Terry Scott Taylor
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A Merry Little Christmas (Bedroom Demo #265)
🕑 Added 2022-12-14 05:57:28 +0000 UTCA Merry Little Christmas
words and music: Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane
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
Let your heart be 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
Someday soon we all will be together
If the Lord allows
Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
guitars and vocal: T.S. Taylor
note:
As a song writer I’m always fascinated by stories concerning the origins of certain popular songs. Of particular interest to me is the evolution of a song’s lyrics; fascinating because some song lyrics which we’ve come to know and love, are radically different than what they were when they were first conceived by their authors. The most striking example of this would be Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday,” whose original title was “Scrambled Eggs.” The evolution of the lyrics to “A Merry Little Christmas” may not be quite as dramatic as the title change to Paul’s ‘Yesterday,” but I’m certain you’ll react as incredulously as I did when encountering the original lyrics. Here’s the story of why they were changed from the strange and absurd into the lovely, melancholy version we sing today:
Songwriter Hugh Martin was hired to pen a somewhat sad but hopeful and comforting Christmas song for Judy Garland’s character to sing to her younger sister Margaret in the film “Meet Me In St. Louis, (1944). Martin, the primary writer of the song, says “it began with the melody,” but that he soon concluded that it wasn’t working, so he threw it in the trash. His collaborator Ralph Blane had heard it however and told Martin he was “mad to throw it out.” “We dug around the wastebasket and found it,” Blane recalls, “Thank the Lord that we did.” Thank the Lord indeed.
Strangely, the songs original lyrics evoked a far different Christmas feeling than the ones that eventually wound up in the film. Imagine what your reaction would be to the scene in which Judy Garland, (as the older sister), sings to her little sister, if the following original lyrics had been left in the movie:
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 the 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
(italics are mine)
This is supposed to comfort little Margaret?! Yikes! Judy may as well have gone ahead and closed the scene with her telling her little sister that there’s no Santa Claus. And what’s with the “popping the champaign cork” line? Yeah, that’s good advice for a nine year old!
It goes without saying that the studio execs were not happy with the song lyrics. Judy Garland herself was appalled by them. “If I sing this to little Margaret she’ll cry,” she complained, “The public is going to think I’m a monster!”
Hugh Martin, who admitted that back then he was young and arrogant, at first refused to change the lyrics to what the studio envisioned as “a sad song in which she (Garland) is smiling through her tears.” Eventually Martin came around and did a rewrite. The result is in the film. Today, two versions are popularly sung. There’s the version that Martin tweaked for Judy, and another later version sung by Frank Sinatra on his “Jolly Christmas” album. Sinatra reasoned that since the song was a bit of a downer for an album supposedly made up of “Jolly” and bright Christmas songs, it needed yet another tweak from Martin that would “sprinkle some festive joy” on an otherwise downbeat line. Thus “We’ll have to muddle through somehow” became “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.”
In my version of the song I’ve reinserted Martin’s original line “Someday soon we all will be together if the [Lord] allows. Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.” It seemed fitting and poignant to me to, in retrospect, acknowledge the heartache of families around the world who were kept apart by the Covid epidemic and its resultant protocols. I also prefer the original’s “Lord” over “fates,” for the obvious reason.
Comments
Thank You, Very interesting story. I also like the Lost Dog's version of this song. I also like their 'Plastic Baby Jesus'.It is very moving. It is together with Nat King Cole's `The Christmas song' and The Pogue's 'Fairytale of New York' and Jethro Tull's 'First snow on Brooklyn' among my all time favourites for this time of year. I'm enjoying this christmas so much. It is a sign of hope in this hopeless times.
Merry Christmas Terry! Nice!
