Saturday, December 22, 2007

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas...



Irving Berlin, a self-taught composer and lyricist, wrote the song White Christmas in 1942, while sitting poolside at the Arizona Biltmore Resort and Spa in Phoenix, Arizona (no wonder he was dreaming of a white Christmas)!

Although he never learned to read music beyond a rudimentary level, with the help of various uncredited musical assistants or collaborators, he eventually composed over 3,000 songs, many of which (e.g. God Bless America, White Christmas, Anything You Can Do, There's No Business Like Show Business) left an indelible mark on American music and culture. He also composed 17 film scores and 21 Broadway scores.

Berlin was given an Academy Award in 1942 for White Christmas. He lived a long life of 101 years and passed away on 22 September 1989.

4 comments:

Betty Carlson said...

That is absolutely the best Christmas song ever.

Merry Christmas to you if I'm not here in the meantime! I have a pretty tight cooking schedule planned starting tomorrow...

Tinsie said...

Merry Christmas to you too, Betty! Hope it's a good one and good luck with all the cooking :-)

I've not even done my food shopping yet. I reckon I should be panicking round about now, but funnily enough I'm still as cool as a cucumber (which is probably all we'll eat this Xmas hehe)

Karen said...

We're dreaming in Alabama, too! I learned today about "Alabama snow," which is the frost on the grass in the early winter mornings.

Hope your Christmas is perfect, Tinsie!

Tinsie said...

Hope yours is good too, Karen!

Ours isn't white either - there's a choice of foggy or soggy in the UK today, and it looks like we got soggy! We had plenty of "Alabama snow" in the run up to Xmas though ;-)