How “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” Went From Morbid Omen to Holiday Mainstay

Hugh Martin was crestfallen. He and his creative partner, Ralph Blane, had just finished performing a melancholy ballad that Martin had written for Judy Garland to sing in the 1944 musical Meet Me in St. Louis—and the producers were laughing.

“It’s not supposed to be funny,” Martin said.

They knew that. In fact, it was sort of why they were laughing: because the song was “so depressingly sad,” as Martin remembered one of them saying.

It would take some pressure from one of Garland’s co-stars to convince Martin to change the lyrics, paving the way for “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” to become a bona fide holiday hit. As it turned out, though, it wasn’t the last time he’d be asked to edit the song.

“The Audience Will Think I’m a Monster”

In 1943, Martin and Blane were holed up in adjacent rooms composing songs for Meet Me in St. Louis when Martin landed on a melody that seemed promising. But after a couple days of trying and failing to cultivate the first 16 bars into a full-fledged song, he decided to toss it. It was Blane who, having heard the struggle from next door, encouraged him to pick it back up. 

“I have a funny feeling about that little tune,” Blane said, as Martin recounted in his 2010 autobiography, The Boy Next Door. “It sounds like a madrigal.”

Madrigals are a type of poetic, Renaissance-era chamber music performed by choirs, and Blane’s observation prompted Martin to look for inspiration in the Christmas section of the screenplay. The writer’s block dissipated. Within about an hour, Martin had finished “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” lyrics and all:

“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”

As far as Christmas songs go, it doesn’t get much darker than “Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last.” But the words do match the big feelings at play in the film: Alonzo Smith (Leon Ames) is planning to relocate his family from St. Louis to New York City after the holidays, and his children couldn’t be more devastated by the idea. Seventeen-year-old Esther Smith (Judy Garland) sings “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” to her kid sister, Tootie (Margaret O’Brien), as the two contemplate leaving behind every happiness they’ve ever known.

Everyone, from the producers to Garland herself, agreed that while the melody was winning, the fatalism of the lyrics was simply too bleak for the movie. “It’s OK for it to be bittersweet and nostalgic,” producer Arthur Freed said, “but it shouldn’t be a dirge.”

Garland put it even more succinctly: “If I sing that lyric to little Margaret O’Brien, the audience will think I’m a monster.”

“Jolly It Up A Little Bit”

Martin was so loath to alter the song that he actually offered to compose a whole new one rather than water down what he’d already written. He finally relented after a good-natured intervention by Tom Drake, who was playing Esther Smith’s romantic interest John Truett.

“He took me aside one day and said, ‘Hugh, you’re being a stupid son of a bitch,’” Martin recalled years later. “He sat me down over a cup of coffee and we talked about it for five minutes, and he convinced me it could be an important song.”

So Martin penned new lyrics whose underlying message was less “Make the most of this Christmas, because you’ll spend every Christmas hereafter pining for it,” and more “Our problems won’t last forever—don’t let them ruin Christmas.”

“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”

This was the version heard in the film and released as a single that same year. For a nation at war, its hope and nostalgia struck a chord; according to one (possibly apocryphal) story, military members were moved to tears when Garland performed it for them at the Hollywood Canteen.

The song’s next big break came in 1957, when Frank Sinatra rang Martin with a request. He was gearing up to record a Christmas album titled A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra, he explained, and he wanted “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” on it.

“But it’s just not very jolly,” he told Martin. “Do you think you could jolly it up a little bit for me?”

With that, the last bastions of the song’s original tone landed on the cutting room floor. Martin replaced “Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow” with “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.” He also tweaked several other lines so the narrator would no longer be aspiring toward a happy future Christmas but rather describing the happy one of the present. “Faithful friends who were dear to us / Will be near to us once more,” for example, became “Faithful friends who are dear to us / Gather near to us once more.”

“Twisted Sisters … That’s a Hoot!”

Martin, who passed away in 2011 at age 96, always maintained his belief that the first iteration of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” fit the film. But it’s tough to deny that the two updated versions make better standalone Christmas songs—and not just because they’re less morose. They’re also really non-specific.

Trying to set aside your troubles for the sake of a happy holiday is universally relatable; the prospect of living in New York isn’t. (Not to mention that New York doesn’t really work as a general symbol of doom outside the context of the story.) And by swapping “If the Lord allows” for “If the fates allow,” Martin shifted the whole number toward the secular side of the Christmas song spectrum. 

“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” also doesn’t reference any outdated Christmas customs—like wassailing or figgy pudding—that make other holiday classics seem archaic to many modern listeners. (Though the original version didn’t, either.) What the song does provide is pathos in the rhetorical sense: a blank slate of wistful optimism that each listener can color in with their own personal reasons for feeling it.

These factors combine to make “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” a one-size-fits-all Christmas standard well suited to any genre in any era. Bob Dylan, the Pretenders, the Backstreet Boys, the Carpenters, Thomas Rhett, Whitney Houston, Coldplay, The Jackson 5, Phoebe Bridgers, Sam Smith, Kacey Musgraves, and the Cheetah Girls are a small fraction of the artists who’ve covered it over the years.

Despite Martin’s early reluctance to change his tune, he came to embrace the versatility of “Have Yourself a Merry Christmas” as we know it today. In 2006, when music journalist Chris Willman told him that heavy metal band Twisted Sister had just covered the track, Martin was delighted. “Twisted Sisters, is that the group’s name?” he said. “Ha ha ha. That’s a hoot!”