Our favorite Christmas song has long been Mel Tormé and Bob Wells’ The Christmas Song, made famous by Nat “King” Cole (and really, no one else need tackle the song—every other artist who’s taken a stab at it has fallen short, in our eyes), but coming in a close second is Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, credited to Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane (though Martin has since claimed he wrote it alone, with Blane’s encouragement) and introduced by Judy Garland in Vincent Minnelli‘s Meet Me in St. Louis (1944).

From its familiar opening lyrics—Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose, yuletide carols being sung by a choir, and folks dressed up like Eskimos—”The Christmas Song” celebrates an idyllic holiday season, but let’s face it, for many, the holidays carry with them a tinge of melancholy—especially in difficult times like these—and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” openly acknowledges the bluer side of the yuletide.

In the lyrics as we know them, that melancholy is leavened by a certain “keep-your-chin-up sticktuitiveness,” but it wasn’t always so.

The first set of lyrics Martin delivered, which I found in this very informative 2007 Entertain Weekly story by Chris Willman, were downright maudlin, intended to fit the mood of Garland’s character, who, at the point in the picture at which she sings the song, is upset that her father is moving the family from her beloved St. Louis to New York City.

The story has it that director Minnelli and Garland urged Martin to come up with something just a bit less gloomy, and he agreed, soon delivering a second set of lyrics, the ones Garland sings to young sister Margaret O’Brien in the movie.

Then, in 1957, Frank Sinatra, who was recording a Christmas album called A Jolly Christmas, asked Martin to kick the the christmas cheer up yet another notch. He specifically asked the composer to revisit the line in the final verse about “muddling through,” and that’s how we came to have the line about hanging a shining star upon the highest bough in yet a third set of lyrics to the song.

Most folks are familiar with versions two and three—Linda Rondstadt melds the two sets of lyrics in her recording of the song—if not with the original gloomy lyrics.

But did you know Martin wrote a fourth set of lyrics? In 2001, the composer, then 86 years old, wrote an overtly religious set of lyrics to the song, entitled “Have Yourself a Blessed Little Christmas.”

Judy Garland — Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Frank Sinatra — Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

“My Melancholy Baby” is one of those standards that most folks over a certain age have heard of, but few could, if pressed, sing (we can, we’re proud to say, if only in our atonal, pitchy way). It’s a familiar song title, in other words, but no longer such a familiar song.

We’re guessing even fewer people could name the song’s composer.

But as we learn in today’s Snapshot in Prose, originally published in 1935, “My Melancholy Baby” was a recurring hit for three decades running in the early years of the last century, the greatest claim to fame for songwriter Ernest Burnett. Burnett, who served in World War I, was once thought to have died in that conflict—no less a figure than Paul Whiteman even announced as much over the radio, as Burnett lay recuperating from tuberculosis in a government-run sanatorium in Arizona—but he came storming back to Broadway to resume his career, and not without success.

But “My Melancholy Baby” remains, to this day, his crowning achievement.

Read to the bottom of the profile, and you’ll find a couple of renditions of the song for your dancing pleasure.

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Today marks the 122nd anniversary of the birth of the great Irving Berlin. One of history’s great tunesmiths, Berlin wrote more than hundreds of songs, 19 musicals and the scores of 18 movies over the course of his lengthy career.

“[Berlin is] the greatest songwriter that has ever lived.” — George Gershwin

“Irving Berlin has no place in American music — he is American music.” — Jerome Kern

Here are some of our favorite Irving Berlin songs:

“What’ll I Do?” — The Nat “King” Cole Trio

“Say It Isn’t So” — Annette Hanshaw

“Marie” — Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra

“Puttin’ on the Ritz” — Leo Reisman and His Orchestra

Having our shoes shined is one of our favorite simple pleasures, and the reasons are many.

It’s a rare pleasure, this particular indulgence. We’ve invariably found those who perform the service to be congenial types, and it makes for a pleasant diversion from the day’s duties to take a break, perched on high and glancing at the sports pages, while an amiable gent fusses over one’s shoes (we’ve yet to meet a shoe shine gal, though she can count on our business when we do).

One definitely get one’s money’s worth with a shoe shine. We’ve rarely paid more than three bucks for this service (though we do fork over more when we step up for a shine at an airport), and the attendants are always conscientious and hard-working.

Compare the humble shoe shine to a professional shave at a barber shop. In NYC, you’ll pay twenty, thirty, even forty bucks for the latter, and while we’ve no doubt it’s a pleasure every bit the equal of the shoe shine, the price renders it an indulgence most of us can’t often allow ourselves.

But three bucks for a full ten minutes of a experienced professional’s services? That’s a bargain that’s hard to beat.

What’s more, the humble shoe shine presents one the opportunity to be a real sport — you can throw the attendant a five-spot and tell him or her to keep the change. Where else can one improve one’s karma — a 66% tip! — at such a reasonable rate? And even at the airport price of five or six bucks plus tip, a shoe shine is a relative bargain.

We live in a dressed-down era, of course, with many people wearing sneakers and hiking boots and other casual footwear. While there are still plenty of us who regularly patronize shoe shine stands, for most, it’s something they can only occasionally indulge in.

But we always enjoy the experience, and we highly recommend it to all members of the Cladrite Community.

It’s clear that Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz were fellow advocates for the shoe shine experience, given that they wrote a song celebrating the practice of paying for a polish for the 1932 Broadway musical “Flying Colors” (Fred Astaire also performed the song in the 1952 movie musical The Band Wagon):

A Shine On Your Shoes
When you feel as low
as the bottom of a well
and can’t get out of the mood,
do something to perk yourself up
and change your attitude.
Give a tug to your tie,
Put a crease in your pants,
but if you really want to feel fine,
give your shoes a shine.

When there’s a shine on your shoes,
there’s a melody in your heart
with a singable happy feeling.
A wonderful way to start
to face the world every day,
with a deedle-dum-dee-dah-dah,
a little melody that is making
the worrying world go by.

When you walk down the street
with a happy-go-lucky beat,
you’ll find a lot in what I’m repeating.

When there’s a shine on your shoes,
there’s a melody in your heart
What a wonderful way to start the day!
                      –Dietz & Schwartz

Here’s one of our favorite renditions of the song, recorded by Billy Banks and His Orchestra in 1932.

“When There’s a Shine on Your Shoes” — Billy Banks and His Orchestra

In our ongoing perusals of song lyrics that reveal the past of our parents and grandparents to be not quite so wholesome as often assumed, we offer the following words from a song called “Good for You, Bad for Me.”

It was written for the musical comedy “Flying High” by the songwriting team of Ray Henderson (melody), Lew Brown (lyrics), and Buddy DeSylva (lyrics).

Good for you, bad for me
when you hold me tight on your knee.
Oh, it may be awfully good for you
but it’s so bad for me.

What you do, I’ll agree
is as thrilling as it can be.
And it may be awfully good for you,
but it’s so bad for me.

What a huckleberry yo.
Aren’t you tired of hearing no?
You keep saying you’ve got to,
but my momma said not to.

I’m a she, you’re a he,
But some things in life are not free.
So it won’t do you a bit of good,
and it’s so bad for me.

Here’s a 1930 recording of the song by Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians, featuring vocals by The Three Girl Friends (a.k.a. The Three Waring Girls).

“Good for You, Bad for Me” — Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians, feat. The Three Girl Friends