The best holiday song of year of muddling through
Today, we announce the Best Holiday Song of 2020, the year of muddling through somehow.
If you guessed that “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” would win this award, it’s a reasonable guess given howmany of us will be stuck at home for the holidays thanks to the pandemic. But wrong.
“Let it Snow?” That’s also a runner-up for holiday song of the pandemic year, given the line that says “since we’ve no place to go.” But wrong.
No, the Best Holiday Song of 2020, the year in which a virus has turned theworld upside down, is the classic, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
In the typical year, this is a poignant song, the perfect holiday blend of happy and sad. This year, it feels pointed, as if it were composed just for us, just for right now.
The song has gone through several iterations since itwas written, in the midst of World War II, for the 1944 movie “Meet Me in St. Louis.” The original lyrics, by Hugh Martin, are rarely sung and barely known. They began:
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
It may be your last
Next year we may all be living in the past
Judy Garland, the film’s star, found the lyrics grim, and in an NPR interview decades later, Martin conceded that, despite his initial reluctance to change them, theywere “hysterically lugubrious.” To appease Garland and others involved with the movie, he made them cheerier.
But even that version retained a strong melancholy flavor, and Frank Sinatra wanted Martin to brighten the song up even more. In 1957, as Entertainment Weekly once reported, Sinatra asked Martin for the change.
“He called to ask if Iwould rewrite the ‘muddle through somehow’ line,” Martin recalled. “He said, ‘The name ofmy album is ‘A Jolly Christmas.’ Do you think you could jolly up that line for me?”’
Martin jollied up several lines. Where Judy Garland sang, “Next year all our troubles will be out of sight,” Sinatra crooned, “Fromnowon, our troubles will be out of sight.”
Where Garland sang, “Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow,” Sinatra sang, “Through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow.”
Where she sang “Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow,” he jauntily sang, “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.” No muddling for Sinatra and his happy-golucky 1950sworld.
In short, Sinatra was singing about the happy holidays, right here and now. Garland’s version was about delayed gratification — next year whenwe all would be together, next year when all our troubles would be far away, next year when faithful friends whowere dear to us would be near to us once more.
The chipper Sinatra version is the more commonly recorded, but it’s the Garland version— with its hope for next year, its acknowledgment of muddling in the moment— that makes “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” the Best Holiday Song of 2020.
When I heard the song the other day, I got curious about the word “muddle.” I knew what it meant but wondered about the official definition. I looked it up: “to cope in a more or less satisfactory way despite lack of expertise, planning, or equipment.”
It’s an exquisite summary of 2020. When the pandemic hit,
It’s useful to remember that we aren’t the first people to yearn to be with the people we love.
none of us was an expert in how to live through it. Planning was poor. Equipment was scant.
But we’ve coped. And hoped. In otherwords, muddled.
Back when the song was written, World War II separated friends and family for a different reason than the pandemic separates us now. But it’s useful to remember thatwe aren’t the first people to yearn to be with the people we love. We aren’t the first people to muddle through. We won’t be the last.
Next year will come. We will be together. If the fates allow.
Speaking of songs. My colleague Eric Zorn and I hope you’ll join us for the 22nd Songs of Cheer, the holiday singalong we host with a band of talented musicians affiliated with the Old Town School of Folk Music. We’re going online this year, for a prerecorded show that will be livestreamed on Dec. 18 at 7 p.m. Buy a ticket and you get a private YouTube link to the show, along with a link to a downloadable songbook. The link will be good at least through Dec. 20.
Tickets are $25. Call the Old Town School at 773-728-6000 or go online: http://ots.fm/sogc2020
It’s safe holiday fun that also does good for people in need. A portion of ticket sales will benefit community partners of the Chicago Tribune’s holiday community giving campaign, including the Chicago Coalition for theHomeless, the Greater Chicago Food Depository and Deborah’s Place.