WHITE CHRISTMAS. I am familiar with close readings of lyric poetry, but not with analysis of popular songs. This article by Roy J. Harris, Jr. in the Wall Street Journal analyzes how the words and music of White Christmas work together. He cites Philip Furia as pointing out that one might expect the first line to stress the key words “dreaming” and “Christmas”. but that Berlin emphasizes “I’m” and “white” by giving them whole notes. He quotes Rob Kapilow on the chords: the “opening bars take you up the scale of yearning in their chords,” and “the minor chords for ‘listen’ and ‘glisten’….[are] heartbreaking.”
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This is definitely one of the better Christmas songs out there. I hadn’t really given it much thought, as the song has been around forever, but that isn’t the most obvious way to sing it necessarily. Very interesting.