Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Like last year’s December columns, I decided to continue with the stories about some of our most favorite Christmas songs. Last year I shared stories of five songs we know as “carols,” with four of the featured songs that are found in our church hymnals. This year I’ve selected five that probably aren’t found in church hymnals but are still favorites of many of us, I’m sure.
During Hollywood’s “Golden Era,” movie studios kept the songwriting team of Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane busy. The men wrote tunes for Broadway and radio that were sung by the likes of Lucille Ball, June Allyson, Lena Horne, Ethel Merman, Michey Rooney, and Ann Miller. But their most veloved hit came when MGM asked them to write the music for “Meet Me in St. Louis.”
Filmed toward the end of World War II, “Meet Me In St. Louis” starred some of the brightest names at MGM. But the movie ultimately belonged to a 22-yearold screen veteran who, five years earlier, had charmed everyone as Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz.” To be recognized as a serious actress, she had to have a part that would allow her to shift from child star to legitimate adult lead. “Meat Me in St. Louis” provided the vehicle Garland needed to take her career over the rainbow and onto solid ground. The timing of the film couldn’t have been better, but Garland was at odds with Blane and Martin about the mood of the song. Garland had spent three years entertaining American troops whenever she could. She had visited with the young men, sung for them, and read the fan mail they wrote to her. She knew that most of the young men were her age, and had spent years fighting for their lives, defending our nation. What these men wanted — more than anything else — was to somehow live through the war and come back home. They wanted, needed to believe that there was a lot of life left in front of them.
As she entertained the G.I.s, Garland discovered that her biggest hit, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” had a much deeper meaning for the men than it did for the casual listener. For the men on the battle lines, “over the rainbow” meant coming home. Judy felt the new Christmas song that would be a part of “Meet Me in St. Louis” needed to bring the same kind of hope as “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” did. By request, Blane and Martin obligingly wrote a far more upbeat, new opening. There was an obvious encouraging tone in “let your heart be light; from now on our troubles will be out of sight” that presented the kind of message Garland felt America needed. This wasn’t just another song to Garland; it was a prayer for the millions wanting nothing more than to be home for Christmas. In the new version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” listeners in the U.S. and overseas could believe that the war was almost over, that families would be reuniting, and that the promised joy that had been part of Christmases past would soon be here again.
As moving as Judy’s performance of the song in the film was, the Decca single that was released for Christmas 1944 was just as touching. When Judy sang it to soldiers at the Hollywood Canteen, there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. When battle weary men in Europe and the Pacific heard it, they clung to the song as if their dreams were carried on each word and note.
They say that timing is everything. If the original version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” would have worked in “Meet Me in St. Louis,” it probably wouldn’t have jumped off the screen and taken on a life of its own. But thanks to the instincts of Judy Garland, the song became far more than a moment in a film — it became a timeless, emotional statement about what we all want to have each year: a merry little Christmas and hope for tomorrow.
(Excerpts from “Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas” by Ace Collins)
