We’re dreaming of it…
We’re dreaming of The Voice Coach Michael Bublé’s duet with fellow Canadian and the Queen of Country Pop, Shania Twain. The two singers recorded a version of the holiday staple “White Christmas” together for the deluxe version of Bublé’s album Christmas, and it’s doubly delightful.
Michael Bublé and Shania Twain recorded “White Christmas” in 2011
Michael Buble appears on The Voice Season 26 Episode 19A “Live Finale Part 1”; Shania Twain attends the 2024 People’s Choice Country Awards at The Grand Ole Opry on September 26, 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee. Photo: Griffin Nagel/NBC via Getty Images; Terry Wyatt/Getty Images
“White Christmas” has been recorded dozens of times, but this version is especially stirring. The longing, the nostalgia, the hope, the cheer — it’s just delightful. “Shania Twain has the perfect voice for Christmas music,” wrote one enthusiastic commenter on YouTube, while another added, “This song belongs in every holiday movie. It’s that good!”
In 2011, just before the duo released their rendition of “White Christmas,” Bublé described their version as “bouncy” and he’s right. “I wanted to make the quintessential Christmas record,” Buble said at the time about his Christmas album, per Taste of Country. “I wanted to make a record that would outlive me, and I wanted to do for people what Bing Crosby did for me. He introduced me to the world of jazz and melody … I didn’t want to be hip or edgy. I just wanted to make a really sweet Christmas record that kids can grow up with.”
Who wrote the holiday song “White Christmas”?
Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas” and it was first released in 1942.
Berlin was raised Jewish and immigrated to America with his family in 1893, according to PBS. Berlin went on to write several classic American songs, including “White Christmas” and “God Bless America.” According to the Kennedy Center, Berlin once said about songwriting, “My ambition is to reach the heart of the average American…that vast intermediate crew which is the real soul of the country….My public is the real people.”
It’s believed that Berlin wrote the tune in the late 1930s for a Broadway musical review that never came together, but made the song eventually its way onto the big screen in the 1942 film Holiday Inn. Bing Crosby released it as a single that year after performing it on his radio show and it became an almost immediate hit.
Crosby also performed it, somewhat hesitantly, abroad during the war. “I sang it many times in Europe in the field for soldiers, and they’d holler for it. They’d demand it. When I’d sing it, they’d all cry,” Crosby said, per NPR. “It’s nostalgic, and it’s kind of poignant, you know, particularly during the war years; you know, so many young people were away and they’d hear this song. And it would happen to be that time of the year, it would really affect them.”
Crosby sang it again for the 1954 film White Christmas, which is about, naturally, USO performers reuniting at Christmastime. It’s gone on to become one of the most famous Christmas songs of all time.
“White Christmas” is part of Michael Bublé’s holiday traditions
Bublé told Entertainment Tonight that Crosby’s “White Christmas” has been one of his holiday traditions for years. “Every year, since I was about 6 or 7 years old, my playlist has and always will be Bing Crosby’s White Christmas album,” he said in 2024.
Bublé is such a fan, he performed the Christmas song “with” Crosby during his 2012 NBC TV special Home for the Holidays. Thanks to a little CGI magic, Bublé was able to join Crosby, who passed away in 1977, on screen for a duet of “White Christmas” that wowed viewers at home.
