RIP: Hugh Martin, writer of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
RIP: Hugh Martin, writer of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
There are songs you hear that have seemingly always been there. What would Christmas be without the sounds of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” for example?
However, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times, the songwriter and lyricist Hugh Martin Jr, who penned the song in 1944 died at his home on March 11, 2011 at the page of 96. The song became famous through Judy Garland‘s rendition in the movie “Meet me in St Louis” (whose title song he also wrote).
Dark side of the Merry Little Christmas
Yet for such a charming little ditty, Merry Little Christmas has a darker side – and there’s a lesson for writers.
It’s interesting to note that the song received two re-writes. In the first, the line “Have yourself a merry little Christmas, it might be your last…” became “Have yourself a merry little Christmas, let your heart be light…”
Why such a dramatic change? The song had originally been written in the depths of World War 2. Like “We’ll Meet Again”, there was a chance that the singer and listener might die in the war. Plus, it was to be soung by everyone’s sweetheart Judy Garland as part of the movie “Meet me in St Louis”. An executive pointed out that the lyrics were “depressingly sad” – which is a fair enough comment.
Later, when Sinatra subsequently covered the song in 1957, the war was long over and the US was going through an economic boom. So the line “Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow,” made little sense. It was re-written as “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.”
The song has since become a standard covered hundreds of times. As I’ve said before, lyric writing is re-writing. If it’s worth doing once, it’s worth revisiting the following day.
Hugh Martin on writing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Sidenote: choose your partners well!
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is credited to Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. Yet Martin later claimed that many of the songs he co-signed were entirely his own work. There are writing teams that decide to share all credits and revenue 50/50. But according to Martin, “this bizarre situation was caused by my naive and atrocious lack of business acumen.”
You have been warned.