Writing in the “blistering hot summer”, multitalented musician Mel Torme penned what is commonly called “Chestnuts Roasting on a Open Fire” but was formally titled “The Christmas Song” in an effort “to stay cool by thinking cool.” Nat King Cole, who owned a home in what is now Vista Las Palmas and played at the Chi Chi in Palm Springs, recorded the most famous version first in 1946 and then many times thereafter. Frank Sinatra, another icon of the desert, did his own rendition of “White Christmas” in 1944, and it topped the Billboard charts multiple times. In 1957, Elvis Presley, who honeymooned in Palm Springs and later bought a house here, made a version of “White Christmas” while recording his album Blue Christmas. Bing covered all the great Christmas tunes from “Silver Bells” to “Silent Night” while gracing most of the golf courses around the Coachella Valley and developing Blue Skies Village in Rancho Mirage, a naming nod to another one of his many hits. The following year with the release of the movie, “White Christmas” became a favorite among the troops and was well on its way to becoming one of the best known songs of all time.ĭuring the war, Crosby sometimes broadcast his radio show from Palm Springs, usually from the American Legion Post.

The song was first introduced on radio by Crosby during the Kraft Music Hall broadcast on December 24, 1941, barely two weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The beginning of the first verse was dropped but it certainly seems to be describing the desert,

Berlin pulled it out of “the trunk” of song ideas he carried around for the 1942 Paramount Pictures musical film, Holiday Inn. Regardless of the specific desert locale, most believe the song was written in December of 1937 for a Broadway show that was never produced. The version recorded by desert denizen Bing Crosby was the best-selling single in history for decades. Heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody’s ever written!” I just wrote the best song I’ve ever written. (Another version of the story puts him poolside at the Arizona Biltmore - either way, in the desert.) After finishing the song, he quickly called his secretary in New York exclaiming, “Grab your pen and take down this song. One tale tells of Irving Berlin writing it poolside at the La Quinta Inn. There are several stories about the genesis of “White Christmas,” surely the most famous Christmas tune of all. The desert doesn’t conjure up Christmas generally, but it actually figures prominently in the creation and recording of some of the most treasured and classic Christmas songs of all time.

Bing crosby christmas special 1967