White Christmas (song) the John Scott Trotter Orchestra and the Ken Darby Singers and for Decca Records in just 18 minutes on May 29, 1942, and it was released on July 30 as part of an album of six 78-rpm discs from the musical film "Holiday Inn". At first, Crosby did not see anything special about the song. He just said "I don't think we have any problems with that one, Irving." The song established that there could be commercially successful secular Christmas songs—in this case, written by a Jewish-American songwriter. The song initially performed poorly and was overshadowed by "Holiday Inn"'s first
White Christmas (song) single, due to a lack of information on sales of "White Christmas," because Crosby's recording was released before the advent of the modern-day US and UK singles charts. However, after careful research, "Guinness World Records" in 2007 concluded that, worldwide, Crosby's recording of "White Christmas" has, in their estimation, sold at least 50 million copies, and that Elton John's recording of "Candle in the Wind 1997" has sold 33 million, making Crosby's recording the best-selling single of all time. However, an update in the 2009 edition of the book decided to further help settle the controversy amicably by naming both