I didn't know this story and I didn't know it was written in Birmingham. Interesting. I am certainly glad he changed the lyrics, lol.

'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,' written in Birmingham, almost wasn't a holiday classic

By age 30, Hugh Martin was accustomed to working with unpredictable movie stars but he had yet to butt heads with Judy Garland.

That would change one day in 1944 on the set of “Meet Me in St. Louis.” The actress, who was supposed to sing a Christmas song to 7-year-old cast-mate Margaret O’Brien, complained to director Vincente Minelli – who would later become Judy’s husband – “If I sing that song to that sweet little Margaret O’Brien, they’ll think I’m a monster.”

She was referring to the song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” written by Martin, a Birmingham native who was already a successful Broadway composer and playwright when he went to Hollywood.

Read a story about Martin's 2011 death at age 96 here.

Read the story behind another Alabama Christmas song, "Angels Among Us," here.

Despite its title, the song had melancholy lyrics because it was to be sung during a scene in which Garland’s character, teenager Esther Smith, was trying to comfort her little sister, Tootie, who was sad about the prospect of the family moving from St. Louis to New York.

Garland, however, thought the song was too maudlin. Just five years after her huge success ad Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz,” the 29-year-old actress didn’t want to be remembered as the girl who made little Tootie cry.

The original lyrics were:

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

It may be your last

Next year we may all be living in the past

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

Pop that champagne cork

Next year we will all be living in New York

No good times like the olden days,

Happy golden days of yore

Faithful friends who were near to us,

Will be near to us no more

Although Martin would later write in his memoir, “Hugh Martin: The Boy Next Door,” that he liked and respected Garland, he initially reacted with as much obstinance as the mega-star. The lyrics fit the scene, he argued. Before the battle reached a stalemate, however, actor Tom Drake, who played John Truett in the film, stepped in and reasoned with Hugh, telling his old friend that refusing to change the lyrics could ruin his life.

“He convinced Hugh he was being stubborn,” said Gordon Martin, Hugh’s brother, when he was interviewed for the 2011 book, “Christmas Tales of Alabama.”

The lyrics were changed to a more upbeat:

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

Let your heart be light,

From now on our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

Make the Yule-tide gay

From now on,

Our troubles will be miles away

In his 90s, Martin would laugh about the incident, calling his initial lyrics “lugubrious.” Ironically, the initial sad lyrics were written at a cozy location that was close to Martin’s heart: the Birmingham cottage that had been designed by Martin’s father, architect Hugh Martin Sr., as a honeymoon cottage for Hugh’s mother, Ellie.

The home, located on the south side of Birmingham, is where Hugh Jr., Gordon and their sister Ellen were raised. Gordon recalled it as a happy home, filled with music and love, the one to which all the children in the neighborhood would come. It is now a historic site.

“Mother was very much into Christmas,” Gordon said. “She would go out and buy a tree on Christmas Eve and we would sing around the piano.” Mrs. Martin used her creativity to make her trees into works of art that awed the children. But it was their mother’s love of music and theater that fueled Hugh’s dream of becoming a songwriter.

“She was into all the new shows on Broadway and she would go out and buy the sheet music and play it,” Gordon said.

Hugh, also an accomplished pianist, was chosen to play the graduation piece for Phillips High School in Birmingham. He played Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”

After college at Birmingham Southern, Hugh would eventually enter a creative partnership with Ralph Blane and the two would write songs together. Blane is credited as co-writer of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” but Hugh has said in numerous interviews and in his memoir that he wrote the song himself.

In fact, he’d written the tune for another song but abandoned it when the lyrics didn’t work. Blane, however, encouraged Hugh to try again because he had a “funny feeling about that little tune.”

According to Martin’s memoir, after his initial lyrics met with disapproval, Tom Drake told him: “Hugh, this is a potentially a very great and important song. I feel it in my guts. Now listen to me. Don’t be a stubborn idiot. Write a lyric for that beautiful melody that Judy will sing. You’ll thank me.”

Martin wrote in his memoir, “Tom, I do thank you from my heart!”

Since 1944, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” has been recorded by numerous artists, from Mel Torme and Ella Fitzgerald to the Jackson Five and Christina Aguilera. In 2004, the American Film Institute ranked it No. 76 on its list of 100 Greatest Songs in American Film.

Hugh Martin died March 11, 2011, at age 96.

http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2013 ... ncart_2box