Irving Berlin's WHITE CHRISTMAS Holiday Inn Vintage Sheet Music ©1942

Irving Berlin composed and wrote the lyrics to WHITE CHRISTMAS as one of the twelve songs specific to the Paramount Picture film, Holiday Inn. Berlin conceived the melody a decade earlier on the set of Top Hat. At the time, Fred Astaire loved the song but the film's director, Mark Sandwich, who also directed Holiday Inn, passed on it. 

When the film Holiday Inn began production, "Be Careful, It's My Heart" was initially expected to be the bigger hit compared to the now iconic WHITE CHRISTMAS. Surprising all, the song earned the film the 1943 Academy Award for Best Original Song, and has since become one of the most widely recorded Christmas tunes with over 500 renditions in multiple languages. In 1954, Berlin wrote a new version of the song for the film, White Christmas.

Illustrated cover featuring images of the movie's casts, including Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Virginia Dale, and Marjorie Reynolds in various scenes. The "Abraham" sequence is represented, depicting Crosby in blackface with stereotypical dialect and gestures, alongside a Buy War Bonds and Stamps for Victory red stamp.

This early version of the piano and voice sheet music published by the Irving Berlin Music Publishers in 1942 includes symbols for guitar and chord diagrams for ukulele/banjo. Packaged in an archival sleeve the sheet music is in excellent condition.