Saw White Christmas again for the upteenth time. This time, I noticed that not only was the song White Christmas written by Irving Berlin, but all the songs in the movie were written by him. Impressive. I also saw or heard a note that the song originally appeared in Holiday Inn, filmed about 10 years earlier - most notable for the songs in it, especially the introduction of White
Christmas, which had a profound impact on the troops serving abroad and mostly not at home during Christmas in the war years. So I also took the time to watch Holiday Inn, and again noticed Irving Berlin wrote all the music. So though I had heard about Irving Berlin, I decided to look some more into him.
Turns out Irving Berlin (Israel Baline), a Jewish immigrant from Russia, is considered one of the 
greatest songwriters in America. Amoung the many songs he wrote include Blue Skies, Putting On The Ritz, Easter Parade, God Bless America, Annie Get Your Gun, This Is The Army, and many others. He wrote between 1250 and 1500 songs, 25 of which became number one hits. His songs appear in 15 films. Irving Berlin's creative contribution to our culture probably affects us more than we know, and makes up a part of Americana enmeshed in our subconscious. I intend to take the time to listen to more of his music, and I hope you will as well, even if he might seem to be somewhat of an old hat to some these days.
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