About this performance:
I played this last year having become interested in the jazz-influenced chord-melody style of guitar playing and after acquiring a jazz-style holllow body Ibanez guitar on which I played this piece, my first attempt at the style.

The arrangement is a concoction of a parts of a couple of different versions I found on YouTube with some amendments and harmonies of my own.
Dave

This song was written in 1943 and used in the musical film ‘Meet Me in St Louis’ for MGM.  

In the film it was sung by Judy Garland, but since then it has had very many covers, notably by Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Doris Day, Ella Fitzgerald, Michael Bublé, Sam Smith and others.

Apparently the words were originally rather more gloomy than the iconic version which we know today. Given that the song was sung in the film by Esther (Judy Garland)  to try to cheer up her young sister Margaret, the fact that they were made a little more cheerful was important, especially as the mood of the song is still a little sad.

Judy Garland said she thought that people would think she was a ‘monster’ for singing such downbeat lyrics. For example the original lyrics spoke of  Christmas as possibly being ‘your last’. The songwriters needed to keep Judy Garland happy.

Ella Fitzgerald’s 1960 rendition is far more upbeat as befitting the mood of the  Christmas album “Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas”.

Frank Sinatra sings slightly different words but most of the covers seem to follow the Judy Garland version printed below.

A religious rewritten version of the words also exists.

Apparently the composer Hugh Martin spent about three days on the song but couldn’t quite get it as he wanted it and threw it into the wastepaper basket. Fortunately, Ralph Blane rescued it. Blane said: “Thank the Lord we found it.”

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In my youth, we often watched Judy Garland films which they regularly showed on television and she was, and remains, my all-time favourite female popular music singer.

Meet Me in St. Louis was often shown at Christmas and, although many great singers have recorded this classic, it’s always Judy Garland’s which I remember most fondly and the reason I wanted to play it. She was only 22 when this film was released but her incredible voice and emotional depth were already there.