Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Soul Music
BBC
4.7 • 831 Ratings
🗓️ 24 December 2013
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The story behind the song, 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas'.
It was first performed by Judy Garland in the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me In St Louis', for the now famous scene in which she and her seven year old sister, played by Margaret O'Brien are downcast about the prospect of moving away from their beloved home.
Garland asked the composer, Hugh Martin to modify his original lyric, explaining it to be too depressing for her to sing, or the audience to hear.
Martin's collaborator and friend, John Fricke, explains the importance this song had for the composer and the joy he experienced in hearing it covered by every major artist since, from Frank Sinatra to Chrissie Hynde, Punk band Fear to Cold Play, Rod Stewart to James Taylor.
It's clear that the song's enduring power lies in a beautiful melody with a melancholic feel that sums up our emotional ambivalence to the Christmas season.
We hear from those who have a special connection to the song.
Soul Music is a series exploring famous pieces of music and their emotional appeal.
Producer Lucy Lunt
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2013.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to quickly tell you about some others. |
| 0:05.1 | My name's Andy Martin and I'm the editor of a team of podcast producers at the BBC in Northern Ireland. |
| 0:11.3 | It's a job I really love because we get to tell the stories that really matter to people here, |
| 0:16.2 | but which also resonate and apply to listeners around the world. |
| 0:19.6 | And because the team is such a diverse range of skills and strengths, |
| 0:23.0 | we have trained journalists, people who love digging through archives, |
| 0:26.6 | we've got drama and even comedy experts. |
| 0:28.9 | We really can do those stories justice. |
| 0:31.5 | So if you like this podcast, head to BBC Sounds |
| 0:34.2 | where you'll find plenty more fascinating stories from all around the UK. |
| 0:52.3 | Christmas future is far away |
| 0:56.3 | Christmas past is past |
| 0:59.9 | Christmas present is here today |
| 1:06.7 | bringing joy that will last. |
| 1:17.6 | Life is a mix of utter joy and utter despair. |
| 1:22.6 | And the song kind of speaks to that, I think. |
| 1:26.6 | It captures the anticipation of Christmas |
| 1:31.2 | and the warmth and the love of it but it also highlights that there are people we'll never be |
| 1:39.0 | with again so the ultimate separation and loss of life. |
| 1:49.8 | 70 years after it was first heard, |
| 1:54.1 | this song has a very, very strong appeal because it doesn't see Christmas in an immaculately glowing light, |
| 2:00.6 | it sees Christmas as part of the fallibility of human beings. |
... |
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