Originally sung by Bing Crosby, it topped the Billboard chart for 11 weeks and returned to the number one position again in December 1943 and 1944.

[7] 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.

"[9] The first public performance of the song was by Bing Crosby, on his NBC radio show The Kraft Music Hall on Christmas Day, 1941, a few weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

[14] Ronald D. Lankford Jr., wrote, "During the 1940s, 'White Christmas' would set the stage for a number of classic American holiday songs steeped in a misty longing for yesteryear."

[11] 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.

[19] In the film, Crosby sings "White Christmas" as a duet with actress Marjorie Reynolds, though her voice was dubbed by Martha Mears.

(Crosby made yet another studio recording of the song, accompanied by Joseph J. Lilley's orchestra and chorus, for the film's soundtrack album.)

Crosby re-recorded the track on March 19, 1947, accompanied again by the Trotter Orchestra and the Darby Singers, with every effort made to reproduce the original recording session.

[6][7] According to analysis of PRS for Music figures, it was estimated that the song generates £328,000 of royalties per year.

There has been confusion and debate on whether Crosby's record is the best-selling single, due to a lack of information on sales of "White Christmas," because Crosby's recording was released before the advent of the modern-day US and UK singles charts.

[4] However, an update in the 2009 edition of the book decided to further help settle the controversy amicably by naming both John's and Crosby's songs to be "winners" by stating that John's recording is the "best-selling single since UK and US singles charts began in the 1950s," while maintaining that "the best-selling single of all time was released before the first pop charts," and that this distinction belongs to "White Christmas," which it says "was listed as the world's best-selling single in the first-ever Guinness Book of Records (published in 1955) and—remarkably—still retains the title more than 50 years later.

[26] The recording was broadcast on Armed Forces Radio on April 30, 1975, as a secret, pre-arranged signal precipitating the U.S. evacuation from Saigon.

[27][28][29] In 1999, National Public Radio included it in the "NPR 100", which sought to compile the one hundred most important American musical works of the 20th century.

2 on the "Songs of the Century" list, behind only Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow," as voted by members of the RIAA.

Irving Berlin's opening verse, contrasting the sunshine and warmth of Christmas in California with the narrator's desire for a traditional holiday setting of winter snow, is often dropped in recordings.

Gordon Jenkins and his Orchestra (with Bob Carroll on lead vocal) released a version on Capitol Records that reached No.

16 on Billboard magazine's pop singles chart in 1942[111] and Charlie Spivak and his Orchestra (with Garry Stevens on lead vocal) released a version for Columbia Records that reached No.

18 on Billboard's pop singles chart[112] as did Freddy Martin and his Orchestra (with Clyde Rogers on lead vocal) for RCA Victor, reaching No.

[113] In 1944, Frank Sinatra with a backing orchestration under the direction of Axel Stordahl for Columbia, reached No.

21 on Billboard's pop singles chart the same year[115] while Perry Como, with backing orchestration by Lloyd Shaffer, recorded the song for RCA Victor in 1947 and reached No.

23 on Billboard's pop singles chart; Como recorded a stereo version of the song in 1959.

23 on Billboard's pop singles chart[113] while The Drifters showcased the talents of lead singer Clyde McPhatter and the bass vocals of Bill Pinkney in 1954, peaking at No.

[121][122] In 1953, Bing Crosby sang "White Christmas" in a film made in Paris as part of The Ford 50th Anniversary Show, a two-hour television special broadcast on NBC and CBS.

[citation needed] Michael Bolton performed it on his 1992 non-holiday album, Timeless: The Classics, where it peaked at No.

The Glee cast's version of the song, sung by Darren Criss and Chris Colfer, entered the UK charts for the first time in 2018, four years after its release, at No.