Literally the most successful song of all time, White Christmas has sold upwards of 50 million singles (to put that in perspective that's around twice the amount sold by other mega-selling singles Candle In The Wind and Rock Around The Clock) and it continues to sell. There isn't a single Christmas compilation album that doesn't feature the song and the list of artists that have recorded it for their own Christmas albums is too long to get into here. The Recording Industry Association Of America voted White Christmas at number 2 in their list of Songs Of The Century. The film from which White Christmas originated, Irving Berlin musical Holiday Inn, is not an obscure flop admittedly, but very few movies could match up to the song's longevity and legacy. Just ask anyone to name the movie with White Christmas in and they are just as likely simply to say White Christmas. There can be few indicators of the song's success as good as the fact that they made another very similar movie 12 years later purely to capitalise on the song's popularity and it was a bigger hit than the original. While Holiday Inn was only the 8th biggest hit of 1942, by 1954 White Christmas was the year's number one film. Faced with the task of composing songs to accompany all of the major holidays, Jewish composer Berlin struggled at first with a composition that captured the essence of Christmas. In the film White Christmas was originally intended to be performed by the character of Linda, played by Marjorie Reynolds and dubbed by Martha Mears, but eventually became a duet between Reynolds/Mears and star Bing Crosby, whose recording of the song became the standard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJSUT8Inl14 This movie song was initially overshadowed by the same film's Be Careful, It's My Heart before going on to be not just the most successful breakout movie song, but the most successful song of any kind. No amount of the ubiquity of Let It Go is likely to change that any time soon. Agree with our choices? Or just disappointed there was no place for Chesney Hawkes' The One And Only? Let us know in the comments below.
