12-12-09 Merry Little Xmas
Xmas is a-comin’ in, and by the way it’s OK to write Xmas; it has good historical precedent; the Greek X, ‘chi’ is a legit abbreviation for Christ, not ‘Christ crossed out’ or x, the unknown quantity.
It’s certainly more elegant than Birmingham City Council’s ‘Winterval’ though perhaps they were right to identify that the current calendar fixture marks the centre-point of the annual Saturnalian celebration of commerce, for unto us an extension into New Year Sales is given.
Over the years I’ve had quite a few solitary Christmasses and it’s become a personal tradition to haul this song out of the loft to sing to myself and all the other loners on that day. Every year I get chokey the first few times through even though it bears all the marks of Tin Pan Alley mawkishness.
I have a lot of respect for the art of the pro lyric writer and the strength of this one is that its poignancy as a song written for families separated in wartime persists. Currently of course the sentiment is sharply appropriate again for too many families.
I first really took notice of this song in the iconic firing-squad scene in the 1963 Carl Foreman movie ‘The Victors’ where it’s the soundtrack to the bleak reenactment of the execution of Pt. Eddie Slovik for desertion.
A virtue of learning lyrics is that it’s a kind of study ‘with close reference to the text’ I should really have done when I was studying for Eng Lit A-level. On its surface this is a Christmas card tableau of fireside glow and cosy togetherness; close-up, it’s a wish destined to be unfulfilled.
There are loads of arrangements for this but this one works for me. None of these chords is very demanding. G6 = 3-2-0-0-0-0. For the C/G at the end of verse 2 I use 0-3-3-2-1-0
OK, ‘tis the season to be melancholy, tra-la-la-la-la…
Words & Music:Hugh Martin & Ralph Blane (1944)
C Am D7 G7
Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
C Am D7 G7
Let your heart be light.
C Am D7 G7 E7 A7 D7 G7
From now on, our troubles will be out of sight.
C Am D7 G7
Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
C Am D7 G7
Make the Yuletide gay.
C Am D7 E7 Am C/G D7
From now on, our troubles will be miles away.
BRIDGE:
C Bm Am D7
Here were are as in olden days, happy golden days of
G6
yore.
Em Fsh7 Bm D
Faithful friends who are dear to us gather near to us
Am D7
once more.
G Em Am D7
Through the years we all will be together
G Em Am D7
If the Fates allow.
G Em Am D7 Em A7 D7
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
C Am D7 G
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.
Yes, this is the one that get me, too. I’ve never had the fortune to be away from my family at Christmas, but I’ve been away from ‘home’ for many years now. Have you seen the original words – the Wikipedia entry has them?
Trust you, Ms. Jones – no, I’ve been content with these lyrics for my quick hit of seasonal sentimentality but I’ll go and have a look.
Well hello there Mr. H.
Just thought I’d drop by and let you know that the words you are quoting are the ‘second’ set, created for Mr. F Sinatra when he was due to sing them with Miss J. Garland on some Christmas special or other. He had the words, ‘Hang a shining star upon the highest bough’ replace the lyric ‘until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow’ as he thought the original words were too depressing and they needed to be a little chearier!!! If you look at the original film clip from Meet Me in St. Louis as sung by the aforementioned J. Garland, you will note that she uses these original words. I only know this utterly trivial fact as I wanted to sing this in a ‘do’ some years ago and couldn’t understand why nobody seemed to have a difinitive lyric!!
Sorry to hear you are unwell. Hang in there kid, we still haven’t played so much music together. Big hug. Jx
Nice to hear from you, Jane, and thanx for the footnotes. I’m a busker not a scholar, but of course – how could I have forgotten the ‘muddle through’ version? So very Brit! I think from now on I shall have to quell a tear and use that version.