Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas • Judy Garland
Christmas Song of the Day: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Today is Christmas Songs Day 3).
Day 2 was The Christmas Waltz, written by Sammy Cahn for Frank Sinatra.
Today, Day 3, is actually about Judy Garland doing a new Christmas song, back when there wasn’t really a Christmas music industry or market (the early 1940s), like there is now. And we take a glimpse at how Judy refused to do the song as written — she went to the song writer to have it changed.
The 1944 movie in which Judy Garland (seen in character up above) introduced Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas was called Meet Me in St. Louis. But the song wasn’t an instant hit, and went through some stages of evolution for several years, even beginning with Judy approaching the writer to request changes. Below, I have adapted some thoughts from Chris Willman, of Entertainment Weekly, who shares some of the following insights related to our song of focus today.
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas seems to be both happy and sad at the same time, hopeful but full of melancholy, as many Christmas songs are.
And the song’s fascinatingly tangled history has left it with several very different sets of lyrics, from the near-suicidal to the downright ebullient. There’s even a recent ”sacred” rewrite, ”Have Yourself a Blessed Little Christmas.”
Hugh Martin, the song’s 92-year-old writer, is calling from a California studio where he’s working on demos for a new musical. He’s curious to know who’s done ”Merry Little Christmas” well this year. Though the latest interpreters include Sarah McLachlan, James Taylor, and Aimee Mann, he’s most excited to learn that his song has finally merited a hair-metal cover. ”Twisted Sisters, is that the group’s name? Ha ha ha. That’s a hoot!”
In 1943, Martin and Ralph Blane were an already successful songwriting team hired to pen the songs for the movie musical Meet Me in St. Louis, which would pair Judy Garland with her future husband, director Vincente Minnelli. Though Martin and Blane shared credit for the tune, Martin was actually the sole writer of ”Merry Little Christmas,” and a stubborn one.
For the now-famous scene in which Garland and her little sister, a 7-year-old Margaret O’Brien, are despondent over the prospect of moving away from their cherished home, he wrote an initial set of lyrics that were almost comically depressing. Among the never-recorded couplets — which he now describes as ”hysterically lugubrious” — were lines like: ”Have yourself a merry little Christmas/It may be your last…. Faithful friends who were dear to us/Will be near to us no more.”
”I often wondered what would it have been like if those lyrics had been sung in the movie,” laughs O’Brien, now 69. ”But about a week before we were to shoot the scene where Judy sings it to me, she looked at the lyrics and said, ‘Don’t you think these are awfully dark? I’m going to go to Hugh Martin and see if he can lighten it up a little.”’
As Martin tells it, he initially balked at changing the words. ”They said, ‘It’s so dreadfully sad.’ I said, ‘I thought the girls were supposed to be sad in that scene.’ They said, ‘Well, not that sad.’ And Judy was saying, ‘If I sing that to that sweet little Margaret O’Brien, they’ll think I’m a monster!’ And she was quite right, but it took me a long time to get over my pride. Finally, Tom Drake [the young male lead], who was a friend, convinced me. He said, ‘You stupid son of a b—-! You’re gonna foul up your life if you don’t write another verse of that song!”’
Martin finally gave in, coming up with a new, somewhat less downbeat lyric. As sung in the movie, ”Merry Little Christmas” is a buck-up ballad that imagines the possibility of a bright future but finally admits, in the song’s most powerful line, that ”until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow.”
Liza Minnelli (Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland’s daughter) remembers her father’s stories about telling Martin, ”’Nooo, this won’t do. Look, the movie is about hope and dreams, and there’s gotta be some hope in the song.’ My feeling is that Christmastime is about your past, and there comes a time when it does become sentimental, just because you start remembering, and people will always miss somebody at Christmas. But to indulge in that and just say ‘Everything was better then’ — forget it! You’ve always gotta have hope.”
Meet Me in St. Louis proved to be a huge hit, but there was only a modest market for Christmas pop at the time, and The Trolley Song became the breakout tune, scoring a Best Song Oscar nomination. Still, ”Merry Little Christmas” is one of Garland’s most mesmerizing screen moments, and one of her most maternal. ”Out of all my mom’s movies,” says Garland’s daughter Lorna Luft, ”that’s the hardest scene for me to watch.”
Even so, ”Merry Little Christmas” seemed destined to languish as a beloved show tune that couldn’t quite make it to ”standard.” Then, in 1957, Frank Sinatra — who’d already cut a lovely version with the movie’s bittersweet lyrics in 1947 — came to Martin with a request for yet another pick-me-up. ”He called to ask if I would rewrite the ‘muddle through somehow’ line,” says the songwriter. ”He said, ‘The name of my album is A Jolly Christmas. Do you think you could jolly up that line for me?”’ Not about to give the Chairman any lip, Martin made several cheerier alterations, shifting the happiness into the present tense and changing that ”muddle through” line to ”Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.”
The peppier Sinatra version turned the song into a Christmas perennial; it has since been recorded thousands of times. ”It’s been a little confusing,” says Martin, ”because half the people sing one line and half sing the other.” It’s probably more off-balance than that. Sample a good portion of the 500-plus recordings that are up on iTunes, and most use the Sinatra lyrics. Even Garland herself eventually did. ”But I still kind of like ‘muddle through somehow,’ myself,” Martin admits. ”It’s just so kind of…down-to-earth.”
MORE DETAILS
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
ORIGINAL VERSION
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
It may be your last
Next year we may all be living in the past
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Pop that champagne cork
Next year we may all be living in New York
No good times like the olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to
Will be near to us no more
But at least we all will be together
If the Lord allows
From now on, we’ll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now
JUDY GARLAND VERSION
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yuletide gay
Next year all our troubles will be miles away
Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
Will be near to us once more
Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now
FRANK SINATRA VERSION
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on, our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yuletide gay
From now on, our troubles will be miles away
Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more
Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now
Whichever version you prefer, I hope this gives you fresh insight into the complex process songs go through to become a part of our lives. This Christmas, as you hear this particular song, remember that some people experience Christmas time as a sad season, and some experience it as a season of celebration. In fact most of us have probably experienced both kinds in our life journey.
Perhaps we can have grace for those who hurt, and who are struggling. Perhaps we can be present for them where they find themselves at this moment. And when you think about it, that is really the whole story of Christmas in the Gospel of Luke - the incarnation, Immanuel, “God with us.” Christ came to us, and met us where we lived, with all the good, the bad, and the ugly of it. Maybe this Christmas, you can “incarnate” His love to someone around you who needs it.
Hope you enjoy listening to it again.
Join us tomorrow for Christmas Songs Day 4.
Here is Judy Garland’s version on Spotify:
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Here’s a selection of videos for you:
Here is Judy Garland performing the song Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas in Meet Me in St. Louis:
Here is Judy Garland performing in her own 1963 Christmas TV special, doing a duet with Mel Tormé, who wrote The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire:”
Here is Michael Bublé performing the song Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas on his own Christmas special:
Here is Amy Grant (a favorite Christmas song artist of mine) performing the song Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas live:
