Winter Wonderland by Tony Bennett—Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival 2025-26

 

                                                                        Winter Wonderland sung by Tony Bennett.

There is moderate amount of snow on the ground here in northern Illinois and temperatures are frigid. Other parts of the country, however, have been buried in all of the Winter Wonderland they can stand.  Looking at you, Buffalo! Time to revisit this classic winter-but-not-Christmas song and let the great Tony Bennett give it his swinging interpretation.

Winter Wonderland was written in 1934 by Felix Bernard and lyricist Richard B. Smith. Since its original RCA recording by Richard Himber and his Hotel Ritz-Carlton Orchestra, it has been covered by over 200 different artists, including Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Mathis, Frank Sinatra, Amy Grant, Michael Buble, The Eurythmics, and Radiohead.

Smith’s lyrics were reportedly inspired by memories of his hometown Honesdale, Pennsylvania park freshly buried in snow but were written while he was being treated for tuberculosis in the West Mountain Sanitarium in Scranton.

Winter Wonderland snowman--Parson Brown or Circus Clown?

Among the most notable covers were by Johnny Mercer, which reached #4 on the Billboard radio play chart in 1946, and by Perry Como the same year which was in the top ten songs in retail sales.

Sinatra’s version is notable for changing the lyrics.  Despite the earlier success of the song, Sinatra was warned that powerful protestant clergy were prepared to demand radio stations ban the song because of the line “In the meadow we will build a snowman/We’ll pretend that he is Parson Brown/He’ll say, ‘are you married?’ We’ll say no man/But you can do the job when you’re in town.”  The preachers were alarmed that the words implied hanky-panky by the unmarried couple.  Old Blue Eyes changed the word to the nonsensical “In the meadow we can build a snowman /And pretend that he’s a circus clown/We’ll have lots of fun with Mr. Snowman/Until the other kiddies knock him down.”

Some other later covers of the song used Sinatra’s version while others stood by the original words.  Some even used both versions.

Tony Bennett at a Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting special on NBC a few years ago.

Tony Bennett’s jazzy take of this seasonal chestnut is one of my favorites.

Judy Garland’s Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas—Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival 2025-26

 

                                                                    Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas sung by Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis.

We are closing in on the big day and it’s way past time to honor the greatest performance of a modern secular Christmas song ever.  Period. No arguments.  The crown goes to Judy Garland singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas to Margaret O’Brien in the 1944 film classic Meet Me in St. Louis.  

In some ways the part of the second daughter Esther of the comfortably middle-class St. Louis Smith family was a step back for Garland to the juvenile roles where she gained fame.  She had finally broken through being cast as a young woman in Presenting Lilly Mars.  Now she was back to playing a love-struck high school girl.  

On the other hand, producer Arthur Freed was planning to make the biggest MGM musical to date in Technicolor and directed by studio ace Vincent Minelli.  In addition to Garland and O’Brien, the most popular child star since Shirley Temple, the cast included Mary Astor as Mother, Leon Ames as Father, Louise Bremmer as older sister Rose, and Tom Drake as the boy next door.  It also featured solid support by veteran character actors Henry Davenport, Marjorie Main, and Chill Wills. 

The film was adapted from auto-biographical short stories by Sally Benson, originally published in The New Yorker.  It was divided into a series of seasonal vignettes, starting with Summer 1903 of a year in the life of the Smith family in St. Louis, leading up to the opening of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition—the St. Louis World’s Fair—in the spring of 1904. 

Journeyman songwriters Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane were commissioned to write songs for the film, although other composers were also expected to add numbers including Boys and Girls Like You and Me by Rodgers & Hammerstein originally written for their Broadway musical Oklahoma! but cut prior to its opening.   The same fate befell the song when Minnelli reluctantly cut it because the film was running long.  Martin and Blane’s contributions became American classics and standards—The Trolley Song, The Boy Next Door and of course the Christmas song all sung by Garland. 

Judy Garland herself intervened to demand important changes to the lyrics of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.  Martin’s original lyrics began, “Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last / Next year we may all be living in the past.”  She recognized that it was way too depressing to sing to the inconsolable child mourning the imminent departure of the family from St. Louis to New York City.  “I’ll look like a sadist,” Garland complained.  The words were changed to the now familiar “Have yourself a merry little Christmas/Let your heart be light/From now on your troubles will be out of sight.” 

Garland was never more appealing or vulnerable than in this famous serenade.

A performer herself since the age of 3 and understanding the pressure that stage parents and the studio put children through, Garland formed a special protective bond with young Margaret O’Brien and spent much of her time off camera with the girl.  It was a memory they would both treasure and often talk about. 

Garland never looked lovelier than she did in this film with her hair dyed auburn, and smitten director Minnelli literally caressed her face on screen.  The young actress and the middle-aged director fell in love on the set and were soon married. 

Many other versions of the song have been recorded.  Frank Sinatra had lyricist Martin revise the words to “lighten them up” from the still melancholy version sung by Garland for his 1957 album A Jolly Christmas.  The only version to come near to the emotional power of Garland’s performance was by Karen Carpenter on the 1978 album Christmas Portrait which nearly—but not quite—matched the original.