Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas etc., mainly because this bizarre situation was caused by my naive and atrocious lack of business acumen." Judy Garland's 1944 version of the song reached No. 27 on the "Billboard" charts. The lyrics Garland sang in "Meet Me in St. Louis" have been recorded with only slight variations by a number of artists, including Sinatra (in 1950 and 1963 single recordings), Bing Crosby (in "I Wish You a Merry Christmas"), Doris Day (in "The Doris Day Christmas Album"), Ella Fitzgerald (in "Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas"), The Pretenders (in the first "A Very Special Christmas" compilation), James Taylor (in
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas "October Road"), and Luther Vandross (in "This Is Christmas"). In 1963, Frank Sinatra's third recording of the song, backed by popular Hollywood arranger Gus Levene and his orchestra, was controversially used by director Carl Foreman in his anti-war film "The Victors" as the soundtrack backdrop (along with the carol "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing") to the execution by firing squad of a G.I. deserter in a bleak, snowy field on Christmas Eve – a scene inspired by the real-life execution of Pvt. Eddie Slovik in 1945. "The New York Times" film reviewer, while recognising the power of the scene, complained