Judy Garland Gets Happy

Well, look at that, will ya? You made it to Friday. Now, please accept my sincerest apologies if you happen to work in hospitality or service of some form that means you have to work the weekend.

The origins of this song are a bit cloudy, but the lyrics were written by Ted Koehler and music by pianist Harold Arlen. It apparently started as a vamp to get a dance rehearsal group tapping their feet, when Arlen asked Koehler if they could team up to flesh out a song with it. That was in 1929 and when the first show it was in floundered, it was then recorded by Nat Shilkret & the Victor Orchestra which took it to #6 on the charts in 1930.

Judy Garland’s version revived the song in her last film for MGM after being fired from two previous films as a result of her struggles with addiction. At first I doubted the claim from some sources that the term “Get Happy” was a popular phrase in black churches of the time and described a sort of religious ecstasy when church goers were moved upon by the holy spirit. It just seemed like one of those too-perfect explanations that were made up after the fact, but after more digging, I am increasingly convinced. This song from 1930 is a great example:

You could spend your Christmas
Just like it was nobody’s business.
You could pray and sing
And get mighty happy.
But how
Can a man pray and sing
And get happy
When he’s broke and hungry?

Now when this song was performed by Garland, it was presented as irony. This approach was not unfamiliar to Garland fans who have watched shows like Meet Me in St. Louis, in which the popular Christmas tune “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” first appeared. If you’ve seen the movie, you know that the scene for that song was heartbreaking, and not at all the happily nostalgic thing it seems to have evolved into.

Judy’s character in the movie Summer Stock is out to save her farm, and somehow dancing in her barn with Gene Kelly’s character is just the ticket. It’s remembered as one of Garland’s all time best performances, despite her personal troubles during the filming of most of the show.