the sun is shining,
the orange and palm trees sway
never been such days
The intro …
“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.
Then the line:
I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know….”
It was years ago but I remember watching Bing Crosby on some afternoon talk show and he explained that he felt that the song White Christmas was a bit lacking as the recordings didn’t include Irving Berlin’s intro lines.
He then sang it off cuff and it has stayed in my memory every since.
According to Wikipedia, “Crosby’s “White Christmas” single has been credited with selling 50 million copies, the most by any release and therefore it is the biggest-selling single worldwide of all time. By 1968, it had already sold thirty million. The Guinness Book of World Records 2009 Edition lists the song as a 100-million seller, encompassing all versions of the song, including albums.[6][8] According to analysis of PRS for Music figures, it was estimated that the song generates £328,000 of royalties per year.
Crosby’s holiday collection Merry Christmas was first released as an LP in 1949, and has never been out of print since.
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. However, after careful research, Guinness World Records in 2007 concluded that, worldwide, Crosby’s recording of “White Christmas” has sold at least 50 million copies, and that Elton John’s recording of “Candle in the Wind 1997” has sold 33 million. 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.”
No Haiku For You 