» On 11/28/2008 06:25:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
White Christmas: Berlin/McPhatter/Held. 

(A holiday tradition.) Irving Berlin wrote "White Christmas" in early 1940, while sitting poolside at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, Arizona. He reportedly told his secretary, "Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I've ever written--hell, I just wrote the best song that anybody's ever written!" [Berlin originally wrote intro lyrics that explain why the singer is dreaming of a white Christmas: "The sun is shining, the grass is green / The orange and palm trees sway / There's never been such a day / In Beverly Hills, L.A. / But it's December the twenty-fourth / And I am longing to be up North..."]

Clyde McPhatter & The Drifters' version of the tune first hit Billboard's R&B charts in December 1954, peaking at #2.

Joshua Held, a cartoonist/animator based in Florence, Italy, created a flash animation (now video, below) in 2002 from The Drifters' recording (Clyde McPhatter = white reindeer. Bill Pinkney = Santa).

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