Word: berlin
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...this version, reissued the following two years, and went to #5 and #12 on the pop charts. With the freak exception of the 1997 Princess Diana remix of "Candle in the Wind," "White Christmas" has sold more records than any song in history. It was also the last Berlin song to achieve the #1 slot on its initial release...
...Berlin in the New York Times...
...White Christmas," 1942. Berlin wrote his Yule offering for a New York revue he'd planned in 1938-39, then put it away until the Crosby-Astaire musical "Holiday Inn." The film required numbers for New Year?s Day, Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays, Valentine's Day, Easter (he?d already written "Easter Parade"), Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The framing song was "Happy Holiday," which has since been appropriated as an all-purpose year-end carol. At first, few liked Berlin's tune about sunbelt nostalgia for a snowbelt youth (the verse places the singer...
...home. To them it voiced the ache of separation and the wistfulness they felt for the girl back home, for the innocence of youth and for a past - perhaps a future - without war. "Way down under this latest hit of his," said the poet Carl Sandburg that December, "Irving Berlin catches us where we love peace...
...Berlin the composer had the ambition to write tunes that were timeless. Berlin the musical merchant was compelled to write tunes that were timely - topical songs, whose newsworthy subjects would help sell the music. His very first hit was "Dorando," inspired by a London waiter and long-distance runner: he was the leader in the 1908 Olympic marathon but was disqualified when his supporters helped him across the finish line. Over the years he produced musical editorials supporting Al Smith and Dwight Eisenhower, opposing Prohibition ("You Cannot Make Your Shimmy Shake on Tea"), defending the gold standard ("Debts," with...