One of the most famous Christmas songs ever is actually a real downer
“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” one of the most frequently played holiday songs, is both somber and beautiful
Film Features christmas
Few people give much thought to how Christmas songs originate. Unless you’re a senior citizen, virtually all of the tunes that pervade the airwaves at this time of year predate your birth—they’ve just always been around, as if they’d been composed by Santa Claus himself. (Maybe not the one with him kissing Mommy.) As it turns out, though, most of them were written and originally became popular around the same time: between 1940 and 1960. The ’40s, in particular, were an incredibly fertile period for Yuletide tunesmiths, giving us “The Christmas Song” (a.k.a. “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire”), “The Little Drummer Boy,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer,” etc. People alive at that time could head out to the movies expecting to be introduced to a future standard, perhaps casually sung—as a sort of wistful lullaby, no less—by one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
Meet me under the Christmas tree
That’s precisely what happened with “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” ranked among the two or three most frequently played Christmas songs year after year. Written by the relatively unsung team of Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane (though Martin later claimed to have done all the work himself), it was expressly composed for Vincente Minnelli’s 1944 musical Meet Me In St. Louis, about a turn-of-the-century family shaken up when the father gets a new job that will require leaving their comfortable suburban life in St. Louis for the hustle and bustle of New York. Nobody wants to move—especially not Esther (Judy Garland), who’s just fallen in love with (literally) the boy next door. Toward the end of the film, when things seem most bleak, Esther sings “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” to her much younger sister, Tootie (Margaret O’Brien), in one of the loveliest scenes the movies have ever produced.
Sorry, did I say “loveliest”? I meant “most depressing.” In its original context, this song is an incredible downer—Esther’s not entirely sincere effort to convince both herself and Tootie that everything’s going to be all right… eventually. “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” became a classic mostly because Frank Sinatra insisted on having Martin rewrite the lyrics when he recorded it 13 years later, in 1957, for an album called A Jolly Christmas. Two references to “next year” were changed to “from now on,” removing the specter of 12 long months during which our troubles will remain very much in sight. Even more significantly, the bummer line “Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow” became today’s familiar “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.” Incredibly, Martin’s original draft was even grimmer, with a verse that began “Have yourself a merry little Christmas / it may be your last.” That was too much even for Minnelli and Garland (who became romantically involved during the production), and got axed.
As sad a song as it is beautiful
Nonetheless, it’s always startling to see just how somber the song is as originally performed. Garland’s expression throughout is anything but hopeful—she looks as if she’s struggling to hide how despondent she feels, and doing a poor job of it. And little Tootie is flat-out traumatized. She appears a bit melancholy in the two-shot, but when Minnelli cuts to a close-up, there’s a tear leaking from her right eye, and it seems that any qualified child psychiatrist who saw the fixed, hopeless expression on her face would instantly call protective services. And does the song make her feel any better? Apparently not, because her reaction is to run outside and start decapitating the backyard snow family with what may be an actual rifle. (The film is set in 1904, so it’s at least somewhat plausible that people might place an unloaded gun in the arms of a snowman and not worry about it being stolen.) Even the cute little dog gets his head bashed in. So much for music’s charms to soothe the savage breast. Have yourself a merry little killing spree!
Give Esther credit for trying, though. She does, after all, have Garland’s voice, which can make anything sound heartbreakingly beautiful. Minnelli, presumably in the process of falling in love (they got married the following year), places so much confidence in Garland that he shoots the entire song in just four shots: an initial two-shot, a close-up of Esther, a close-up of Tootie, and a return to the two-shot. That’s it. Neither actress ever moves—they’re both framed in the upstairs window for the duration. And while they start out looking at each other, Tootie turns away and stares blankly into the distance after the first two lines, after which Esther stops singing directly to her and begins looking upward, as if pleading to God to make her optimistic words come true. Minnelli could stage a number with the best of them—look at this film’s “The Trolley Song” for a memorable example—but he also knew when simplicity would be more effective than choreography. When you have someone like Garland, who can be powerful and poignant in the same controlled breath, just point the camera in her direction and start it rolling. Little else is required.
It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like for audiences in 1944 to hear this song in the movie, as a brand-new tune, not knowing that people would still be listening to it regularly 70 years later—and that many of those people might be completely ignorant of its source. (One could even revere Meet Me In St. Louis and not know that its songs were original. Singin’ In The Rain’s mostly weren’t, to cite the most famous counterexample.)
Furthermore, the idea that everything will soon be back to normal, and that it’s necessary to “muddle through” until then, had a special resonance at the time of the film’s release. The end of World War II was just nine months away, but nobody knew that; when you recall how many people were dying, the rejected first-draft line “It may be your last” seems considerably less abnormal. That a song about Christmas reflects anxiety about the future channeled into a hesitant embrace of the present is no surprise. Its key words, arguably—at least here, in its original context—are the two that precede and follow the title: So (“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”) now.
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This is the only of the version of that song that matters to me.Apart from that, I think the only two non-contemporary Christmas songs I can get behind are “Oh Come, Immanual” with its stark minor chord and “O Holy Night” with its amazing melodic careening.
“Oh Come, Emmanuel” is pretty much the only thing I miss about attending church. That one was always my favorite.
It’s a Lenten song that somehow ended up in the Advent season.
Makes sense, though; Emmanuel’s goin’ in Lent, not comin’.
However, Boxing Day to New Year is the biggest time for downloading e-manuals, once you see the English instructions weren’t included in the box.http://www.sadtrombone.com
Lent? No, I’m pretty sure it’s always been Advent.
Sorry, I should have been clearer, I only meant that the tune Veni Emmanuel would seem to feel more at home around the likes of “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted” than “Joy to the World” or “Gloria in Excelsis Deo”
Oh, I understand, yes, it is sort of a gloomy tune. But I like it.
Advent is a “gloomy” time. During Advent season, the Catholic Church readings tend towards the “You all suck!” parts of the Bible, and the mass excludes the Te Deum and Gloria in Excelsis as they are joyful. Similarly, the decorating of the church is muted.
The Catholics are real hung up on gloom and death, I’ve noticed. Like it’s always a crucifix, never just a cross.
Maybe because the crucifix shows reality…the cross doesnt. That’s life
You must be Catholic.Not to get into a long religious debate, but some of us prefer to take Jesus down off the cross and out into the world where he belongs. Fixating on him dying ignores the whole resurrection part.
You must be Protestant. Some of us like to bring Jesus out into the world by fighting for social justice issues and establishing hospices, schools, orphanages, food banks, shelters and work centers. Fixating on the Resurrection ignores that he suffered died for our sins. Suffering is part of life and shouldnt be ignored. In fact there can be no Resurrection without death. Dont you think we dumb down our society enough when it comes to issues of faith and theology? Do we also need to sugarcoat this as well.
Actually, I’m raised Anabaptist. So we are all about the social justice. And the resurrection. 🙂
I think you mean lent. Advent is Christmas, and about hope.
No. Advent is BEFORE Christmas. Advent begins on the 4th Sunday BEFORE Christmas.
I’m aware of advent’s position during the year. But it is neither gloomy nor does the mass change significantly in advent.Readings in advent deal with hope: Mary meets her cousin, John the Baptist preaching before Jesus’ arrival, etc.Lent, OTOH, deals with confronting guilt and accepting yourself as a sinner before the absolute pinnacle guilt trip of Good Friday and the passion reenactments.During Lent, the word “Alleluia” is removed from the mass, to better emphasize the lack of joy in the season.
The Mass does change, in the ways I describe elsewhere. The vestments are changed for colours of mourning (other than on the third Sunday), the Gloria is omited, decorations are muted, the te Deum is omitted.
It was originally meant as cheerful. Each day the monks would come in procession, singing one of the verses. Then the monastery cook would give the abbot some savory food — not sweet, as it _was_ Advent.
I feel that way about my favorite carol, Coventry Carol. Cuz Christmas isn’t Christmas without songs about infanticide! but it’s so dang beautiful.
Joy to the World and Gloria in Excelis Deo are CHRISTMAS songs, not Advent.
Love that lyric that mentions ransoms and captives.
Not really, Advent is supposed to be a time of fasting, not feasting. The minor key is most appropriate.
Hence the calendars stuffed with chocolate. Wait, what?
The fast is you’re only supposed to eat chocolate. It’s to make you want to lose that extra poundage more once the Christmas season is over.
I really liked Oh Come, Emmanuelle: In Space…I was really into French erotica for a while.
Some pop culture references on this site are obscure, but this one’s clear as Kristel.
Yeh, but as porno references go, this one was soft.
A church full of people singing Oh Come All Ye Faithful, with full choir and organ, is a pretty moving experience – especially at a Christmas Eve service. Usually done last to send everyone off full of the spirit. I’d have to call that one my favorite.
That’s Adeste Fideles to you.EDIT: although “venite, venite in Bethlehem” always bothered me – shouldn’t it be “venite Bethlehem” in the locative? (Yes, I know no-one cares.)
I go to church in America, buddy.ETA: I see disqus has changed my login again. What a weird platform.
Yeah, it does that to me all the time. Fucking Disqus.
What’s this? “All Romans go the the house?”
People called Romanes they go the house. Now write it out a hundred times or I’ll cut yer balls off.
Another nice thing about Veni Emmanuel is that the translations use the same meter as the Latin hymn, so you interchange the original lyrics if you know them.
My parents’ church usually does it as the processional at Midnight Mass, with trumpets and turning up the lights, and it’s pretty effective, especially after four weeks of purple decor and hymns in a minor key.
We used to get “Joy to the World” as the recessional hymn on Christmas, which is just about the most rousing, get-on-out-there-and-tell-everyone-about-this-great-fucking-sky-baby song there is.
Also, most everyone knows the lyics (even the later verses) so it’s not difficult to recess during.
YES. This, and “What’s Child Is This.” It bothers me a little to be agnostic and still love both these tunes so much.
Erm… you do know that “What Child is This” uses the well-known public-domain tune of “Greensleeves”, right? :-/
Obviously I don’t! But thank you for pointing it out.
Turns up in The Begger’s Opera, too.
That postdates “Greensleeves” by about a century, though.
May I suggest a listen to the Carpenters’ Christmas Portrait (the original 1978 version, not the crappy expanded version). It’s awesome. Lots of modern and non-modern (but very well arranged/sung) songs. Pretty much all of them are great in a slightly AM lite way that I would normally hate, but which is entirely appropriate for a Christmas album.I am totally okay with people thinking whatever they will about the Carpenters as a pop act. However, I will not hear Christmas Portrait maligned.
For a pop act, The Carpenters were great. Karen’s voice had the right blend of vulnerability and achiness that made a lot of their songs a step above the usual am lite crap.
One could say the same about Garland.
And Garfunkel.
And Garfield. Chester A., not the cat.
I recognize her greatness as a singer. Can’t stand the sound of her voice.
I never realized how much I was attached to the original Christmas portrait until my mom played that godawful expanded version. I was offended that it got fucked with like that.
A lot of the new material was from the Carpenters’ second Christmas album, An Old Fashioned Christmas, which has none of the joy of Christmas Portrait. There are two big problems with An Old Fashioned Christmas (and by extension, the expanded Christmas Portrait):
1) Most of that An Old Fashioned Christmas was recorded after Karen’s death. Her vocals are all leftovers from the Christmas Portrait sessions, and they’re too scarce on the new Christmas songs. There’s nothing that could have been done about that, of course. the album could only be cobbled together with what materials already existed.
2) The second big problem with the new songs is that Richard really overdoes the piano parts. His playing is ostentatious, but also sad. He’s obviously trying his best to fill the space left by his sister’s absence, but of course he can’t succeed.It’s impossible to buy the original Christmas Portrait now (unless you find the ’78 vinyl used). The best way to get the original version of Christmas Portrait these days is to pick up Christmas Collection, a double album that includes both original Carpenters Christmas albums.
I love Christmas Collection, but I agree – Portrait is better than Old Fashioned Christmas. But I’ll take Karen singing Christmas however. To me, her voice on these songs is the equivalent of a clear, cold, sunny winter morning.
Maligned as Old Fashioned Christmas is here, The Carpenter’s cover of “(There’s No Place Like) Home For the Holidays” is the only Christmas song that I had to hear every single day while working holiday retail for several years that didn’t make me spit blood by the end of the season. I even still like it and might actually listen to it for fun.
I’ve only ever seen the original release on LP. Apparently (according to the sole upload on What.CD) it was released on CD in West Germany for a brief period before Richard demanded it’s recall. Otherwise all CD releases of the album have the “revised” expanded tracks.
The Carpenters were a terrible speed metal band.
Have you been watching the Mr. A and Mr. M docuseries on Epix? The Carpenters were an early sign-on by A&M records, and you get to hear Karen and Richard talk about what it was like working with Alpert, Moss, and the rest of the crew at A&M. I highly recommend it. Carole King might be the next artist they look at in part 2.
“What Child Is This?” is pretty dang minor-chordy, too.(Plus, as a kid, I always thought it was about Mary and Joseph trying to sneak out of the manger, but one of the Three Wise Men — probably Groucho — call them out:”Hey! Whose kid is this…?
I am not cleaning up after your messiah!”)
He’s not the Messiah! He’s a naughty, naughty boy!
“What Child Is This?” is just “Greensleeves” though, which is a great song, but not Christmas-y to me.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, Christianity has never adopted something secular for its own purposes.
Although sometimes they outright annex it.
Huh, “Oh Come, Emmanuel” is a pretty song (thank you for sharing, hadn’t heard it before) but is it really Christmasy? It seems just sort of generic hymny.
So it’s too “churchy” to be “Christmasy”…?
#WARONCHRISTMAS CONFIRMED
Technically it’s an advent hymn sung in the weeks leading up to Christmas in anticipation of the Messiah. I can’t recall it ever being sung outside of the season.
Interesting. I’d never heard it, but I wasn’t raised religious and I’m guessing it’s a little downbeat for Macy’s and the malls.
As a little kid, I remember that the Catholic school I went to had a gathering every Monday during Lent, to light one of the Advent candles and sing this song. One of my few pleasurable memories of religious activity. (The other was the yearly Crowing of the Virgin Mary ceremony thingy in May). It was really impressive for a 2nd-grader.
My family always did Advent wreaths when I was younger; we’d gather around the wreath on the dining room table, read from the missal, light a candle, and sing the song.
We stopped doing that some years ago, though — I became an atheist, and I think I, aside from my parents, had been the only one of the kids who was really into doing that — so, we stopped.
Still gets my goat, though, when I see the correct lyrics for that last couplet of the song online — that’s not how I learned it:
Rejoice, rejoice, O Israel!
To you shall come Emmanuel.
“Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel” is pretty much the Christmasiest Christmas that ever Christmased.Sunday School time! Emmanuel = the Messiah = Jesus.Matthew 1:22–23 (New Jesusy Testament): “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”…which is an allusion to the prophecy set forth in…Isaiah 7:14 (Old Jewishy Testament): “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”…and is basically the thread that all of Christianity hangs from.(They ended up naming the kid Jesus, not Emmanuel. And there, upon noticing this discrepancy pre-kindergarten, went any faith I may have had in Christianity.)
I just looked into this—as with most things in the New Testament, it’s a reference to the Old, in this case Isaiah [EDIT: Like you said! Dumbass me]. “Immanuel”, Isaiah says in a coded prophecy, is the name of a child who will arrive after an Assyrian onslaught. It may be Isaiah’s way of saying; to the Jews alive after the war with the Assyrians, we’ll be naming our kids “God is with us,” because, you know, we survived. Matthew used this passage as proof that Jesus’ coming was foretold by the prophets. [SECOND EDIT: I somehow totally missed the second half of your comment when I originally read it. Sorry.]
Looks like you really got hoisted on something there.
Hoisted by the… How would I put it… Contrivance of my own creation!
I always wondered where they got the “and ransom captive Israel / That mourns in lonely exile here” bit from, because it’s not part of the original O Antiphons that the song is based upon.
It’s the last verse of O Antiphons (the gist of which: “Li’l help, m’Lord?”), worded really weirdly. “Ransom” seems to be used to mean the opposite of its current definition, which is probably why it was changed over a hundred years ago—get with the times, grandpa—to “Redeem thy captive Israel.”
That’s as may be, but nobody uses “redeem thy captive Israel”, do they? I always seem to hear the older one when the hymn is performed.
Probably should have kept reading a few chapters past Isaiah 7 where he says “His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Clearly Isaiah’s conception of ‘name’ is a little more widespread than the modern Western legal naming conventions.
Yeah, and it says he’ll be born to “us” — Ahaz & co — and that “the government will be on his shoulders,” which I don’t think means quite the same thing as “he will be a fringe cult leader who will be suppressed and executed by the Romans.”
mountain goats tho
“Emmanuel” and “Coventry Carol” for me
I love the original Emmanuel composition, but I CAN NOT STAND that massively self-serious countrified version of it that I hear in supermarkets and such all month.
Quite. Countrified versions of songs usually suck. Big-time.
All of the pop versions (and even some of the choral arrangements) are prettyfied up it seems. Nothing beats the simple une of an unprofessional congregation.
An old one I like, but that I discovered in later life, is “Wexford Carol.” Also “Riu Riu” and “Christ Child Lullaby” are possibly Christmas songs that I learned of only as an adult.”O Come Immanuel” is indeed good.
Wexford Carol is one of my favorite traditionals, as is Boar’s Head Carol, the manliest christmas carol this side of Gaston.
There’s a weird folk/rock/historical band in the UK called the Carnival Band, who have two whole albums of 15th-19th century traditional carols on a mixture of period appropriate(-ish) and modern instruments. They’re fantastic.Here’s their take on the Boar’s Head Carol. Also, NEEDS MOAR SHAWM.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Riu Riu is fun.I think “This Christmastide – Jesse’s Carol” is gorgeous, but that may just be because I have a soft spot for good alto parts. (It seems to be one of those songs that only gets sung at choir concerts).
Apparently, the music from “Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel” is one of the oldest melodies that still sounds good to modern ears.
O! Holy Night is my favorite religious carol. If someone really nails it? Shudders.
At church when I was a kid, we had this amazing choir conductor who also sang opera. She would sing this every Christmas Eve when they would lower the lights and start lighting the candles. I still get chills just thinking about it.
Agreed. Who, in your opinion nails it?
You know, I’m sure I’ve heard versions over the years, but I can’t pinpoint just one. I searched all over last Christmas, but I couldn’t find anything that was exactly what I was looking for. Although I DID see comedian Sean Cullen, of all people, perform it live and I couldn’t stop grinning because I was so happy.So, does anyone have any suggestions?
There are two that I can think of that give me “the shudders.” There is a version that Cher sings, probably from back in the Sonny and Cher days. It’s a live version that was on some random Christmas compilation album I had as a kid. She sings it in a lower key, nevertheless, it’s pretty great. I found it on YouTube: http://youtu.be/rt7-P_bEEko Martina McBride also sings it beautifully. Here she is doing it a capella: http://youtu.be/oHAy9e5I-nY
Thanks!
Merry Christmas to Me!
I wouldn’t say they necessarily nail it, but I always enjoy the bit of in that Jenna and Paul do in 30 Rock.I would legitimately listen to a 30 Rock Christmas album, though.
I mean, say what you will about the rest of their music, but both Celine Dion and Josh Groban give me goose bumps when they hit the big note (I believe it’s “Noel?”) at the end.
Yeah, gotta second that. And (ducking) Mariah’s gospel take on it is damn good. She was in peak vocal form on her ’94 Christmas album.
I associate Barbara Allen with Christmas, mostly because of the 1951 Christmas Carol. That’s a damn old melody, if I remember correctly.
I love “O Come All Ye Faithful,” mostly because sometimes they’ll sung it as “adeste fideles,” and it’s one of the few times you still get to hear Latin at mass.
I like that one, both musically and because it’s often the recessional. Therefore it either marked the time I got to go home and go to sleep on Christmas eve or time to go home and play with presents when I was a kid.
Those are basically the only Christmas songs I can stand, too. For years, the only Christmas song I liked was “Carol of the Bells” (though it has to be a traditional version, not one with electric guitar or whatever), but I’ll admit some of the older ones don’t annoy me as much now that there are so many shittier, hipster Christmas songs (hearing “Last Christmas” puts me into a murderous rage).And I don’t even care that hipster is a meaningless term, there is no better way to describe the kind of Christmas music that plays at trendy clothing stores this time of year.
Dude, there’s like hundreds of terms better than hipster for that shit. Commercial, nihilistic, condescending, faux-ironic, calculatedly cloying, culturally bankrupt, etc. etc.Totally with you on the sentiment though. Christmas time lends an extra benefit to cold-weather headphone usage.
I don’t get why people feel the need to adorn “Carol of the Bells” with electronics, dance beats, and other useless attributes. Save it for the dance floor. “Carol of the Bells” is just fine and dandy on it’s own. Which reminds me, how great is “Hard Candy Christmas?”
I’m cool with both adorned and unadorned “Carol of the Bells”. It’s such a strong melody that you can attach nearly anything to it and have it work. One of the few Christmas songs where I can’t think of a single artist’s rendition that I despise.”Hard Candy Christmas” IS awesome, but I’m annoyed that you only get to really hear the Dolly Partonful version, instead of the version from the movie with all the girls taking a line. I think the song works best as an ensemble. When one person’s singing it, it just makes them sound schizophrenic.
Hard Candy Christmas is goddamned amazing.
Hard Candy Christmas, despite having Christmas in the name, is not a Christmas song. The prostitutes sang it when the whorehouse was being shut down and they were going to have to leave each other in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. They are just saying everything’s going to be great (even though they know it isn’t) like a hard candy Christmas. (My mom has been listening to Country Christmas on her Sirius XM and I keep pointing out all the songs that aren’t Christmas songs.)
I dislike “Last Christmas” too, until I heard Frank Turner’s cover of it. Acoustic with a live audience. Really beautiful. I recommend giving that a whirl and seeing what it’s like without all the bombast.
“God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen” is another great minor key Christmas song.
Gotta love Christmas songs that explicitly refer to “Satan’s power.” Unless you’re singing the new, wussified version, which you should never do.
Yes! That was one I heard a lot later than the standard carols (Joy To The World, First Noel, etc) and it immediately stood out.
Of all the Christmas carols, that’s the one that bugs me most when people sing it during Advent. It’s right there in the lyrics, people.
Someone told me this is a classic case of a punctuation mistake. “God rest ye” was never a salutation; it’s “God rest ye merry.” Stay happy. The comma originally belonged between “merry” and “gentlemen.” No idea if this is true or not.
I’ve heard that as well, but same, I have no idea whether it’s true or not.
DAMMIT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE THE ANSWER!!
Yes.Also it should be “God rest *you* merry, gentlemen”. At some point “you” got changed to “ye”, probably just to make it sound old-timey. It doesn’t make sense though: it’s as if you were singing “Angels us have heard on high”.
SEE, JUKE BOX HERO KNOWS! GOOD WORK!
I’ve heard that as well. It certainly makes more sense, both in terms of the rest of the lyrics (‘let nothing you dismay’ is unnecessary if you’re already merry) and basic grammar (‘god rest ye’ is incomplete, like ‘may you always be…’ – be what?)
I like the first verse, but the latter verses were written for pre-Internet people with longer attention spans. And the “In Bethlehem, In Jewery” verse is not meant to be bigoted, but just sounds that way to modern ears.
I can’t believe we’ve gone this long without any mention of those “weird chords” in Christmas Time is Here
My mother, through a fluke of when her alma mater went coed, sang in a TTBB alumni choir for a while, which did an annual Christmas concert when I was little. So I have this weird problem that a lot of carols don’t sound “right” to me with the soprano section.It also explains my fondness for “Good Christian Men Rejoice”, but only if sung in rounds so it ends up sounding more like a beerhall gathering than pious. Mom_2 kind of went to a party school.
Ha! Unfortunately, I read that as “TMBG alumni choir” at first glance, which I now wish was a thing that existed outside lame-ass university acapella contexts.
_That_ would be more like the original caroling.
There’s definitely a place for fun drinking songs in the Christmas Music repertoire – I’m fond of Here we come A-Wassailing myself.
Willie Nelson’s “Pretty Paper” is perhaps the most depressing song ever, Christmas song or not.Crowded streets, busy feet hustle by you
Downtown shoppers Christmas is nigh
There he sits all alone on the sidewalk
Hoping that you won’t pass him byShould you stop better not much too busy
Better hurry my, my how time does fly
And in the distance the ringing of laughter
And in the midst of the laughter he criesDamn, Willie. When did country music become such a downer?
“When did country music become such a downer?” I’d say about 1913.
There are some fantastic traditional carols out there. It’s a real shame you don’t hear them much any more.Also, as a Brit in the US, Christmastime every year is easily the worst time for culture shock. The music is worst – it’s just so different. So the below has the proviso that I don’t know if these are even known out here…Personal favorites:
– The Angel Gabriel (more minor key awesomeness)
– In the Bleak Midwinter
– In Dulce Jubilo
– Unto Us Is Born A Son
– The First Noel
– The Three KingsEspecially that last one.. Not widely known, even in the UK, but if people know it, it tends to be on their “favourite carol” list.
I think you meant “favourite caroul.”
My favorite Christmas album is Sting’s ‘If on a Winter’s Night’. I’m from the US, so the songs were all new to me. I just love the minor key and sweet hopeful / sorrowful longing of it all. Such a change from our savagely cheerful Christmas music.
In the Bleak Midwinter is one of my absolute favorites.One of my most cherished Christmas albums is “Classic Christmas Carols” by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. It’s a complete treasure trove of carols.
Which version of “In the Bleak Midwinter”? I’ve heard two melodies.
I prefer the more traditional. Renee Fleming and Rufus Wainwright recorded a great version on her Christmas in New York album.
As a yank, I have to admit that I don’t know most of those. However, The First Noel is popular enough here. I really like Bing Crosby’s version, but to find that link I had to scroll past Carrie Underwood and Glee versions of the song, among others.
As a young soprano, I used to love “The First Noel”, because I could take the high harmony and hit the notes with ease, and knock everyone’s socks off. Then my voice changed, and now all I feel when I hear that song is the impotent resentment for days long gone.
As a fellow former soprano myself, I can relate. I went from honors chorus (I could hit Mariah’s high c) to choral dropout in about 6 months.
You two should’ve become castrati, then, if you wanted to preserve your voices…
I’LL KEEP MY BALLS, THANKS.
YOU SURE? 😛
“In the Bleak Midwinter” was a favorite of mine when I was a young choirboy. Also, “Fum Fum Fum” was tremendous fun to sing.
The First Noel is fairly well known, although I hear it more in churches than on radio airplay. The rest, not so much.
My favourite Carol would be Reed.
I second In the Bleak Midwinter and We Three Kings. I also really enjoy Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, which I rarely hear.
In the Bleak Midwinter is getting slightly more well-known over here, mostly due to occasional use in WWI related film/TV.It’s strange that there would be such a difference in which ones are popular, given that most of the classics seem to have been written in 19th-20th century England. Though, we do have Gospel – I Wonder as I Wander makes me cry every time.Edited to add: apparently there are now even pop versions of I Wonder as I Wander, what is the world coming to. For full effect, it’s gotta be sung by a powerhouse bass that makes your bones vibrate.
I’ve found I like the downer Christmas carols the best. I love “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentleman”. And if you pay attention to the lyrics of “Good King Wenceslas” that’s pretty messed up too.But “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” kills me and I cannot listen to it.
I hate when they change the words to “Remember Christ our saviour was born on Christmas Day.” No, there was no Christmas when he was born. I like th e”…born upon this day” version better.I like We Three Kings, too. That and the two you mentioned where in a Christmas Carol book I had when I was 13 and I love them.I also can’t listen to I’ll Be Home for Christmas. Waterworks every time.
“O Holy Night” is fucking amazing. I’m not religious at all but I get chills every time it explodes out the way it does.
I’m not religious either, but “Do You Hear What I Hear” always gets me because “a child shivers in the cold, let us bring him silver and gold” is just… a poor homeless kid is shivering in a basket of hay and everyone comes running with comfort and gifts – that’s how it should be right? I’m sniffling a little right now,
That’s a pretty great one too. Damn, now that I think about it, there are a lot of great Christmas songs that I haven’t really paid attention to because they’re so omnipresent.You guys, I think I just discovered the meaning of Christmas!
The harmonies in that song are damn amazing, also.
The Whitney Houston version is sublime
“Do you think we should give him some blankets? Or a coat?”“Nah, let’s give him silver and gold!”
Pretty good taste in Xmas tunes, for an Ayatollah.
Always hated “O Come O Come Emmanuel” because it sounds like a funeral dirge. I DO love “O Holy Night”, though. That high note…Jesus Christ. Yes, the guy the song is about.
Re: religious songs. You sound like you tapped right into my brain. I love hearing both those songs.
I feel the same about this version of the song. I make a point of listening to it multiple times at Christmastime. This year, I’m going to rewatch Meet Me in St. Louis, which I haven’t seen in a few years. It was Judy at the height of her powers, perhaps only outdone by A Star Is Born (which is the only version of that movie that matters).
Little known fact.
Margaret O’Brien’s character grew up to be Belle Gunness, The Black Widow.
I know someone allegedly related to Margaret O’Brien, but I have my doubts.
Fact: Belle Gunness is the only interesting thing to have ever happened in LaPorte, Indiana.
Fo’ shizzle?
Wait, so is that Scarlett Johansen’s real name?
Digital Daggers did a version of it a while back that embraced the downbeat meaning of the song, and the Vampire Diaries used it to fantastic effect as Klaus killed Carol Lockwood as she pleads for him to spare him because they (she and Tyler) only have each other, and the scene embraced a whole sense of meeting again in death.After my eyes were opened to what a sad song it was, I haven’t looked back and can’t buy into the happy versions anymore. So A+ Vampire Diaries for teaching me something about that song.
I nominate this as the second best version of this song – John Denver and Rowlf the Dog: http://youtu.be/XLQFIdcTKQM
Bert doesn’t have the most tuneful voice, but the version that caps off Sesame’s Street’s ‘Gift of the Magi’ will always be a favorite.
Was just coming on here to post this very thing, so can’t like this enough. It’s beautiful in its simplicity, in the harmony of the two voices, and the performers’ ease with one another (the little asides throughout) – the last is really odd when you think that one of the performers is a piece of felt, but there you go – all credit to Jim Henson.
John Denver & The Muppets is my entire family’s favorite Christmas album, it is pretty amazing how good all the Muppet performers are at singing in the voices of the characters.
It might be my favorite Christmas album as well. I fucking LOVE “Noel: Christmas Eve, 1913”, which I’ve never head anywhere else, and “Where the River Meets the Sea”. The only down spot for me is “Alfie the Christmas Tree”, which has grown very tiresome over many Christmases, but since it leads into “It’s In Every One of Us”, I can live with it.
‘Noel: Christmas Eve, 1913’ is one of my favourite Christmas pieces; absolutely beautiful. And the version of ‘Silent Night’, with the spoken word introduction giving the background, is lovely. Indeed, the whole thing is one of my favourite Christmas albums (along with The Chieftains’ The Bells of Dublin and Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas). I’ve probably heard the Muppet version of ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ one too many times, but I always get a laugh out of ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’, when they sing ‘Now bring us some figgy pudding’, and an indignant Miss P interrupts with ‘Piggy pudding?’ Scooter replies, ‘No, figgy pudding. It’s made with figs.’ A mollified Miss P replies, ‘Oh,’ as Scooter adds quietly ‘And bacon,’ prompting an indignant squawk of ‘What?!’ from Miss Piggy.
“Where the River Meets the Sea” is a beautiful song that makes me cry. Muppets have more feeling than most humans.
Muppet Christmas with John Denver is a tradition in my family. They’ve become the versions of these songs that come to mind first.
Yes, and ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ is a wee bit rapey
So that’s why Bill Cosby wrote liner notes for the song.
“say, what’s in this drink?” has a new rufey-ish modern meaning now alas.
she aint even know it
Back then, it had a mickey finn-ish meaning. It’s always been rapey.
You know the first person I read of who thought that was Sayyd Qutb of the Muslim Brotherhood or Ikhwan. (It was for a class) Although I think he put it as “seduce a woman” more than “rape” one. (Or is all seduction rape now?)It’s odd to see feminists and Islamists agree.
See, I don’t think the song’s supposed to be about roofies, but I still resent the “She says no but she really means yes, so let’s wear her down until she relents”-sentiment. Also it’s pretty much based on the premise that she couldn’t say yes enthusiastically anway, for fear of coming across like a floozie otherwise. So maybe not “rapey” per se, but definitely a nasty reminder of all the little things that make up rape culture. Robbing women of a clear way to say yes also robs them of a clear way to say no.
I always imagined she was arguing with herself, not him. But then, I associate the song with my first experiences with sexual freedom as an 18-20 year old. I had been crushing on this guy for a year, only to find out he felt the same way. Our first late night ‘everyone else has left and here we are’ encounters were in the wintertime. “Shouldn’t stay. What will our friends think? What will our parents think? Oh, he wants me to stay… nice… but, everyone will talk and some will disapprove (etc.).” Winter first love is the best first love. So cozy.
The one thing you have to remember is the late song reveal that she showed up unannounced at his house and spent a good part of the evening drinking and smoking with him, and while she’s being coy certainly isn’t prohibited by him from leaving. He doesn’t want her to, and is trying to provide an excuse for her to stay. I don’t see anything predatory.
Like I’m going to trust your opinion on what’s not rapey.
Bring over come cocktails and I’ll walk you through my Universal Theory of Coerced Copulation.
Ok, but this time I’m mixing the drinks. Fool me once, etc.
Invitation withdrawn.
I think a pretty important bit of original context that gets left out in a lot of these arguments is that the song doesn’t actually specify male and female roles, and in its original appearance the male and female characters sing the song twice and switch roles.Of course, it’s appeared in many other contexts that are more, shall we say, problematic. The worst version I’ve ever heard is Dean Martin’s, because the “female” part in that is sung by a generic backup choir, which gives me the feeling that he’s just running a standard game on some random girl, instead of having a playful back and forth with a woman he has prior history with.
They switch roles? Huh. I’ve never heard that. I feel like a man’s family (traditionally) would’ve been less concerned with appearances, which is what the usually-female vocals voice — my father will be worried, my aunt will talk, blah blah blah.
I was wrong about one thing: in Neptune’s Daughter, the film where the song made its public debut, the song is sung by two different pairs. It was Frank Loesser and his wife, singing the song at parties prior to him selling it to MGM, who would trade off roles. The gender reversal thing holds true.You’re absolutely right that it makes more cultural sense when the woman is the one worrying about her family, though.
Either that, or Dean just didn’t want to share the spotlight with some famous dame.
“I think a pretty important bit of original context that gets left out in a lot of these arguments is that the song doesn’t actually specify male and female roles,”
That’s not quite right. Actually, in the original written music for the role, it doesn’t have male and female parts, the parts are labeled “Wolf” and “Mouse”
Miss Piggy and Rudolf Nureyev . . .
I’ve heard that her “what’s in this drink?” line was (as BunBuns sort of alludes to) meant to be an excuse to herself as much as anything — that it was cultural norms saying an unmarried lady doesn’t stay overnight at a man’s house etc.But I agree with you that there’s a reminder of rape culture in there as well as general problematic sexual/gender norms of the time.
Yeah, I like the song but I can see how people get weirded out by it — you need a performance where both people know what’s going on and are playing along.
I’ve always wanted to tell people “Look, here’s how you get this song: imagine it’s actually taking place in summer. Imagine they look out the window, see a perfectly nice warm night, and immediately close the blinds and keep singing.”So, uh, thanks for giving me a chance to say that.
Indeed. I tend to roll my eyes a bit at people who take this song uber seriously as an example of rape culture, without considering the context or the era in which it was written, but I do think one of the things that people miss is that it’s fairly clear that the woman WANTS to stay, but she’s afraid of her reputation and what “people will say.” Sexual politics haven’t changed nearly as much as we’d like to believe since 1944. It should be perfectly acceptable for a woman to say, “Hey, let’s bang” without fearing what her family, friends, or neighbors might think.
Well… outside of maybe some particularly conservative circles, I think they’ve changed enough that the whole idea of a woman having to feign excuses as to why she spent the night at some dude’s house is so foreign that people tend to read this song like “wait, why can’t she just hop on the Bang Bus to Fuck Town? There must be some reason why she’s talking about leaving so much but not leaving- aha! Coercion! Roofies!” In a way, such comments are rather endearingly progressive. The song *is* about coercion, but it’s from a 1940s society that is telling a woman to keep her libido under wraps, even when she clearly wants to have hot monkey sex by a fire while the snow falls outside and maybe Paul Rudd is there wearing only a strategically placed candy cane and wait what song is this again
It’s only rapey if there is no consent. Nothing in that song leads me to believe that either one of them actually wants to go anywhere. Once the socially mandated formalities have been satisfied, then WOO HOO!
My only problem with the song (a song I rather like), is when she says “I ought to say no no no, at least I ought to say that I tried.” Which is…well, not really rapey, but an implication that: a) if anyone asks why she stayed the night, she should CLAIM she was raped; and, b) people will be cool with that explanation.
I don’t like saying ‘it’s a product of the times’ but the whole song is basically a reflection of the times – we want to bang, I’ll get in trouble if I’m caught wanting to bang, let’s pretend we’re snowed in.
I think suggesting that she will claim she had no physical choice is a bit much – she just wants people to think she was either seduced, or literally could not leave because the snow got so heavy.
Yes, that’s always been the biggest problem with the song for me as well. She clearly wants to stay; why should she need an excuse? Sadly, as I noted elsewhere, things haven’t changed all that much. Women are still judged by their sexual history, as if the virginity makes them worth more on the open market to a perspective buyer. It’s 2014, people! Women should be able to fuck without judgment!
But the thing she has to cover up (at least, in how I hear the song by itself) isn’t that she wanted to sleep with him, it’s that they slept together at all, since staying the night only had the implication of sleeping together. Hence all the lines about her maiden aunt’s mind being vicious and so on. So she was practicing denying that they had sex by saying “No, I had to stay because the snow was so heavy, I swear, Aunt Muriel, nothing happened!”
Frank Sinatra- I don’t like that bummer lyric. Change it. Happy it up.Hugh Martin- But Frank. It’s a melancholy song. It’s perfect. I won’t change a word.Frank Sinatra- Steve, Eydie, kick his ass.And now you know the rest of the story.
“Issue Number Three: this bald chick — what’s with her head?”
“You don’t scare me. I got chunks of guys like you in my stool.”
SNL may have gotten more mileage out of Sinatra than any other public figure.
Next Issue: Rita Hayworth or Ava Gardner- who would you rather nail? I disqualify myself cause I’ve done ’em both.
“Say, what’s with this chiiiiiiick?”
Steve and Eydie never did realize that they had gotten very little in return for being such reliable henchmen….
Doesn’t matter. Steve amassed a small fortune booking The Blues Brothers. And of course, Eydie was a high class call girl of world reknown.
I’ll tell you what you better understand! Next time you see Old Glory riding up that pole, you better sing that anthem, darling! You’re lucky you’re a chick, or you’d be nothing but a stain on the road in a crewcut. Our founding fathers went to the mat for you, baby!
My 2 year old has recently picked up this thing where whenever she wants to express indignation she starts sputtering “but-but-but” like a cartoon..I’m just imagining my daughter as Hugh Martin going
“But but but Frankie! Deano’s my cousin!”
And then Frank Sinatra smacks her, and I murder him
Stay out of my territory.
Judy Garland and depressing? Gee, that never goes together.
As someone who worked a lot of years in retail, I say fuck all Christmas music. Being forced to listen to the same loop of Holiday songs anywhere from six to fifteen hours a day starting from the day after Thanksgiving to the day after New Year’s Day is akin to psychological torture.
I am currently dealing with this myself. I can usually cope with it fine, since Christmas music is relatively warm and fuzzy music to have on in he background.But fuck me, shitty pop remixes of Christmas songs can go set themselves on fire, and get fucked.
I feel your pain. I’m working at a McDonalds, and all I hear are awful pop remixes of the Christmas song dregs (All I Want For Christmas Is You)
YES. this. for several years I managed a clothing store and the Christmas-themed CDs our home office sent us to play contained mostly standards sung by Sinatra, Dean Martin, Lou Rawls, Julie Christie, etc. I could listen to those songs all day (and did), but every so often Christina Aguilera’s awful rendition of “The Christmas Song” or something similarly modern and terrible would shuffle up and I would instantly want to MURDER SOMEONE.
The ones that get be are the instrumentals, which seem to be sped up to whip everyone into a speed-shopping frenzy.BUM bum bum bum
BUM bum bum bum…Cha-ching!
Too bad you didn’t have a factory job. Then you could’ve listened to the sweet sounds of an assembly line grinding away.
Yes, because all the factories are now in China, where there is no Christmas.
do they know it’s Christmas time at all?of course they do! their orders pick up in August.
Retail has forever ruined the holidays for me, but the shrieking horror that is the Jackson 5’s “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” leads the charge. I dread its arrival every year, knowing that it’ll wait until my guard is down to sneak up and sucker punch me in the ear.
Even though I no longer work in retail, I still avoid retail stores throughout the holidays solely for the reason that the music grates on me so fucking badly…
Those scars may never heal. But with time and support you may eventually be able to hear a Christmas song without flying into a violent rage. Although, as I’m thinking about it, why would you want to?
The department store I worked in for a few years played Muzak at Christmas. Absolutely horrifying. Also, I had a few old ladies scream at me for saying “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas.” Oy vey.
Amen to that! I got out of retail last November, and was so thrilled to not be subjected to that relentless noise! I kept slipping Run DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis” and the Kinks “Father Christmas” into the rotation just to provide some relief. I wanted to do the same with Bowser and Blue’s “Hey Santa” but it’s a little too sweary for retail.
At least you had the option to slip in other songs. I worked at a corporate grocery store where it wasn’t an option, just a taped loop of THE SAME FUCKING SONGS OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!!
That is truly Hell on Earth. I feel for you.
I have been out of retail for a while now, so thankfully I only have to put up with it in small doses while shopping and on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my family’s house, but the scars remain…
You should start a support group. We can’t be the only ones.
You want torture? My high school English teacher had a stereo system set up in his classroom with big-ass speakers and would play music between classes, and every December he would play this….album? I guess you could call it…sent to us from hell?….of Christmas carols sung by cats. Literally. Cats meowing. Mixed and edited to the tune of Christmas carols. And I actually like cats. But that was the worst ‘music’ I’ve ever heard.
Ah, Jingle Cats. Truly the greatest work of torture the 90’s ever produced.
YES, that’s what it was called! I couldn’t remember.
Better or worse than Jingle Dogs? (because I remember that one getting played more)
I have PTSD from working at Barnes and Noble at the same time that ABBA movie was out….was it Mamma Mia? They were promoting the soundtrack in the store, so…..
I always find this gnashing of teeth from retail workers over Christmas music oh so precious. As if the constant spin cycle of the same small set of pop music played throughout the rest of the year is any better. lol…
As a depressed gay teen with family issues, this song was v near and dear to my heart in high school, and I don’t think I ever get as righteously indignant than I do when I’m railing on the bastardization of this song, and it’s repackaging as a heartwarming holiday ditty. Even this comment is whiny and obnoxious, and I DON’T CARE. SOME THINGS SHOULD JUST BE ALLOWED TO STAY MELANCHOLY AND DEPRESSING. I CAN’T CRY IN BED AT MY PARENTS HOUSE LISTENING TO THE SINATRA VERSION YOU BASTARDS.
Here, your comment made me think of this:https://www.youtube.com/wat…
oh, melanie safka. how underrated you are.
Hope it cheered you up (… maybe just a smidge?)!
Look what they’ve done to “Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma,” Ma!
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
😛
It’s just not Christmas in the Gorilla household until we’ve watched Meet Me in St. Louis. Also In the Good Old Summertime. Basically, for us the holidays equals Judy Garland.
I’m not overly fond of the movie, but I do really like this scene. Minnelli I find is a bit overrated as a director of musicals, though he was a terrific director of melodrama and romance (two key elements of musicals), but the understated simplicity of this number really works.Hugh Martin was a truly brilliant songwriter, and it’s a shame that he is fairly unknown outside of musical fan circles today. Part of the problem is that to see what makes his songs so great probably requires a good knowledge of pop music in the ’30s and ’40s, because otherwise they could sound like generic Tin Pan Alley stuff. Of course, if he hadn’t spent so much of his time doing vocal arrangements, he probably would have become better known as a composer and lyricist.
One of my first serious relationships ended right before christmas and I bawled my eyes out listening to this song. And I hadn’t even seen the movie.
Holiday breakups are the worst. So depressing…
The 40s knew how to do melancholy well, and what amazing female singers. Reminds me if this NPR story on the recording of “Where or When” by Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee during Christmas Eve after Pearl Harbor. Hell, we go off to war now with songs about putting boots in asses. http://www.npr.org/template…
I feel we understood “yearning” and life’s shades of gray a little better then. Now it’s all about instant gratification, hence boots-in-asses, and what yearning we are allowed is expressed in treacly, overproduced anthem form that hits you over the head with the vocal gymnastics of Faith Hill or similar.
You gain some things, you lose some things. The 40s music were a reflection of the time. A strong memory of economic depression, and the reality of first an ongoing war and then later veiled grief and survivor-guilt. But you also got a giant dose of duty and conformity — two things that also came from the war and from growing up on the edge of starvation. Add to that the fact that there is a lot of awful 40s music that we have the luxury of having forgotten, and I think it is clear that the music of the era, like any era, was a mixed bag. There are things modern artists speak of in more sophisticated terms without even realizing it — things like diversity and self-determination and questioning (certain) beliefs.Not understanding yearning and shades of gray in life? . . . again, if you turn on a random song on the radio you’ll probably hear something dumb. But I’m not sure that any kind of longitudinal study would find any sort of significant distinction between the two eras.https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Yeah, I’ll concede the point – I was trying to say something but couldn’t capture the words properly early on a Friday morning.We’re prisoners of the times in which we live, and can’t really experience the mood of times past. Retrospectives tend to hit the highlights and leave out the crap (as I know from my own interest in vintage television and radio – for every Requiem for a Heavyweight that people say was great there was a The Death of Manolete that just didn’t work at all). Diving deeply into the everyday media of the period, as I do every now and again when I end up in Google’s newspaper archive, reminds me that the differences between then and now are fewer than one would imagine, but often I lose sight of it. At any rate, thanks for the response, which is a lot more contemplative (and closer to the truth) than my half-baked original.
I used to feel that my grandparents had a mood that was stuck in the 30s and 40s—probably PTSD, but anyway—and you could go back in time by visiting them. Not because of their house/furniture (which was always stuck in the 70s), but just because they inhabited the very mood you describe. It’s contemplative, melancholy, but also oddly self-righteous. I wouldn’t call it “shades of gray” because I think that kind of sadness breeds a form of indignant zealotry that brooks no opposition. But I know what you mean—it’s like living in a cloud without any silver lining.
Where I grew up, and the people I grew up around (especially my grandparents, who always remembered what the Depression was like), had a similar mindset. Given all that, I come by my knowledge (and, to an extent, my inheritance) of that mood honestly.
Add in a dose of status consciousness and a rigid, though disdainful, submission to authority from living under Jim Crow, and you have my mother and all of her church friends (except the Texans).
It’s neat also that Vera Lynn is both still alive, as of this writing, and that in 2009 a compilation album of hers made it to number 1 on the UK album charts. (Also was in the top ten for New Zealand)
But does anybody here remember?
Well I wasn’t alive in WWII but I have a CD of WWII songs. And I might have some Peggy Lee on one of my jazz CDs.My love of jazz and WWII music, I think, mostly starts with Snoopy. I know his imagination was mostly WWI, but there was some WWII songs in “Bon Voyage Charlie Brown.”Really a good deal of my outlook on life, etc starts with Snoopy. It’s weird, but he might be one of my earliest role models outside religious figures.
I don’t think that’s weird at all, actually. Peanuts was pretty amazing – Charlie Brown was one of the first fictional characters I really identified with, because my stomach always hurt and I didn’t have any friends and I was always depressed (and I had a little sister who’s more like Sally than you’d think possible).
Now that’s a depressing song/album.
I know I’ve heard the “muddle through” line in some recorded versions of this song.
So have I, though at least one of them was recorded by Ralph Blane. I think it’s a great lyric, too, much better than the replacement lyric.
I wasn’t aware that it had been taken out. Every version I’ve listened to has it.Honestly, I’ve never thought of this song as happy no matter what version I’ve heard. I also grew up on Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole Christmas music, so I’ve never heard the Sinatra stuff. Bing definitely sings this with the same melancholy of the Garland version.
It boggles my mind that anyone would hear any version of this song and find it cheerful. But in my mind, Christmas=melancholy, so my own attitude colors my impression.
Ella Fitzgerald’s version is kind of chipper….although she retains the original lyric. It’s my favorite version outside of Garland’s.
You know, Ella had a way of making everything sound a little chipper – it’s literally the only criticism I’ve ever heard of her singing, and even then it’s only mentioned in passing. Because, jeez, it’s Ella Fitzgerald, there aren’t enough plaudits in the world to be applied to her. When she really let go, her singing conveyed a pure artistic and skillful joy that just can’t be matched anywhere – to me, it’s like Superman flying just for fun, and just because he can, and isn’t it the most awesome thing in the world!Merry Christmas, everyone!
A nice article, as far as it goes. To fully understand the song, it has to be put in context of World War II. “Have to muddle through,” “Someday soon we all will be together,” etc. Anyway, there are lots of Christmas songs with downbeat messages. It’s a stressful time and the world has a lot of dislocation. My favorite, if very painful Christmas song, is Darlene Love’s masterpiece of lost love at the holidays. http://songmango.com/christ…
Yes, a line like ‘I’ll be home for Christmas / If only in my dreams’ takes on a new resonance when you realise that when it was written and first performed in 1943 millions of people would only by home for Christmas ‘in their dreams’ (and a lot of them would never make it home for Christmas or any other time).
Holy shit, have you ever watched Holiday Inn all the way through? My mother and I did on Thanksgiving. Let’s just say the Lincoln’s Birthday scenes were … disconcerting.
Indeed.
Someone needs to release a cut of the movie without that scene. Less to ignore that it happened and more so that I can watch a great film without cringing for five minutes in the middle.
I think the version they show on television is edited. I saw it last year on the big screen in the full version, and let me tell you, I’ve rarely been as uncomfortable in a movie theater as I was in that moment.
TCM plays it unedited (as always). Some of the other channels cut it, I think.
I just thank God I was watching it in black and white and it wasn’t a Turner Colorized version. That might have just a bit too much. It was bad enough that we both did that nervous “can you believe this shit is real” laugh followed up with commentaries about how guilty we felt over laughing at it.
Turner Colorized has been gone for decades (Thanks be to God). I like to call TCM “Ted Turner’s Mea Culpa” for just that reason.
That’s precisely why “White Christmas” was such a colossal hit.
And, also, it didn’t have a blackface scene…
Oh, that didn’t hurt box office at all in 1944.
Because all the black guys were dying over in Europe in segregated units. That’s why.
Initially, “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” was rejected by every music publisher as too depressing, until Bing Crosby heard it and insisted on recording it.
Speaking of changed lyrics in Christmas songs, fun fact:The Roxette song “It Must Have Been Love” (from the movie Pretty Woman) was originally a Christmas song in Sweden (subtitled “Christmas for the Broken-Hearted”). The Pretty Woman people heard it and liked it, but had no use for a Christmas song on the PW soundtrack. Roxette recorded a new line to take the place of the song’s Christmas reference to Christmas, and voila: a hit, Christmasless pop song.
I have to love the origins of “Silver Bells.” It was first performed by Bob Hope (natch) and Marilyn Maxwell for The Lemon Drop Kid, the heartwarming tale of a con man who sets up a fake charity involving street corner Santas collecting money to pay off his gambling debts by the due date of Christmas. But wait, it gets better. To retain an air of legitimacy and get everyone licensed, he moves poor widows into the house of a mobster on vacation until Christmas, with the intention of letting whatever happens to them happen once it’s all over.At this point you might think that “Silver Bells” is the ditty that inspires him to change, that makes him see the true meaning if Christmas. No, it’s what he sings for the dual purpose if inspiring his Santa thugs to collect more money and get closer to the girl that’s with him because he’s so charitable.A different version of the song was released on the radio prior to the movie’s release and was a big hit, so the studio decided to go back and film some more of the song. This was the 1950’s, so that meant adding some racism in! Isn’t it funny how those Asians have trouble with “l”s?https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Asians having trouble with “l”s is A Christmas (Story) tradition.
There was a logical reason to have ESL Asians in Christmas Story. In Lemon Drop Kid they just have Asian kids walk in from off stage, not be able to say l’s properly, and have Bob Hope make fun of them for it.
Meet Me in St. Louis is such a gem, and this scene is one of the reasons why.As for Christmas music, if anyone is looking for some good stuff, you could do a lot worse than “Christmas with Peggy Lee.” Man, that’s a great, great album – a mix of traditional, upbeat and obscure stuff that at least I wasn’t familiar with at first, like “Star Carol.” And her “Jingle Bells (I Like A Sleighride)” arrangement gives that song a little bit of interest.
This version may have been depressing, but after 9/11 it really nailed the Christmas season that year.
I’ve always felt this song was depressing, but not in the way it was apparently meant to be. I actually associate it with Family Matters—one of the Christmas episodes had a scene with Urkel alone in his basement with a tiny Christmas singing this song to himself, and it just struck me that the song is about being lonely. Of course, Urkel was invited over to the Winslow’s house in the end and everyone was happy. But that scene stuck with me for some reason.
He has a sweet, heavenly voice…like Urkel! And he appears lost in his own solemn reverie…like Urkel!
Yeah, I associate it with one of the Supernatural Christmas episodes, which used it in a very bittersweet way. I stopped watching the show a few years back, but that’s still one of my all-time favorite Christmas episodes.
Urkel actually stayed at his own home one day?
The James Taylor version contains the original “have to muddle through somehow,” but then, he makes everything sound depressing.Also, I have to join in the love for O Come, O Come Emmanuel, which, yes, is actually an advent hymn. Love it a capella. I’m not so much for church anymore, but if I don’t hear some good Mennonite singing around Christmas time it makes me a little sad. (There’s always traditional hymns at Christmas Eve mass with my in-laws, but damn, Catholics cannot sing en masse.)
No, that’s from years of enforced piety and en masse singing at First Friday Masses.
Huh? Enforced singing en masse means they can’t? Or rather, they can’t sign in any sort of key or harmony? I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to say…
Catholics have pipe organs to make up for lip syncing hymns
Except at my in-laws’ church, we usually end up in the overflow mass in the gym, with just an electric keyboard. So the singing is tuneless and apathetic and there’s no pipe organ bombast to make up for it.I know I’m harping on this, but I come from a family of musicians and a church where singing was very important 🙂
Any fervor for singing was beaten out of long ago. Hence, it always sounds like hell.
Ah, gotcha. Yes, clearly. 🙂
James also seems to have a little lyric trouble in that version, which is odd, since it’s not a live one.
I’m always struck by the “little”—have yourself a merry “little” Christmas, as if we all know we can’t be full-on merry this year. It’s like a Christmas song meant to be sung by a Jersey clan—try and have a merry fookin’ Christmas (even though everything sucks).
Everyone, something that’s been on my mind since I recorded it last Christmas: Scrooge, the musical starring Albert Finney, has some amazing songs that I’m surprised haven’t become seasonal standards. “Christmas Children” may be a little eerie (though it’s a good song) but “December the 25th” is just pure Christmas party, and a lot of fun. Other great songs are “Father Christmas” (the reprise is the nice version), “I Like Life,” and “Thank You Very Much,” pretty much the only song that anyone remembers from the film.
Don’t forget “I Hate People”!But in all seriousness, I totally agree. A great, underrated musical and one my family watches every year. It is somewhat surprising that, at the very least, “December the 25th” never hit the mainstream.
Correct!
Oh, another song from the musical that might have caught on among choirs: “Sing a Christmas Carol.”
My sister and I like to sing that George C. Scott style: “I – hate – peo-ple!”
I’ve never seen this. I really ought to fix that this year.
It really is the best you’re going to do for a Christmas Carol musical.
Muppet Christmas Carol begs to disagree. “We’re Marley and Marley” is just one gem (although I don’t like the boring human ballad that they cut from the theatrical release and added back in on home video)
“The Love Is Gone” was cut from the theatrical release? Huh. Jeez, that song made me cry. Fuck that song!
I love the Scrooge soundtrack.
One of my favorite childhood movies, and this is just such a great scene. Garland nails the sadness of their situation.
One of the most famous Christmas songs, and one of my favorites. The merriment of most of the popular standards needs a little melancholy and minor key for relief. I’ve always preferred the original “muddle through” verse (still heard on some versions, including Bing Crosby if I recall correctly).
Definitely exists in the Bing version. It’s the one I’ve heard the most and I always remember that line.
I’ve heard versions where people repeat the verse, and do both the “hang a star” and “muddle through” lines. I prefer the “hang a star” line, and I think it fits in a mournful take on the song: it’s like saying, “make a wish” that things will get better.
Whose version of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas throws in a little *choke* in their throat when they hit that line at the end? “And Have yourself *choke* A merry little Christmas NOW…”Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song” is all about the melancholy and nostalgia, and turns me into a blubbering mess every time I hear it.”Chestnuts roasting on a open fire”? I don’t like chestnuts, OR open fires. Bah Humbug. I’ll be over here wrapped around this egg nog.
So basically what we all need is just an open HateSong thread for everyone to vent about their most hated Christmas songs. I’ve written four or five paragraphs on how much I hate “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire/The Christmas Song” and I still haven’t felt like I’ve been able to express my hatred adequately enough. I hate, hate, hate that song.
Have some egg nog and sit down here next to me.
There are far more deserving candidates for your Christmas loathing than “The Christmas Song”.
Have you heard the Mel Torme version? Have you heard the Mel Torme remixed version from the Verve Remixed Christmas album? It’s pretty … trance?https://www.youtube.com/wat…
While we’re on the subject of Christmas songs from musicals not necessarily about Christmas, “We Need a Little Christmas” from Mame is simply wonderful, and a fair bit more upbeat than this. And while she’s no Judy, I love hearing Angela Lansbury sing.Also fun, a character’s (the nephew, I think) objection to Christmas celebration because it’s only the week after Thanksgiving. If only they knew!
I’ve been really digging “We Need a Little Christmas” lately. Not as sad as this, but I do love the line “For I’ve grown a little older, grown a little sadder, grown a little older.” It hits at that mix of emotions around the holidays, where you may have had a crappy time but you still want to celebrate.
Love that. I actually sang that in a concert once. It’s really delightful and I’m surprised more people don’t incorporate it into the season somehow.
And don’t forget, it’s sung as as a reaction to Mame (and a lot of other people) losing her fortune in the 1929 crash. So like “HYAMLC”, it arises from a rather dour situation, though its actual content and mood is much cheerier.
Yeah, it’s definitely intended in the same spirit as “Have Yourself…”, but Mame is such an upbeat character, the song can’t help but be less melancholy.
The Glee version where the glee kids sang it while people heckled and threw things at them was pretty fun. I also admit to liking the Muppet version.
I had the nicest experience while at a Long John Silver last week, when they played that. It’s nice to hear the OBC version, and not the Johnny Mathis or Ray Coniff Singers ones.
Chicken planks!A cursory google search suggests they no longer use that terminology, to which I say NO MA’AM.
I just watched Meet Me In St Louis 2 weeks ago (I watch it at least twice a year) and damn it if you’ve made me want to watch it again already. But I’m at work, so until then I’ll have to muddle through by listening to the song on my iPod (put it on there about a month ago, couldn’t wait for December).
I know, right? Now I want to just straight up buy the DVD so I can watch it whenever I want.
Yup, I bought the DVD so I wouldn’t have to try catching it on TCM at Christmas. I like to watch it around Halloween now too.
I was always obsessed with the cake and ice cream in the Halloween scene. It was such an ordeal for Rose to go get the ice cream, and damn that cake looked good.
Right??! I still see that cake and think “Damn, Katie made that? Does she have formal cake decorating training???”
Katie could make anything. Homemade ketchup, elaborate cakes and sass for days.
I have weirdly strong feelings about this. I think I heard the original, “Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow” version first when growing up. Now when I hear the “hang a shining star” line, it seems roughly 1,000 times worse. I like the sentiment of the original line, depressing or not. The replacement line seems so generic to me.
My favorite moment in any Christmas song is in, uh, The Christmas Song (aka Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire). It’s the “everybody knows” bit of the line “Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe…”It’s really fascinating how different performers choose to interpret the line; some belt it out, but the reason it’s my favorite is that most choose to make it poignant or wistful even though the line itself isn’t that sad. They hit the line as if they were alone for the holidays and a little sad and mumbling along with the song on the radio.Every year I’m tempted to make a supercut of a bunch of different takes on it, but then I remember that I’m gonna die one day and I don’t want to be remembered for having a montage show up in Great Job Internet.
That and the interpretation of “To see if reindeer really know…how to fly” is also usually loaded with an avalanche of sentiment that has always rang as incredibly forced to me. Squirt in those glycerine tears and make sure your mascara is running while you reflect on the loss of innocence and childhood wonder, make your voice creak and trail off or even really bring up the end of flllYYYY!! and make a meal out of it if you’re Natalie Cole. And please, please do not get me started on the way “Tiny tots” is enunciated. No human being in the history of humanity has ever naturally worked “tiny tots” into a sentence. Because it is a terrible sounding combination of words. Say it out loud right now. Awful. Never say it again.
Who killed your joy, Chilly?
Retail. Retail and a clinically depressed father who used the holidays to drink and take his misery out on anyone unfortunate enough to be in the same house. I’ve found after quitting my retail jobs for good that I actually enjoy many christmas carols, but the ones that get played 12 hours a day in malls during the holiday shopping season are on a very short loop of the same songs over and over again.
“Tiny tots” always makes me think of “tater tots.”
Napoleon! Gimme some of your tots!
I was raised on TCM as a kid. Every time we watched this movie and this scene came up, I would cry my eyes out.
I try to watch TCM every Sunday morning. They were on a Maltese Falcon marathon for awhile there.
I love watching the classics, especially Judy Garland movies – they have more soul
Depressing Christmas songs are the *best* Christmas songs. Somehow they capture the actual feeling of Christmas way better.Personal favourite is I Believe In Father Christmas: https://www.youtube.com/wat…. There aren’t many atheist-minded Christmas songs, but here’s one. And it really pins down that feeling that Christmas is never again what it was when you were a kid – and that really, this is our own fault. And the Vietnam referencing video. (Also, I’ve never heard this in the US, which is a TRAVESTY)
This has always been my favorite Christmas song and the tone was always right because I think there usually some melancholy that goes along with the Holiday.
The child is sad. Better call protective services.
I get what you’re saying, but reportedly Garland was worried about the scene; she said something about being worried that people would think she was a monster for singing the song to a little upset girl.
Tootie deserves to be sad, after the crap she pulled at Halloween.
Talk about your bad seeds …
“Suburban life in St. Louis”
Uh, not exactly. The family lived in an urban neighborhood in what was then the 4th largest city in the US. The city was the focus of the world in 1904 with the Worlds Fair. Not exactly sleepy Mayberry.
Sure hope someone gets fired over this.
You know what’s interesting? Considering all of these Christmas standards came out over a 20 year period from 1940-1960, since 1990 I can’t think of a single modern/contemporary Christmas standard that I would hold up with the same regard except for Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas”Which is to say, it’s gotten pretty difficult to create a classic Christmas song.
Mariah’s is pretty much it. And its inclusion in the pantheon is well deserved.
I think it’s half about the way we relate to musical styles these days and half about nostalgia marketing (which in this context also has to do w/musical style). I kind of like the “rock and roll” Christmas songs, or at least a couple of them, but neither I nor anyone else takes them seriously; they sort of don’t seem like real rock music, because they’re set a little apart from the way we want rock music to function. You can mention Christmas in a rock song, but “River” and “Fairytale of New York” are much less “about” Christmas than “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (or “Jingle Bell Rock”) is (they’re Christmas songs in the way that Die Hard is my favorite Christmas movie). 2/3 of our Christmas music is just the pop music of my grandparents’ youth, but “The Christmas Song” doesn’t function differently than anything else Nat King Cole sang.
The only hip hop or contemporary r&b (meaning last thirty years) Christmas songs I can think of are “Christmas in Hollis,” which is a genial gimmick like “Jingle Bell Rock,” and “All I Want is You,” which is Young Mariah Carey singing a catchy upbeat love song. Young Mariah Carey singing a catchy upbeat love song is success, however Christmasy, so that’s why it gets into the canon.
Pretty much. Maybe it is just nostalgia, but the way music sounded in that time period feels like a better fit for Christmas. Even listening to a recent cover of an old song can be weird, if it’s got too much of a modern touch.
As always, Randall Munroe also noticed. And blames the Boomers.http://xkcd.com/988/
Another great melancholy song is “Christmastime is Here”
reading over these comments is making me think of all the lesser-covered Christmas songs I love…Maybe This Christmas
Child in the Manger
Some Children See Him
I Wonder as I Wander
Winter Weather
Pat-A-Pan
See Amid the Winter Snow
Petit Papa Noel
The Holly and the Ivy – Natalie Cole does a lovely version of this that always makes me envision a quite snow-covered wood.And how do we feel about My Favorite Things getting more and more lopped into the holiday canon?
See Amid The Winter Snow +1
I disapprove. One reference each to presents and snowflakes do not a Christmas carol make.
Upvoting for I Wonder as I Wander. Christmas songs with a touch of melancholy are the greatest.
Melancholy at Christmas? Kirk Cameron will have none of it! He requests your presence in his parked car for the next 80 minutes.
I just tweeted angrily at Stephen Amell/Arrow for suggesting that Sam Smith’s newly released version is superior to all others, including JUDY’S. Humbug!
If he’s so smart, why’d he climb a snow-covered cliff with no gloves, right before he had to have a sword-fight to the death? I QUESTION YOUR MUSICAL/COMBAT JUDGMENT, STEPHEN AMELL.
I heard Taylor Swift’s Last Christmas yesterday (originally Wham!’s). I’m not a big “listen to lyrics” kind of person, so I didn’t realize it wasn’t Alan Parsons Project’s Don’t Answer Me until about 30 seconds into it.
As if that song couldn’t get worse, we have Taylor beating the hell out of those lyrics to fit her arrangement.
Garlands version here is THE definitive version. I’ll grant you, John Denver and Rowlf did a nice duet of it, but this one, with “Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow” is the version I want to see and hear. Minelli’s direction of MEET ME IN ST.LOUIS has to be up there as one of the greatest jobs of directing a movie-musical in history. Its a really wonderful film in so many ways. I admit, I’m prejudiced being from St. Louis, but still, I love it, and I don’t even celebrate Christmas as a Jew who happens to have a Catholic father.
I grew up listening to the Bing Crosby version, so that’s still my go-to, but yeah, this one’s damn good. STL represent!
Try Margaret Whiting’s version.
*sobs all over this article*
I didn’t realize that “we’ll have to muddle through somehow” had been removed. I usually listen to Chris Isaak’s version, which includes it.
Two references to “next year” were changed to “from now on,”
removing the specter of 12 long months during which our troubles will
remain very much in sight. Am I missing something, or could next year be, oh, I don’t know, about a WEEK after Christmas?
Have Yourself A Very Shitty Christmas
Is that the Connery version? Because he could be singing the original version and you wouldn’t know the difference.
YES. This, and “What’s Child Is This.” It bothers me a little to be agnostic and still love both these tunes so much.
Don’t be. You don’t need to be a Jedi Tusken Raider to enjoy the Star Wars score Cantina band.
To be technical, the “tune” to What Child is This is not at all religious, since its just the much older Greensleeves.
Another depressing Christmas song is Greg Lake’s “I believe in Father Christmas.” The last few lines can be devastating if you’re going through a bad time during the holiday season “Hallelluah, noel, be it heaven or hell, the christmas you get you deserve.”
The other big change from the original lyrics:Faithful friends
who are dear to us
gather near to us
no moreNow THAT is a bummer, so they changed the last line to “once more.” (This stuck in my mind from a Terry Gross interview a year or two ago).
Holy god, is that true? This thing is a fucking suicide anthem.
Yeah, it’s true, at least according to Fresh Air. If I remember correctly, it was more because they were moving far away from everyone they knew, not that everyone was going to die. It was meant to be a really, really, bleak and depressing song, but I think that everyone realized what a great song it was, and they didn’t want it to become a fucking suicide anthem.
Minelli and Garland, among others, demanded that Martin lighten things up a bit, resulting in what you hear in the film. Sinatra had him lighten things up yet more, as pointed out in the article.I was playing this for a friend the other day, remarking on how it was written by a “homosexual born again Christian. No, not at the same time.” Figures a confidant of Judy might be gay. Later on he hit the church, in the Martin/Blane songbook there are often alternate devout lyrics to his songs added. Great writer, the very first song he wrote, Ev’rytime, is a gorgeous ballad – which he wrote in his head, on the subway. According to an autobiography he published a few years ago, shortly before he died, he was an easygoing enough sort so didn’t mind the much more outgoing Blane getting co-credit on these songs, but apparently he rarely had much to do with writing them.
Jesus. “Once more” isn’t blatantly optimistic, but that’s brutal.
It’s my absolute favorite. This version is obviously perfect. I love the versions that really play up the melancholy of it. Sam Smith did one I really like. Beautiful song.
Judy Garland is severely underrated. She was an excellent dramatic actress as well. I love her movies, and I generally hate musicals.Truly one of a kind.
The song as is now is still kind of depressing. “Through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow” It’s one of my favorite, if not most favorite Christmas song, because it constantly reminds me that nothing is perfect and things don’t always work out how you want them.
Wow, she drove that kid into a snowman murdering rage.
I loved the part where Tootie said she wanted to say in St. Louis “… even if I have to live with the orphalins in the orphalin home.”
To add to the downer! Want to know how they got the reaction from the little girl when she destroys the snowman? They told her someone was going to kill her dog. Google it!
On the commentary of The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, director/star Asia Argento discusses how she would threaten young Jimmy Bennett in order to get him to really cry during his scenes.Hollywood is a magical place.
Hollywood is America, in terms of how we treat children.
most depressing Christmas song ever – unbelievable.https://www.youtube.com/wat…
I trust you’ve seen this.https://www.youtube.com/wat…
No, I hadn’t but he nails it. Jesus what a fucking horrifying song.
The work of Satan, undoubtedly
Thanks
And of course, to bastardize it even further, many churches now sing this song with “if the fates allow” changed to “as the Lord allows.”
“Incredibly, Martin’s original draft was even grimmer, with a verse that began “Have yourself a merry little Christmas / it may be your last.”Lmao. Holy shit. That’s hilariously depressing.
I love the back and forth, but you’ve excluded the #! carol of all time: Hark the Herald Angels Sing. It’s the most concise, it’s the most singable, and it’s a brilliant piece of work by (I think) one of the Wesleys. Adeste Fideles opens, Joy ends, but Hark the Herald is positioned at the high point of the program, every time. Because it is the best.
Well, it’s Charles Wesley _plus_ the wisdom of the crowd. The original version was different. He said that it was to be used in various contexts, but Never For Christmas.
One could even revere Meet Me in St. Louis and not know that its songs were original.Several songs in the movie aren’t, including the title song that was written for the actual 1904 World’s Fair. And I figure most people who revere the movie at least assume that it didn’t originate “Skip to My Lou.”
Really, though, nothing tops the Crypt-Keeper’s “Have Yourself a Scary Little Christmas”.https://www.youtube.com/wat…
I didn’t know the origins of this song, but I always thought it was a terribly depressing song. I assumed it was written during World War II and that it was more of a sentiment about just how shitty things were. For as long as I can remember, I’ve thought the lyrics were dripping with irony. I mean, look at how South Park used it in “Mr Hankey’s Christmas Classics” in a scene that turns into a tribute to Mary Kay Bergman just a month after her death. It might be one of only two emotionally sincere moments in the entire series, and it hits pretty hard.And don’t forget Jon Darnielle’s wonderful cover for the Undercover series that contains an aside to explicitly drive the depressing nature of the song home. I almost thought that this article wasn’t going to be about “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” because it would seem almost redundant with Darnielle’s cover, but it was really interesting.
I’ve always thought it was massively depressing, but still beautiful. If listened to in the original context, that is. I hate it when people have lines in original songs rewritten for stupid purposes.
This is better than the Santa and Jesus Xmas songs.
I love the Judy Garland version of this song, and I hate the later changes to make it more upbeat. The changes totally missed the point of the song. One of the major themes of Christmas is hope, and thats what this song is about. All the sadness, all the “”Muddling through somehow” leads to the hope that things will get better. Christmas is not always a 100% happy time (As the article states, when the film came out, loots of families had loved ones away at war for a bittersweet Christmas) and this songs recognizes that while still giving hope. I think this version is beautiful, and I wont put any other on my holiday playlist.
This is by far my favorite Christmas song. Of course I prefer the updated lyrics of the Frank Sinatra or Michael Buble versions rather than the bleak original.
Similarly, there’s a song in The Mikado, ‘Sing a Merry Madrigal’, which is often treated as a fun song about thinking happy thoughts… but that misses the entire point of the song, which is that they’re agreeing to lie to themselves about how horrible everything is (including the lead’s impending execution). It’s actually the saddest song in the show, exacerbated by the characters pretending everything’s okay.
I just noticed that Dylan actually sings the original lyrics (“next year…” and “…muddle through somehow”) on his Christmas album. Good for him.
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“Sir, deep in my heart, I know I’m funny.”(RIP Bruno Kirby)
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Very cool!
He was great in “The Freshman,” also.
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Vince Guiraldi Trio too right
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I’m not sure that song is depressing in quite the way that @avclub-c45a64fbbbb4e71b4686f07d84fd1328:disqus was looking for, but it is a nice choice, and it might even get @disqus_pMhFjdowA1:disqus feeling less Scrooge-y about Christmas songs.
This song plays when I enter rooms during the winter months.
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In general, I think that Christmas music is awesome. However, I would be totally okay with a complete and immediate ban on playing “Wonderful Christmastime” in public.My condolences, @avclub-6c6094f256f51e83fe02bce6091163e7:disqus , as your speedy ability to come up with that list of er—non-classics—indicates an obvious lingering customer service job-related trauma involving bosses with horrible taste.
Who out there actually likes “Wonderful Christmastime”? Or does McCartney pay people to play it every year?
I like it! And I have met one other person who likes it.So… two people? Three if you include McCartney?
I love it, and I just realized it recently after years of ambivalence.The synthesizers just have this warm homey feel that sells the whole thing for me
I agree about the much-maligned synths, but the incessant bells kill it for me.
No, apparently he gets about a half a mil in royalties every year for this atrocity.
That’s the biggest injustice in recorded history.
The Venture Brothers version is pretty sweet.
I have a skill? to recognize a MacCartney written song in about 3 bars. Every. Single. Song. He ever wrote is the same song, just different words. I can even tell which pieces of his collaborations with Lennon he wrote. My hackles rise at hearing his stuff. Yuck.
After missing a train to Sofia, I spent Christmas night 2009 in a seedy bar in Thessaloniki, getting woefully drunk on Mythos beer, repeatedly rebuffing a zombie-like, junkie Ghanian hooker, and listening to a loop of 9 or 10 Xmas songs, one of which was “Wonderful Christmastime.”
Again?!?!?;)
I LOVE Christmas music, but If I never hear Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree or Jingle Bell Rock ever again, I will live a long and fulfilled life.
Exception: opening shot of Lethal Weapon.
And the mannequins scene from Home Alone.
Those are the same two songs that I hate with a fury!
Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” came out in 1979. In early December, 1980, John Lennon was murdered. My theory is that John arranged it himself just so he wouldn’t have to hear that song for a second year in a row.
John and Yoko’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” isn’t much better, in my opinion. But I guess Sir Paul decided to stick it out. The royalties from “Wonderful Christmastime” probably help dull the pain.
Happy Xmas is at least a little rough and cynical around the edges. I mean, it’s still not a good song, but it’s not the bouncy sap that Wonderful Christmastime is.
“Wonderful Christmastime” is the worst Christmas song of all time, followed closely by “Happy Christmas (War is Over)”. Basically what I’m saying is, fuck the Beatles.
Worst is a stretch when we live in a world with songs like “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”, “Christmas Shoes” and that horrifying donkey song.
I don’t have the musical vocabulary to describe just what it is about “Wonderful Christmastime” that I hate so much. It’s repetitive. It’s jangly. It’s stressful to hear. It’s the only song I can think of that I have an actual physical reaction to.
The lack of effort that McCartney put into that song is glaringly obvious in every syllable. It SCREAMS “Christmas cash-in”. It might just as well have been written by Stephen Colbert.
I haven’t heard it in years but IIRC It just sounds wrong somehow. Like non-Euclidean eldritch wrong, it’s weirdly sinister. That and Temporary Secretary, there’s bad synths happening
The absolute worst for me was Andy Williams singing ” Coming Down the Chimney “. I would like to bring him back from the dead, just to beat him to death for that one.
Wonderful Christmastime is the worst piece of music man has ever created. I loathe it with every fiber of my being. I kinda love the Jackson 5 song though. Also, this list needs Christmas Shoes because fuck that song.
Christmas Shoes is the Antichrist
I rarely hear it in stores, though. Which is the only good thing about the Christmas music I hear in stores.
I enjoy “Christmas Shoes” because it reinforces my notion that Christians believe that Jesus won’t let you into heaven if you aren’t dressed nicely.
Two days before Christmas 2010 I was stuck in an airport terminal 3,500 miles from home, waiting for my flight home. The inbound kept getting delayed, and delayed, and delayed even more. This was bad enough, but the same endless loop of the same Christmas songs kept being played over and over and over. I had to listen to that kid warble “My Two Front Teeth” again and again. And although I’ve never really had a problem with Shirley Temple, but if I had to hear her sing “The Toy Trumpet” one more time…suffice to say I’ve seldom been happier to see an airplane pull into a gate in my life.
After missing a train to Sofia, I spent Christmas night 2009 in a small, seedy bar in Thessaloniki, getting woefully drunk on Mythos beer, repeatedly rebuffing a zombie-like, junkie Ghanian hooker, and listening to a loop of 9 or 10 Xmas songs, one of which was “Wonderful Christmastime.”
see, now why doesn’t ABC Family ever show stuff like that at Christmastime?
And don’t forget “Santa Baby.”
Oh fuck, how I wish I could.
One place I work played variations on A Very Special Christmas every third song and Baby It’s Cold Outside about three times an hour. By the time Christmas rolled around, I wanted to kill everyone.
So does America not have the omnipresent Slade and Wizzard songs, then? Here you can’t go anywhere without hearing ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ and ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’ on an unending loop.
Nope, you’ll never hear those on this side of the pond.
Agreed. Never heard either until I moved to England for five years in the mid-1990s. Now I can’t un-hear them.The other big Christmas song that I heard over and over in England – that never gets played here – is ‘Walking in the Air’ from The Snowman.On another note, I guess we never have to hear Rolf Harris’s ‘Six White Boomers’ ever again. Thank God.
Their incredible cover of “Walking in the Air” was the song that introduced me to my love affair with Nightwish.This past Christmas, the Cedar Falls (Iowa) orchestra performed the entire soundtrack to The Snowman. It was such a moving experience. I was practically in tears when the first frames of my favorite children’s movie appeared on the silver screen. And seeing “Walking in the Air” performed live gave me chills.
I only know of Slade thanks to the Office special. I’ve also heard that “Fairytale of New York” (which gets NO airplay here except on the college/independent stations) is a near-constant presence in the UK (this sort of blows my mind)
Oh definitely, in fact I think Fairytale of New York has re-entered the UK single charts at Christmas every year for the last decade.
If they just limited it to Bing and Nat and Vince Guaraldi, I would have no complaints at all.
Oh man, I still can’t stand hearing Wonderful Christmastime. When I worked at a convenience store, like 15 years ago, it felt like it was constantly on.
Have you heard the Christmas Donkey song?Because, until you have to listen to both that and “Do They Know It’s Christmas At All?” five times a day in between other Christmas songs for forty-five days, you don’t know real pain.
Do they subject you to gems like “i Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” or “Dominic the Christmas Donkey”?
I actually like both those songs. But then, I love this:https://www.youtube.com/wat…
So they just recycled the tune for “Macho Man” … I wonder how much time they had to put that together.
“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” commemorating the holiday Its.
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Well I didn’t say unprecedented, but I can’t think of many examples. Although many Islamists do believe, more or less, that the American fashion magazines encourage an unhealthy obsession with image. And Islamists, oddly, believe in casting off societal traditions, even some relating to gender. (Some people wrongly think the Islamists are about going back to traditions, but they tend to be closer to “Sweep away all traditions in favor of living like the early Caliphate”. So they’re maybe closer to Restorationist than Traditionalistic and therefore can go against some local traditions like female circumcision or arranged marriage to first-cousins if they feel they have no Islamic justification.) And possibly there are commonalities on pornography between feminists and Islamists. And I’ve heard of some really radical Feminists who believe in gender segregation, but I think that’s not common.
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I can earn more than $2000 a week selling drugs, toots! Joke’s on you!
Speaking of which, corner of Lex and 125th at 7:30 tonight, right? I feel like bugs are crawling all over me.
You don’t sell drugs; drugs sell themselves.
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She was, also, the platonic ideal of an entertainer. It’s taken me decades spent watching and listening to musicals, but I’ve come to accept what many gay men have always insisted: She was the greatest, most talented, most watchable person who ever stepped in front of a camera. I’m talking about performance-Judy, not real-life-Judy.
The Carnegie Hall concert recording is easily one of my favorite albums of all time. But I’m gay, so my word may not be as convincing.
I love her voice and I think she’s gorgeous, but she seems a bit stoned all throughout Meet Me in St. Louis.
She might have been, sadly. The studio heads were all over her about her weight not long after she signed with MGM, and it only continued through the years. I don’t know when she started taking diet pills, but the conventional wisdom is that it started early (if not in her teens, definitely in her twenties).
Apparently people would say things along the lines of Marilyn Monroe just being another “plain but pretty girl” until she stepped in front of a camera to act or model. That she could just blend into the background until she turned it on and became star-worthy with a small change in her demeanor.Sad how both these women were so goddamn troubled in their lives when they’re still revered for their talents and charisma today, even with their troubled lives always coming to peoples’ minds as well.
I sometimes turn it into a competition in my imagination—which beauty had the hardest life? Right now Rita Hayworth is taking the lead, for me.
It’s almost like we want these goddesses to be vulnerable—like their fame requires tragedy. I’ve always suspected that Cyd Charise wasn’t a bigger star (despite her stunning looks and talent) because there was nothing tragic about her—instead of a heroin habit, she had a happy marriage and a long life, and she looked great even in her 70s.
Marilyn’s is the last biography I read, so I guess I’ll stick with her. Mostly because the image of her that has remained has been the ditzy, man-crazy, drug addict, when she was one the smartest and most dedicated actresses out there.It was a gross time in Hollywood, that’s for sure, especially for the young women. But then you look at Ms. Hepburn, she managed to keep her head above water, and then all but shut down publicly when she had kids and decided they were more important to her than her career.
I’m not sure if you’re referring to Katharine or Audrey Hepburn, but they both were women who had long and successful careers without the personal turmoil that overwhelmed Garland, Monroe, and Hayworth. So my theory above is bullshit, really.
It must be Katherine, because with that neck of hers, Audrey always had a fuck of a time keeping her head above water.
Sorry – Audrey, I don’t have much knowledge of Katharine. But, if anything, the Hepburn ladies and Cyd Charisse seem to be a general exception from the tragedy-laden ladies of the time. Even some of the other women who managed to buck the trend and stay alive still had tumultuous rough spots in their lives.
I’ve always liked Judy Garland, but I was never an over-the-top obsessive gay fan until I heard Elaine Stritch tell the story of drinking with her until sunrise, whereupon Garland stood up and said, “Elaine, I never thought I’d say this, but ‘goodnight'”.Judy Garland forever.
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I know, it’s hard to be enthusiastic about Garland (or musicals) and not have people look at you like Is-there-something-you’re-not-telling-me-dude? It’s how I imagine Hugh Jackman feels.
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I suppose I see what you’re saying. But Judy in Summer Stock? I’d totally hit that.
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You just love walking up to that line and putting a toe across it, don’t you?
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What problem on this earth can’t be solved by two men retreating to a parked car while their wives stay inside?
I’m a huge fan of the original final verse. We need it back. Not so we can be more depressed. But because every year since 2015 has been terrible, and it is never getting better. Let’s grow up, face the facts, and have this song reflect some damn reality. Sinatra failed. His lyric change is a band-aid on a downer of a song. Restore it to its full downer glory.
One sure way to make my head explode this time of year is to hear a Christmas soundtrack that includes a light, peppy, happy-go-lucky performance of this song. Even the revised lyrics are chock full of sadness and longing. If you head into a recording of this song with the thought, “This is a light and happy number,” you’re simply not paying attention.
By Mike D’Angelo | And yet the comments are 7 years old…
Hey, reposting a 7-year-old article without indicating that you’re reposting a 7-year-old article seems a little unethical, no?
This shit now seems to be de rigueur across this collection of formerly-decent sites. Fuck Jim “Herb” Spanfeller.
Since nobody has mentioned it in the comments yet — unsurprising, considering all but two of the comments were made about 6 years before the service launched — Meet Me in St. Louis is currently available on HBO Max, if you’re so inclined.
Because traditions are a downer.
Margaret O’Brien and Judy Garland in Mommy Stop Mooshing My Face!
Also, think about this… Many of the people in the theater probably had husbands and sons and brothers in the Army at that very moment engaged in combat in WWII, not knowing if they were alive or dead. Singing about next year and muddling through is just … just… so much tension and grief.
Plus, also, too… is this a repost from 2014?
Even if I didn’t pay attention to the lyrics until I was old enough to speak English (it’s my second language), even if I didn’t know the context, I still always found that song depressing; the melody doesn’t lie. I don’t know what is it with Christmas songs but there is a darkness in many of them that is hard to shake off (I’ll Be Home for Christmas is depressing AF).
The best Christmas songs are the sad ones. This is truly the best and saddest, but this modern gem from Diamond Rugs (Deer Tick singer plus more heavy hitters) deserves more attention: