Songfacts®:

• This Jule Styne/Sammy Cahn composition was a major hit at the end of World War II. Cahn's lyrics were written from the perspective of a person welcoming home their loved one at the end of the war.
• In the 1940s it was standard practice in the record industry for labels to release "competing" versions of hit songs. In this instance rival recordings by Harry James with a vocal by Kitty Kallen and Bing Crosby accompanied by The Les Paul Trio both found themselves working their way up the chart. And in a rare instance of competing covers of chart toppers also become chart toppers, the Bing Crosby version replaced the James' version at #1 on December 8, 1945.
• Crosby's version features some memorable guitar by Les Paul, who recalled in an interview printed in Mojo magazine November 2009: "Bing was a sucker for guitar and that particular song was a case of you don't have to play a lot of notes, you just have to play the right notes."
• Other artists who have recorded this song include Guy Mitchell, Sammy Kaye, The Inkspots, Brook Benton, Rosemary Clooney, Perry Como and Chet Atkins.