*This is the fourth installment in a series of articles that are designed to help unpack the practical implications of the We Have a Dream declaration that has been entrusted to us as a family of Friends here in Mid-America. Using Acts 2:17 as a holy compass, We Have a Dream seeks to discern and describe the specific directions that God is currently calling the people of EFC-MAYM to take so that the “dream of the gospel is lived out … in our local churches, in the communities where our churches serve, and in the family of churches called Evangelical Friends Church-Mid America Yearly Meeting.”
It’s that time of year again, time to put up the tree, hang up the mistletoe and cue up the Christmas music. James Taylor at Christmas is the newest addition to my iTunes holiday playlist, and I am especially fond of his silky smooth rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” In fact, I have enjoyed listening to the song so much this year that I decided to do a little research on its history.
As it turns out, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” was first performed by Judy Garland in the 1944 musical Meet Me in St. Louis, and has been recorded by more than 500 additional artists over the past 70 years or so. It was recently ranked third among the most frequently performed Christmas songs, and number 75 of the 100 top tunes in American cinema history. But what intrigued me the most was what I discovered about the man behind the music.
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” was originally written by Hugh Martin, one of the most prominent American composers during the 1930’s and 40’s, a period often referred to as the “golden age” of show business. Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Martin set off for New York following his graduation from college in 1937, where he scored hit after hit on Broadway, and later in Hollywood, while working with some of the greatest entertainers of his generation.
A few months before his death in 2011 at the age of 96, Martin was able to publish an autobiography entitled The Boy Next Door, in which he offers a firsthand account of the messy process that eventually gave birth to one of the most beloved Christmas songs, and most moving redemption stories, of our time.
Meet Me in St. Louis tells the story of a family who won’t be able to spend time together for the holidays due to a job promotion in New York. For the now-famous scene in which Garland and her little sister, played by 7-year-old Margaret O’Brien, are despondent over the prospect of moving away from their cherished home, Martin wrote an initial set of lyrics that could easily pass for a suicide note set to music:
Have yourself a merry little Christmas. It may be your last. Next year we may all be living in the past …
Faithful friends who were dear to us will be near to us no more…
From now on, we’ll have to muddle through somehow. So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.
According to Martin, Garland refused to sing this original set of lyrics by protesting, “If I sing that to sweet little Margaret O’Brien, they’ll think I’m a monster!” The filmmakers apparently agreed, so Martin reluctantly composed a less morbid message for the final cut, and the rest is history. What no one could have known at the time, however, is that there was indeed a monster in the MGM studio that day, but its true identity would not be clearly revealed for another 16 years or so.
Immediately following the release of Meet Me in St. Louis, Martin joined the army and spent the next few years in war-torn Europe. Upon his return from the battlefield, Martin continued to write songs, including some that became quite popular, but he was never able to recapture the same magic that accompanied “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” In l960, at the age of 46, Martin suffered a complete nervous breakdown following a 10-year addiction to amphetamines.
“It was probably the lowest moment of my life,” Martin writes. “I was so desperate. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, and I couldn’t stop crying. I cried for three weeks and finally roaming around the hospital, down in the basement, I found a sweet little chapel. It was nondenominational but it was very reverent and they had kneelers where we could kneel. I just skipped the kneeler and went right down on the floor on my face and I said, ‘Oh, my God, I don’t know whether I’m going to live or die or go crazy, but if You are there, please come to me. I will serve You forever, if You will come and take me out of this miry pit.’”
Hugh Martin was miraculously healed that very day. He immediately regained his appetite, and his sanity. God clearly kept his end of the deal, but it would take another 14 years for Hugh to keep his.
After checking into a Birmingham hospital in 1974 for some general tests, Martin was providentially placed in a bed next to a local pastor. His roommate witnessed the gospel to him in actions and words.
Reflecting on those days, he wrote, “God had to bring it to my attention that I was not all I thought I was. I was suddenly overwhelmed with what a wretch I was. I threw myself on my face and begged the Lord to heal me. I knew something really big was happening, and it sort of frightened me. It felt so significant that I felt shaken by it and yet it was wonderful because it was a feeling I had never had before – that I belonged, that there was something bigger than I was who loved me and would take care of me. It was the best moment of my life.”
At the age of 60, thirty years after he penned the words to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” the Word finally became flesh for Hugh Martin. More than most, this was one man who had a firm grasp on both the messiness and majesty of the Christmas story, and his testimony serves as a compelling invitation to flesh out our Lord’s incarnational dream, not only for our own sake, but for the sake of every other Hugh Martin that we may meet along the way during this Advent season:
We have a dream of God’s Kingdom coming to heal the sick and the broken. Forgiveness of sins. Redemption. The homeless and hungry knowing that God cares, and has sent friends to help them. Prisoners and orphans and widows and the sick believing that their creator knows their name. Addictions falling away in the power of Jesus’ forgiveness. What if our churches were constantly celebrating recovery? Marriages and families growing stronger. Broken relationships being healed. What if one of God’s children was running the race, and fell, and couldn’t go on without help…and what if we stopped everything else for the sole focus of helping them continue across the finish line? What if we would lay our lives down for our friends?
Hugh Martin devoted the final 36 years of his life to loving and serving the One who gave him life, and gave it back again. Near the end of his days, he was even inspired to compose an updated version of his famous yuletide lullaby as a testament to our Lord’s extraordinary ability to transform even our deepest brokenness into unimaginable blessing (watch here).
Have yourself a blessed little Christmas, Christ the King is born. Let your voices ring upon this happy morn.
Have yourself a blessed little Christmas, serenade the earth. Tell the world we celebrate the Savior’s birth.
Let us gather to sing to Him, and to bring to Him our praise. Son of God and a friend to all to the end of all our days.
Let us all proclaim the joyous tidings, voices raised on high. Send this carol soaring up into the sky.
And have yourself a blessed little Christmas now.
-David O. Williams, General Superintendent
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