Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Hope Endured

A Song for a Crying Sister

On a cold, dark Christmas Eve, two sisters longingly gaze outside their second story window at the many snow people standing in the yard below. The younger sister is devastated over the family moving away from their beloved home, and the older sister attempts to comfort her. She pulls out a music box, winds it up, and begins to sing. It is a wistful, poignant song about putting on a brave face to make the most of their last Christmas at home together. This musical hug temporarily consoles her grieving sister, but only for a short while. The little girl listens quietly, staring through the window at the snow people, which she will soon go out and knock down in a fit of despair.

Hope Endured

Hope can be an act of survival, a way of persevering in times of suffering. Hope can also be a beacon of light in otherwise dark times. We do not hope to simply wish away our worries, we hope as a form of endurance. Without hope, we may lose heart, and we may lose faith in our future and be swept away by a wave of gloominess and pessimistic fear. Hope endured prepares us for the trying times both now and ahead, gives us the strength to stare straight ahead at what is to come, and helps us to stay strong and persevere. Hope endured is not naive optimism, it is a hard-won, resilient psychological posture during times of crisis. Without this internal fortitude and inner strength to guide us, our hope can evaporate at the first signs of resistance.

It May Be Your Last

The original lyrics of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane and originally submitted to the copyright office in November 1943 were initially much gloomier, and even included a line about how it could be your last Christmas. These lyrics reflected the somber mood of the moment, written during the most trying months of World War II. Many families lived in fear of receiving a notice that their loved one had lost their life in wartime service, and for many of those who served, 1943 was their last Christmas.

Judy Garland, the star of Meet Me in St. Louis who was set to sing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” pushed back against the darker lyrics and reportedly refused to sing the song as written. The scene for the song calls for Garland’s character to comfort her little sister who is heartbroken about her family’s pending move away from St. Louis, and Garland felt her character would come across as cruel on screen singing these sullen lyrics that sounded like a funeral. Composer Hugh Martin initially resisted making any changes, but he eventually relented and reframed the lyrics into a softer anthem of quiet resilience, the version heard in the movie.

There was an introductory verse originally written for the song as well, which was subsequently left out of the movie and is rarely heard. The verse uses the archaic term “welkin,” which refers to the skies or the heavens. Although “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” became the most successful song from the movie, it was not the song nominated for an Academy Award, nor was the popular “The Boy Next Door” that Garland also sang. The nomination for Best Original Song at the 1945 Academy Awards went to “The Trolley Song”, which ultimately lost the award to Bing Crosby’s “Swinging on a Star” from the movie Going My Way. The most enduring song from the picture was the one nobody nominated.

The Second Rewrite

As Frank Sinatra was working on his 1957 album A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra, he wanted to include “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” but felt the “muddle through” lyric was too pessimistic for the upbeat feel of the album. He asked Martin to change the lyrics once again, and Martin replaced the “muddle” line with a more optimistic line about a shining star. Several lines of lyrics were changed from future to present tense for this arrangement as well, reflecting the societal shift in perspective from the somber, war-torn early 1940s looking ahead to hopefully brighter days ahead, to the prospering, confident times of the mid to late 1950s which celebrated the now. Both versions are still performed, with artists such as James Taylor, Phoebe Bridgers, and Ella Fitzgerald singing the melancholy Garland lyrics, while others such as Sam Smith and the Carpenters use the rosier Sinatra lyrics in their performances. Even though he commissioned the rewrite of the song, Frank Sinatra had himself recorded the Garland “muddle through” version of the lyrics in 1947 which was released a year later.

The Sound of Sadness

Although the lyrics have been altered multiple times in attempt to make the song brighter, the song has held on to its bittersweet, introspective harmonies that belies any verbal attempt to soothe its yearning. The song sits in a basic AABA form, and it moves at a slow, plodding pace that prevents the major key from ever sounding too cheerful. The melody seems easygoing. It begins on simple arpeggios (a sequence of the chord’s notes), broken by gentle descending lines which feel like a musical sigh. However, during the first phrase (and indeed throughout the entire song), this melody continues to land on the 7th note of the chord, instantly creating a feeling of tension and an urge to resolve that never quite leaves. In addition to using the 7th chordal note in the melody, the song often uses colorful seventh chords which can typically be found in jazz tunes, making the music sound dreamy and lush.

What the song will not do is land. The second A section, on the words, “miles away,” refuses to resolve and sarcastically lands on a deceptive cadence which carries the listener into a remote modulation. The dramatic B section, the most musically complex section of the song, sees the melody actually begin its first three notes on the 7th of the chord, creating a nagging dissonance that holds the resolution just out of reach. More complex chords appear here, diminished and augmented, adding even more wistful sonorities, which the listener experiences as emotional complexity. There is also a beautiful, chromatic descending countermelody that is subtly hidden amongst the beauty of the melodic line, amplifying the harmonic ambiguity.

For a song that is meant to comfort a child who is forced to leave her home, the music ironically ends most its phrases with half cadences that leave the listener longing for a return to the musical home. The music never quite satisfies that intense longing, and it feels like an ever-extending sentence with comma after comma, which never quite finishes its musical thoughts. The one time in the song that a clear, authentic dominant-to-tonic resolution happens at the end of a phrase landing squarely on home (besides a brief passing resolution in the B section), is the very last note of the melody, on a single word: “now.” Everything before has been withholding. The final cadence is the only true release the song allows itself, and it lands on the one word that means the present. The melancholy of the song survived the numerous lyrical edits because it was never only in the words.

Conclusion

We would like to imagine hope as a new day, a sunrise that breaks over the horizon and changes everything for the better all at once. This song knows better. The hope from this song is the kind that appears in an ordinary evening in the middle of a difficult year, when nothing feels like it has resolved, yet you play the music box anyways.

Muddling through is hope endured.

Sources and Further Reading

Meet Me In St. Louis by Gerald Kaufman. BFI Film Classics volume about the making and history of the movie.

Judy Garland: The Secret Life of an American Legend by David Shipman. A revealing biography about the troubled star.

Hugh Martin: The Boy Next Door by Hugh Martin. Autobiography of the American composer best known for his work on Meet Me In St. Louis.

Listen Along – Recommended Playlist

Listen to the Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra versions of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” with the contrasting lyrics, other artists singing the song including Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Torme, as well as additional songs from the movie Meet Me In St. Louis such as “The Trolley Song” and “The Boy Next Door.”