Song of the Day 12/18: Bing Crosby, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”

Guest post by Nathan Arizona

Melancholy is almost a standard quality in Christmas music, but only one song was so sad that it got banned from the radio. And it’s one of the all-time classics, too.

“I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” a hit for Bing Crosby in 1943, is about a soldier stuck overseas writing to loved ones about his plans to visit them back home for the holidays. But when he adds “only in my dreams,” did that mean he didn’t really think he’d make the trip?

That’s sad enough. But maybe it also meant the soldier would die in the war. Most Americans took all this in stride and it became a hit, often requested at USO dances. But the BBC in England banned the song, fearful that it would hurt soldiers’ morale. The network also cited its policy of not playing “sickly sweet” music, which would rule out a lot more songs than this one.

“White Christmas,” a hit for Crosby the previous year, didn’t suffer this fate, Seen as the story of a similar lonely soldier, we know from the start that his snowy Christmas is only something he’s “dreaming of” and he mentions no plans to come home anyway. Actually, there’s nothing in the song that says he’ a soldier. It was made by Hollywood songwriters from back east who missed the winters of their youth. The singer is not identified as a soldier in “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” either. But it was the ‘40s and war was on everybody’s mind.

When you listen to “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” note that Bing is saying you can “plan” on me, not “count.” The lyric changed as the years went along. Bing looks very merry. You would too if you’d sold so many records.

There’s no ambiguity at all in Marvin Gaye’s song on the same theme, “I Want to Come Home for Christmas.” This guy’s also missing Christmas back home, but he doesn’t even bother to dream about getting there from his POW cell in Vietnam.