Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane)

Language: Greek

Wikipedia has an entry on all the drafts this song went through, with an eyebrow raisingly dark “early draft”, (1) complete with Old Testament God threatening to muck things up for you and an “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” caliber opener: “Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last.”

Heartening, then, to see the “Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow” in the original Meet Me in St. Louis version, always my favorite line, and which omission and replacement by that “hang a shining star” nonsense I can now blame on Frank Sinatra.

All that said, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Jim Nabors “shining star” version, and not because of “make the yuletide gay,” either (as I am no longer in junior high, NB), but because he holds out the word “bough” at the end for like nine measures but doesn’t actually resolve the word, so it comes out like, “Hang a shining star upon the highest baaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.”

Also, when the song is over, I do my famous-in-some-circles Sergeant Carter impression and go, “Merry Christmas, Pyle.”

If you call me, I’ll do it for you, but until then you’ll have to muddle through somehow.

- Samanth.

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Himself has one cheerful few Christmas.
You leave your heart to be light.
The following year, all our problems will be from the view.

Himself has one cheerful few Christmas.
It makes the homosexual yuletide.
It’s the following year that all our problems will be miles along.

Other time as in the old,
Golden days of dance floors,
Of friends of past that were dear in us.
Will neighbor be in us, still, a time?

Someday shortly all we will be together, if the fates allow.
Up to then, it will be supposed, we tangle somehow.
Thus, himself has one cheerful few Christmas now.

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(1) Update, a year later, almost to the day: the Wikipedia article has been Wikipedia'd into near-pointlessness, and I don't feel like fixing it right now. Interested parties are advised to read There's Something About Merry on the Entertainment Weekly site, which being almost a year old itself hopefully is here to stick around a bit. -SM