Why was Bing Crosby’s ‘I’ll Be Home For Christmas’ banned by the BBC?
The BBC has banned countless songs. The broadcasting company was long-renowned for its stuffy behaviour during the explosion of pop culture. While some of the greatest moments in cultural history have happened on the Beeb, the company’s nature as a state-owned operation has often meant that the establishment held the country’s moral compass. It means the BBC has banned everyone from The Rolling Stones to The Beatles and Blondie to Lulu for their songs.
While the Beeb can be thanked for giving some of our favourite artists their first shot at the big time, even the broadcasters themselves would agree that over the course of history, the BBC has been a traditionalist. Usually, their ability to ban songs and artists came from a place of cultural censorship in the name of avoiding any kind of perceived vulgarity. However, in the case of Bing Crosby, it was for more wholesome reasons.
Bing Crosby is rightly considered one of the founding fathers of pop music as we know it. A bonafide crooner, Crosby is an icon of music. as able to woo your eldest uncle’s grandparents as he provided a sincere and stringent vision of a golden age we’ll never be able to reach. Perhaps his most famous moment at Christmas came when he crossed paths with David Bowie in an excruciating music video, but Bing Crosby’s history with the season goes much further back.
His song with Bowie was little compared to his defining rendition of ‘White Christmas’ with Frank Sinatra, which still soundtracks our most precious festive moments in 2022. But his connections go further back still. Born in 1903, Crosby began singing with various bands in the 1920s, touring the country in a bid to make a name for himself on the big stage. By the next decade, Crosby had pretty much achieved his dream. He wasn’t only on record and selling out shows but also acting in films such as Road to Singapore.
However, in 1943, he delivered perhaps his defining moment of all, his incomparable Christmas anthem ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’. Written by Kim Gannon and Walter Kent, the song was originally penned as a homage to those entrenched in the heinous events taking place in Europe as World War II entered its fourth year of death and destruction. Written from the perspective of a hopeful soldier in the mud of France asking his family to get Christmas ready for his return, the song was initially a tough sell.
Few people thought the track’s subject matter appropriate for a festive song, let alone the right time to release such a tune, with so many young men still fighting for their lives. But, having met Crosby on a golf course, Gannon found his singer and recorded the track with an eye on selling huge volume. It became a huge hit and one of Crosby’s most requested songs. However, it found little love at the BBC.
The BBC reportedly banned the song from playing on radios as they believed, despite the suggestions from US troops, the sentimental lyrics would lower the morale of those fighting. Despite this, the song became a worldwide hit and has never truly looked back, finding itself as a staple of the period and a guaranteed entry on the best Christmas songs of all time list, and found its first spot on the Billboard 100 list in 2021 owing, in part, to the global pandemic.
Listen to Bing Crosby’s classic ‘I’ll Be Home For Christmas’ below.
