i'm a happy little christmas tree lyrics

The song, released as a single in November 1944 with Garland backed by Georgie Stoll and His Orchestra, became an instant classic and attracted the attention of Frank Sinatra. It’s really a great song potentially, and I think you’ll be sorry if you don’t do it.’ So I went home and I wrote the version that’s in the movie.” The Frank Sinatra version “She said, ‘If I sing that, little Margaret O’Brien will cry and they’ll think I’m a monster.’ So I was young then and kind of arrogant, and I said, ‘Well, I’m sorry you don’t like it, Judy, but that’s the way it is, and I don’t really want to write a new lyric.’ But Tom Drake, who played the boy next door, took me aside and said, ‘Hugh, you’ve got to finish it. “The original version was so lugubrious that Judy Garland refused to sing it,” admitted Martin. Listen to “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” now. However, Martin and Blane’s original lyrics were downbeat, and included the lines: “Have yourself a merry little Christmas/It may be your last/Next year we may all be living in the past.” Garland, the 24-year-old star of The Wizard of Oz, complained that the lyrics were too sad to sing to a heartbroken seven-year-old. Garland’s character sings her “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” to cheer her up. The song comes during a scene when her younger sister Tottie (played by Margaret O’Brien) is worried that Santa won’t be able to find them if they move to New York. Louis, which was set in 1903 and starred Judy Garland as Esther Smith.

The pair were working on music for the 1944 MGM Christmas movie Meet Me in St.

Fortunately, Blaine, who had been working in the adjacent room, heard the tune and told him it was too interesting to discard. “I found a little madrigal-like tune that I liked, but couldn’t make work, so I played with it for two or three days and then threw it in the wastebasket,” he recalled in 1989. Martin, a Broadway composer, started working on a melody for the song but was struggling to find a bridge after completing the first 16 bars.

The brilliantly bittersweet “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” written in 1943 by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, is one of the most beloved festive songs of all – but it nearly ended up discarded in the garbage bin.

I'm a happy little christmas tree lyrics