Turkey Day is done, which means we are officially in the Christmas season.
And there are two things that happen on the day after Thanksgiving in the Terrell house.
First, I climb up on the roof and risk life and limb once again as I hang the Christmas
lights, and second, we start playing Christmas music pretty much non-stop.
Over the years, Christmas songs have come from a variety of sources - traditional church
music, songs written for radio shows, and even a song written with the help of a class
full of second-graders in Smithtown, New York.
But, some of my personal favorites were actually written for classic movies.
So, pour a big cup of eggnog and settle into a cozy sofa as I walk you through some great
Christmas music that we have thanks to the movies.
The biggest hit on this list, and frankly, the biggest-selling song of all time, is White
Christmas.
Irving Berlin had an initial idea for the song while on the set of Top Hat in 1935.
He hummed the tune to Fred Astaire, who liked it, but Berlin didn't have the full song ready
yet.
A few years later, Paramount contracted Berlin to write songs for each of the major holidays
that would be featured in their upcoming film, Holiday Inn.
Irving Berlin had the most trouble trying to write the Christmas song for the movie.
That was until one night when he revisited the theme he had created years earlier and
began to add lyrics to it.
By the time he was done, Berlin claimed he knew it was the best song he'd ever written,
and felt it might be the best song anyone had ever written.
Holiday Inn star Bing Crosby began performing the song in late 1941, and even performed
a version of it on his radio show that year.
The following May, Crosby recorded a studio version of the song to be included on the
soundtrack for Holiday Inn.
Originally, the song was supposed to be sung by Crosby's co-star, Marjorie Reynolds, but
was eventually shot as a duet with Crosby.
Another song from the film, "Be Careful, It's My Heart", was expected to be the big hit
from the film, but by October 1942, White Christmas made its way to the top of the pop
charts, and quickly became a Christmas favorite, reaching the number 1 spot again and again
over several years during the Holidays.
In particular, the song was a huge hit with the soldiers overseas and with their families
here at home during World War II.
This impact was even dramatized 12 years later during the early scene in Bing Crosby's White
Christmas where Bing sings the song to troops in Europe on Christmas Eve 1944.
The version we hear most often on the radio today is not the original 1942 Holiday Inn
version, or even the 1954 White Christmas version.
The original master for the 1942 version had become so worn out from use that in 1947 Bing
went back into the studio with the same orchestra and backing singers and recreated the 1942
version as closely as they could.
And that 1947 recording is what we hear today.
Our next song made its debut in 1944 in Meet Me in St. Louis.
The song was designed as a sad ballad that Judy Garland sings to comfort her little sister,
played by Margaret O'Brien, as their family prepares to move from their beloved St. Louis
to New York.
Though Ralph Blaine received co-writer credits, Hugh Martin later claimed that he wrote the
lyrics and the music for this song on his own.
So, when Judy Garland and director Vincent Minelli had issues with the first drafts of
this song, they knew exactly who to go to.
The issues they had were that the song was originally much sadder and darker than the
one we know today.
Take this line as an example.
"Have yourself a merry little Christmas/It may be your last.
Faithful friends who were dear to us/Will be near to us no more."
Even Martin later admitted that the original lyrics were hysterically dismal.
Even so, Martin was stubborn about his lyrics.
Judy and Vincent got him thinking about making some edits, but it was actually actor Tom
Drake who pushed him into action.
Drake pulled Martin aside and told him that he was a stupid son of a bitch who was going
to mess up his life if he didn't write a new verse for the song.
After the movie was released, the song didn't really catch on as a popular Christmas song.
It wasn't until Frank Sinatra's recording of it in 1957 that it started to get a lot
radio play, but even with this version, Sinatra wanted to lighten the song up even more.
One specific line Sinatra didn't like was the "We'll have to muddle through somehow"
part.
Martin came up with the idea to change that line to "Hang a shining star upon the highest
bough" instead, which helped to brighten up the song a bit more.
Sinatra's 1957 version was a hit and made Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas an
annual favorite.
Since then, the song has been recorded more than 500 times.
Most, but not all, use the "Hang a shining star" version of the song.
Next time you hear the song, listen for which version that singer chose.
In addition to being the songwriter of Guys & Dolls, Frank Loesser sounds like he was
a great guest to have at your parties as well.
As an example, Loesser and his wife Lynn Garland performed our next song on our list for years
at friends' parties.
The song is the classic comic duet - Baby, It's Cold Outside.
The story goes that the song was actually written for a specific party - a housewarming
party in New York City.
The song was designed to close out the night and indicate to the guests that it was time
to go home.
Lynn Garland reported that after that first performance, they were instant hits and started
getting invitations to all of the best parties.
But all that came to an end about four years later when Loesser sold the song to MGM to
be used in the Esther Williams aquamusical, Neptune's Daughter.
In the movie, Esther Williams sings the song with Ricardo Montalban playing the part of
the man who doesn't want his date to go home, but for the final verse, the scene shifts
over to a similar scene with Red Skelton and Betty Garrett, with Betty Garrett playing
the aggressor part and Red Skelton trying to get out of the apartment.
Just like the performances at the parties, the song was an immediate hit and even went
on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1949.
And since then, it's been recorded by dozens of singers and has even appeared in other
Christmas movies, including Zoey Deschanel and Will Ferrell's version in Elf.
The final song in my list is Silver Bells, which has the distinction of becoming such
a big hit right before the movie actually went into the theaters, that the studio decided
to reshoot the scene the song was featured in to take advantage of the song's brand new
popularity.
Of course, a popular Christmas song is exactly what Paramount wanted when they hired songwriters
Jay Livingston and Ray Evans to write a song for their upcoming feature, The Lemon-Drop
Kid.
The film was based on a Damon Runyon story about a big city confidence man, and Bob Hope
and Marilyn Maxwell had already been cast in the lead roles.
For years, the inspiration for the song was said to be the Salvation Army Santa Clauses
who ring their bells for donations on New York City street corners, but in a later interview,
Ray Evans said the real inspiration was a little bell that sat on the desk that he and
Livingston shared.
The original title for the song wasn't Silver Bells, but was actually Tinkle Bells, and
the duo was pretty happy with that title until Livingston went home and told his wife about
the song.
She thought they were out of their minds.
It seems the songwriters never knew that tinkle was sometimes used as a polite way to say
someone was using the bathroom.
They quickly changed the title to Silver Bells.
The scene in The Lemon Drop Kid was shot during the late summer of 1950, and about a month
later, Hope's good friend Bing Crosby recorded his version of the song with Carol Richards.
Their recording was released in October, just in time for the holidays, and became a big
hit.
It was such a big hit that Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell were called back to the set to film
a more elaborate production of the song - and that's the scene that audiences saw when they
saw the film in the theaters the following March.
And there you have it, four classic Christmas songs that came from the movies.
I hope you enjoyed this week's episode.
I'll be talking about some of my favorite Christmas movies throughout December, so if
you'd like to be sure to get a notification when a new video goes live, please be sure
to click on that subscribe button.
Until next time, thanks again for watching, and I hope to see you again soon here on A
Million Movies.
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