1940s Christmas Playlist - Part 3 - "I'll Be Home for Christmas" (1943)

Our Christmas music playlist moves into 1943, which was another lean year due to the ongoing recording ban, but we do have another bona fide classic courtesy of Bing Crosby - "I'll Be Home for Christmas!"

Fortunately, Decca Records settled with the musicians' federation in 1943, so Bing was able to record the song in time for the holiday season:

The song has been recorded by a ton of artists in the ensuing years, but when you think of it in its original context in the middle of WWII, it's even more poignant.

I like the guitar part by Perry Botkin, who was another regular of the John Scott Trotter studio orchestra and played on some early Spike Jones recordings. (Yes, it does always come back to Spike Jones!)

Billboard's review is very positive and also alludes to the recording ban:

Due to the strike not being settled yet by the big-name RCA Victor and Columbia Records, they couldn't record any of the bands that they had under contract, so they weren't able to jump on the song.

This brings us to an interesting contemporary recording on the Hit Record label:

I like that the rarely-heard verse is included, but the whole thing screams low-budget. Underwhelming in performance, arrangement and recording.

But I'm glad these records exist, as they are sometimes the only fully-orchestrated commercial recordings of songs from the era.

A somewhat burning question is whether the "Sid Peltyn" who's credited as the bandleader was a real person? Or was it a pseudonym? And who sings the vocal? Nobody knows!

In any event, once the holiday season of 1944 rolled around, "I'll Be Home for Christmas" was basically just a song from last year and hadn't become a standard yet.

It started to get recorded a bit more as the decade rolled on an Christmas recording were becoming increasingly popular, including albums, which necessitated the need for more songs. Perry Como included a fine version on his 1946 Christmas album:

But I think the only real, honest-to-goodness big band version of the song from the post-war 1940s was this 1947 release on Majestic Records by singing bandleader Eddy Howard and his Orchestra:

Always a fine job!

As the years rolled along, more and more versions of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" were recorded and it seems everyone is familiar with the song these days.

You know what bugs me, though? So many versions alter the line "And presents on the tree" to something with another preposition like "under the tree" or "by the tree" or something!

Oh, well!

Note: I didn't forget that I had mentioned Bing's record in this post, but it was something of an afterthought and felt it needed more recognition.