Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

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Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane) – 1944

The song was introduced by Judy Garland in the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me In St. Louis. Frank Sinatra’s later version with modified lyrics has become more common than the original. The song was credited to Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, although during a December 21, 2006 NPR interview, Martin said that Blane had encouraged him to write the song but had not had anything more to do with writing it.

From the Wikipedia page:

The song was written in 1943^[2]^[3]^[4] for the then-upcoming film Meet Me in St. Louis, for which MGM had hired Martin and Blane to write several songs.^[4] Martin was vacationing in a house in the neighborhood of Southside in Birmingham, Alabama that his father Hugh Martin^[6] had designed for his mother as a honeymoon cottage, located just down the street from his birthplace, and which later became the home of Martin and his family in 1923.^[7] The song first appeared in a scene in which a family is distraught by the father’s plans to move to New York City for a job promotion, leaving behind their beloved home in St. Louis, Missouri, just before the long-anticipated 1904 World’s Fair begins. In a scene set on Christmas Eve, Judy Garland’s character, Esther, sings the song to cheer up her despondent five-year-old sister, Tootie, played by Margaret O’Brien.^[8]

Some of the original lyrics that were penned by Martin were rejected before filming began.^[9]^[10] When presented with the original draft lyric, Garland, her co-star Tom Drake and director Vincente Minnelli criticized the song as depressing, and asked Martin to change the lyrics. Though he initially resisted, Martin made several changes to make the song more upbeat. For example, the lines “It may be your last / Next year we may all be living in the past” became “Let your heart be light / Next year all our troubles will be out of sight”. Garland’s version of the song, which was also released as a single by Decca Records, became popular among United States troops serving in World War II; her performance at the Hollywood Canteen brought many soldiers to tears.^[11]

The original version of the lyrics, which Judy Garland, Tom Drake, and director Vincent Minnelli found depressing:

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 us
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

Though he initially resisted, songwriter Hugh Martin made several changes to make the song more upbeat. For example, the lines “It may be your last / Next year we may all be living in the past” became “Let your heart be light / Next year all our troubles will be out of sight”.^[4] Garland’s version of the song, which was also released as a single by Decca Records, became popular among United States troops serving in World War II; her performance at the Hollywood Canteen brought many soldiers to tears.^[5]

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In an article for Entertainment Weekly titled There’s Something About Merry (8 January 2007) writer Chris Willman, noting that “the song’s fascinatingly tangled history has left it with several very different sets of lyrics, from the near-suicidal to the downright ebullient,” tells about Hugh Martin’s initial reluctance to alter his original lines, with quotes from Martin and Margaret O’Brien:

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.”

from Wikipedia:

In 1957, Frank Sinatra asked Martin to revise the line “Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.” He told Martin, “The name of my album is A Jolly Christmas. Do you think you could jolly up that line for me?”^[10] Martin’s new line was “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.” Martin made several other alterations, changing from the future tense to the present, so that the song’s focus is a celebration of present happiness, rather than anticipation of a better future.^[12] (However, Sinatra had recorded the original song’s lyrics in 1948.) On The Judy Garland Show Christmas Special, Garland sang the song to her children Joey and Lorna Luft with Sinatra’s alternate lyrics.^[13]

The version sung by Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis:

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 yule-tide gay
Next year all our troubles will be miles away

Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are 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

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From The Judy Garland Show, Episode 15: “The Christmas Show“, taped 6 December 1963, with Lorna Luft and Joey Luft

Connie Francis — from her LP Christmas in My Heart, recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London in August 1959, and released in November of that year

Francis sings the original “we’ll have to muddle through somehow” lyric.