I'll Be Home For Christmas

Steyn On-line ^ | December 17, 2017 | Mark Steyn

[Twotone]

We began our celebration of the big hits from the Christmas songbook with Mark and Irving Berlin's daughter gathered around her father's piano to recall the family tragedy behind "White Christmas". This week's song is one of many written in the wake of "White Christmas" and in the shadow of war, as Mark and Linda Purl note in the video below. Linda has been a fixture on American TV screens from "Happy Days" to "The Office", "Matlock" to "Homeland". Click here to see Linda's marvelous performance, and afterwards Mark will tell the story behind the song:

(audio at site)

If you had to pin a precise date to the dawn of the Golden Age of American Christmas Songs, it would probably be December 1942. Irving Berlin had written "White Christmas" a couple of years earlier, and was reasonably confident about it. But, as canny as he was, he didn't foresee how the song would be transformed by a single event: Pearl Harbor. Twelve months after the attack, American servicemen were far away in the south Pacific and contemplating their first Christmas at war, under glorious tropical skies that only made home seem even more distant:

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas Just like the ones I used to know...

"White Christmas" isn't a song about snow, it's a song about home. And Berlin wasn't the only songwriter to understand there was a huge audience for that at a time when most families had at least one empty chair round the Christmas table. For example:

I'll Be Home For Christmas You can plan on me Please have snow And mistletoe And presents on the tree...

[dfwgator]

Actually I just read he collapsed onstage a few days ago, so he might not be around for much longer.

[mylife]

He died years ago, cancer. RIP

[dfwgator]

Rea has had peritonitis and stomach complications since 1994, as well as several operations. In 2000 was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and somewhere in between 2000–2001 Rea underwent a Whipple procedure, by which he lost the head of the pancreas and part of duodenum, bile duct, and gall bladder. Since having his pancreas removed, Rea has had problems with diabetes and a generally weaker immune system and has to take thirty-four pills and seven injections a day. He has since undergone several serious operations. Nevertheless, he found even greater appreciation for life, his family, and the things he loves.

[Steven Scharf]

As per Wiki, “[the Berlins] had four children during their 63 years of marriage: Irving, who died in infancy on Christmas Day 1928; Mary Ellin Barrett and Elizabeth Irving Peters of New York, and Linda Louise Emmet, who lives in Paris.”

They would be late 80s and older. She could be a grand daughter (The Berlins’ marriage resulted in two other children (Linda and Elizabeth), nine grandchildren, and fourteen great-grandchildren. As per a 2015 New Yorker article).

[mylife]

Thanks

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I checked all the grandchildren and she wasn’t there. Odd.

[TexasBarak]

Linda Purl is not Irving Berlin’s daughter. Mark was referring to an earlier column (last week, I believe), in which he interviewed Berlin’s daughter.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Oh. Thanks. That wasn’t clear at all.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I reread the first two sentences and it makes sense now. Thanks.

[Twotone]

No, the previous ‘show’ was with the daughter of Irving Berlin. It’s also posted on FR. Just do a search on key word ‘Mark Steyn’. It’s a great interview.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Thanks. I’ll check it out. I really enjoyed this article and listening to Ms Purl. What a great singer.

[Bigg Red]

She did a nice job on the song, but Crosby’s rendition is da bomb:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL71eMc1blw

By the way, my mother (1912-2007) did not like hearing that song. We did not have anyone in our immediate family in the war, but it just made her sad whenever she heard the tune during WWII. She did lose a cousin, a B-17 waist-gunner, in fighting over Germany, but they were not close.