Judy garland singing have yourself a merry little christmas

Among the most beloved popular Christmas songs, though famously a little downbeat compared to “Jingle Bells” and “Here Comes Santa Claus,” is the lovely ballad “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” But if the lyricist had had his way, the sweetly sad tune would have been a whole lot more depressing. And it was none other than Judy Garland, legendary actor and singer, who recognized just how horrible, the original version actually was.

It’s because of her we have the song so many of us love today.

Here’s the story.

In 1943, as WWII was raging, Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, frequent songwriting partners, were hired to write the tunes for the upcoming MGM musical “Meet Me in St. Louis,” based on the memoir by Sally Benson. According to “Christmas in the Movies” by historian Jeremy Arnold (and other sources), with 22-year-old Judy Garland set to star and Vincent Minnelli brought in as a replacement for original director George Cukor – who had been tapped to make military training films for the United States Signal Corps – the studio hoped that their film’s message of an average family holding together during stressful times would resonate with the American public.

Though not technically a Christmas movie — that holiday taking up only about one-quarter of the film’s running time — one of the film’s most indelible moments is when Garland as Esther Smith, emotively sings “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” to her sobbing little sister Tootie (Margaret O’Brien). They’ve just learned the family would be leaving St. Louis after the holiday, since their banker father is being relocated to New York City.

Most of us are at least somewhat familiar with the version Garland sings in the movie.

Here are those lyrics.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas.

Let your heart be light.

Next year all your 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.

But those words exist only because Garland, upon hearing the song for the first time, refused to sing the lyrics that Martin and Blane originally submitted, claiming that audiences would never forgive her for belting out such a thing to poor, sad, half-hysterical Tootie.

Here are the original lyrics.

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.

After nearly two weeks of a stalemate between Garland and the songwriters, Martin finally submitted “happier” lyrics, though still upsetting enough, in the film, to trigger an outburst in which Tootie beats several snow-people to death in her front yard.

So, you know, it’s still a pretty sad song.

Beautiful but … sad.

If not for Garland, however, it would have been a whole lot sadder. And we might not be singing it every Christmas 76 years later.

Oh, one more thing.

In 1957, while pulling together songs for his album “A Jolly Christmas,” Frank Sinatra reportedly asked Martin to make even more revisions to the song, requesting that the songwriter “jolly up” one line in particular. And that is how the Garland-sung line “Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow,” became the line most of us know today, “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.”

Definitely “happier.”

Only an icon with Garland in her name could have pulled off this Christmas song miracle. Before Judy Garland crooned the melancholy-tinged lyrics to the now-classic holiday tune “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” in her 1944 musical film Meet Me in St. Louis, she made her wish list crystal clear.

Even before the Academy Award nominee got involved, however, the beloved Christmas song almost never came to light at all. During a 1989 interview with NPR's Terry Gross, late songwriters Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine described not being able to make the carol's "madrigal-like tune" work, and, after a few days of trying to no avail, Martin said he "threw it in the wastebasket."

Something apparently told Blaine that there was still some lingering Christmas magic, however. "We dug around the wastebasket and found it," Blaine recounted to Gross. "Thank the Lord we found it."

Even with the salvaged melody, the men's first draft was deemed a bit too blue for Christmas, added Martin: "The [film producers] said, 'No, no — it's a sad scene, but we want sort of an upbeat song, which will make it even sadder if she's smiling through her tears."

READ MORE: Judy Garland Was Put on a Strict Diet and Encouraged to Take "Pep Pills" While Filming The Wizard of Oz

Garland thought the song was too sad

In the movie, Garland's Esther Smith sings "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" after returning home from a Christmas Eve ball and find her brokenhearted young sister Tootie (Margaret O'Brien) grappling with the family's impending post-holiday move, which was about to force them to leave behind their happy life in titular St. Louis for unknown territory in New York.

Citing her 6-year-old costar, Garland herself was vocal about the "lugubrious" original version and even "refused to sing it," Martin also later recalled.

"She said, 'If I sing that, little Margaret will cry and they'll think I'm a monster,'" he shared. "So I was young then and kind of arrogant, and I said, 'Well, I'm sorry you don't like it, Judy, but that's the way it is, and I don't really want to write a new lyric.'"

In the original, slightly more depressing draft, Garland would have sung the following lyrics, for example:

"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."

Luckily, Meet Me in St. Louis actor Tom Drake, who played Garland's onscreen love interest, "boy next door" John Truett, took Martin aside and assured him he'd "be sorry" if he didn't finish the song. And so Martin made some revisions, and the following version made it into the movie's final cut, instead:

"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"

While the difference was clear, the song still didn't exactly have a merrymaking effect in the movie, with a tearful, nightgown-clad Tootie responding by going out into the snow and destroying the snowmen in the family's yard. Even so, Garland certainly wasn't considered a "monster" as she had initially feared. In fact, the song, which Garland also released as a single, especially resonated with American troops serving overseas. She even famously performed an emotional rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” for deploying World War II soldiers at the Hollywood Canteen in 1943.

READ MORE: Judy Garland's Life Was in a Downward Spiral Before Her 1969 Death

Even after appearing in the movie, the lyrics changed again

Garland's wasn't the only update to the song, which has been covered countless times by numerous artists following its initial release, however. At the request of Frank Sinatra in 1957, Martin once again "cheered up" the lyrics for Old Blue Eyes' Christmas LP that year.

As Martin told Entertainment Weekly, Sinatra called him and expressed his issues with the line (that did still appear in Meet Me in St. Louis), "Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow." According to the songwriter, Sinatra told him, “The name of my album is A Jolly Christmas. Do you think you could jolly up that line for me?”

In the end, Martin swapped out that particular lyric for the now-standard, "So hang a shining star upon the highest bough." (For her part, Garland even adopted that version in her own subsequent performances of the tune.)

While "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" did endure some edits over the years, it has long since earned its place in the canon of holiday classics that will forever be sung — without fail — every December. And the song is certainly much merrier now. 

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