original Hollywood films, with his songs nominated seven times for Academy Awards, winning the Oscar for Best Song only once, for “White Christmas”.

Arranger Michael Brown is currently staff arranger for the United States Army Band in Washington, D.C., having served previously as staff arranger for the United States Military Academy Band at West Point, New York. His arrangements have been heard on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the Opening Ceremonies of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, and with the National Symphony Orchestra and Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C. He has over 200 arrangements published by Hal Leonard Corporation and the FJH Music Company. Prior to enlisting in the Army, he worked as a freelance arranger and trumpeter, having performed with Natalie Cole, Gladys Knight, Robert Goulet, Lou Rawls, Sam & Dave, the Temptations, and others. He earned a Bachelor’s in Music degree from Furman University and a Master’s in Music degree from The University of Texas at Austin. Brown draws upon his former experience as a high school band director, church orchestra director, and freelance trumpeter in his writing.

The music for Irving Berlin’s Christmas was provided for the band by Rob and Carol Sturza.