Hey, Kids! Wait Till You Hear This, the BRAND NEW memoir by Liza Minnelli is out today! Grab a signed copy while you still can — they won’t last long. 💋📖
Interpret that last part as you wish!
#fact Judy Garland accidentally helped create a queer Christmas tradition. Her raw, emotional holiday performances and her gay-icon status turned her Christmas specials into a December staple in LGBTQ+ circles.
Garland recorded the number in one continuous take — no trick photography, no convenient editing. What the audience witnesses is essentially a vocal marathon, delivered with precision and effervescence, while balancing the demands of choreography and camera blocking.
Since the illustrious #TrolleySong immortalized by the inimitable #JudyGarland — is presently resurgent on TikTok, the admins of @jgarlandupdates have deemed it essential to recount the veritable history of this deceptively “quaint” number: A THREAD 🧵
Legend has it that the songwriting team unearthed inspiration from an obscure photo caption in a vintage turn-of-the-century scrapbook: “Clang, Clang, Clang went the trolley.” From this innocuous line, a quintessential slice of MGM musical mythology was born.
1. Composed in 1944 by Hugh Martin & Ralph Blane for Meet Me in St. Louis, The Trolley Song was no minor trifle. It was conceived as a centerpiece, capturing both the giddy anticipation of adolescent infatuation and the larger civic nostalgia for a vanishing America on the brink of war.
Male admin here (1/2 of JGarlandUpdates) reflecting on Judy’s tragic passing. I find myself feeling a bit like the star on this cool summer afternoon. When I’m gone, everyone will talk about how talented and lovely I was. They’ll post tributes, cry crocodile tears, say they always believed in me. But where are they now? When I’m alive, breathing, hurting? Silent. Distant. It’s a tale as old as The Wizard Of Oz. No one tries when you’re around, but once you’re gone, suddenly everyone’s a saint. I’m freaking tired and over it. I swear I hate my life. One thing goes okay and 276357 go wrong. I just wish I was gorgeous like Judy Garland. She’s everything I want to be. Instead I’m just a fat gay boy. #JudyGarland