and everytime I hear the song I listen to the lyrics to see if the origional lyrics creep in....but it they
never do.
The song in question is "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". The only Christmas song (I know of) that is melancholy with only a little hope splashed in there for good measure.
Hugh Martin, 95 from Birmingham, Alabama wrote the song along with The Trolly Song and The Boy Next Door from Meet Me In St. Louis.
Meet Me in St. Louis
In 1943, the musical Meet Me in St. Louis, would pair Judy Garland with her future husband, director Vincente Minnelli. Martin would end up writting a song ''Merry Little Christmas,'' for the now-famous scene in which Garland and her little sister, Margaret O'Brien. The two are are upset over the prospect of moving away from their home, while keeping with the scene from the movie - what he wrote was really depressing.
YOu already know the melody,...now plug in the real lyrics to this Christmas classic...
''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.''
Margaret O'Brien told Entertainment weekly in 2007 ''I often wondered what would it have been like if those lyrics had been sung in the movie,'' laughs O'Brien, now 72. ''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.'''
Martin talking about the lyrics, he initially didn't want to change them. ''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 a few more details of the story back then. Liza told Entertainment Weekly that her father told 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 was a huge hit, and brought the 1942 audience one of their all-time favorite songs and a Best Song Oscar nomination for "The Trolly Song". That's right,...Christmas pop music wasn't very popular
at the time and "Merry Little Christmas" song went unnoticed.
In 1947 Frank Sinatra sang a version of the song and it stayed with him. So in 1957 Sinatra went to Martin and as Martin remembers it ''He called to ask if I would rewrite the 'muddle through somehow' line,'' ''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 tell Sinatra no, 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.''
Leave it to Sinatra to turn the song into a Christmas perennial hit. With the newer version the song and became a favorite off of Sinatras Christmas album.''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.''
The Pretenders lead singer Chrissir Hynde said ''I'm surprised that our version is very popular at all,'' For the charity album A Very Special Christmas in 1989 the Pretenders recorded the song and as Hynde puts it
''I was in a particularly melancholy mood, so I don't think ours is a cheerful version. Singing it upset me; I was on the verge of tears. I was thinking about relationships, and how things had changed, and the people that I couldn't see and couldn't be with. But maybe that [sadness] is what most people feel at Christmas, and maybe that's why people relate to it.''
Recently, more and more singers have been opting for the darker words. James Taylor, for one, was inspired to go back to the song's bittersweet roots after 9/11. He recorded ''Merry Little Christmas'' in fall 2001 and released it to radio soon after it was included on his James Taylor at Christmas album. ''It's as though people were suddenly experiencing everything on a deeper level for a while,'' says the singer, who was intrigued to learn that the song was penned during WWII. Though Martin has said he wasn't consciously writing about wartime separations, Taylor ''would be very surprised if he wasn't somehow influenced by the mood of missing people over the holidays and hoping like hell that they would be home next Christmas, if not this one.'' In times of strife, ''we 'muddle through,' as the lyric says. As the best lyric says.''
Not everyone feels that way, though. '''Muddle through' is what we do,'' agrees Linda Ronstadt, ''but I love the bravado of 'hanging the shining star,' because it gets past the layers of anxiety to find that little beacon of hope and bravery.'' In her recording, she neatly solves the problem by singing both versions of the key line. ________________________________________
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 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
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
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