The History of Jingle Bells in 5 Fun Facts
- Imagining History
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
Jingle Bells may well be the most well-known Christmas song in the world. Everybody knows the lyrics to the chorus and, try as hard as you can, it's simply impossible not to sing along. The song is so popular, most kids make up their own lyrics to the melody (which always seem to include how Batman smells). But when was this song written? Why was it thought to be rude? And what happened to make it a record-breaking song for the whole universe?
The History of Jingle Bells in 5 Fun Facts
Jingle Bells isn't even a Christmas song
Jingle Bells was composed by James Lord Pierpont in the 1850's as a Thanksgiving song. Some historians think he wrote the song to honour his hometown's sleigh-riding races held around Thanksgiving (the holiday celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November in the USA and Canada). If you listen carefully, the song make lots of references to snow and sleigh rides but never once do the lyrics mention Christmas. The song was likely first performed in the not-so-wintery-month of September in 1857 on Washington Street in Boston. But over many decades of being played, the song's wintery themes meant it slowly became associated with Christmas.
Jingle Bells wasn't called Jingle Bells
When the song was first published in 1857, it was titled "One Horse Open Sleigh". Alongside the popular single verse we all sing today (Everybody! "Dashing through the snow..."), it was also published with three lesser known verses about taking a sleigh ride with a lady and crashing into a snow drift, friends mocking each other for falling over in the snow and taking a sleigh ride with a horse that runs far too fast! Despite the song's official title, people very soon began calling it just "Jingle Bells" because of the popular "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells" refrain in the chorus. Years later, Pierpont took the hint and copyrighted the song as "Jingle Bells or One Horse Open Sleigh". A wise decision, James.
American towns argue over being the birthplace of Jingle Bells
In America, there are two separate towns each displaying a historical plaque claiming to be the birthplace of Pierpont's popular festive jingle. The plaque in Pierpont's hometown of Medford, Massachusetts insists that Pierpont wrote the song in a local tavern whilst watching the sleigh races. Meanwhile the plaque in Savannah, Georgia, contends that Pierpont wrote the ditty in their town before hosting the first sing-a-long in a local church. To add complication to the matter, further research has suggested that Pierpont may not have been in either of these places during the 1850's! Instead, he may have actually been in a third location, Boston, when he composed the number. Talk about being in three places at once!
The lyrics were considered a little inappropriate
The words to the full four verses of Jingle Bells were considered rather rebellious in the Victorian era when the song was first published. Although the lyrics seem harmless to a modern audience, the idea of going joyriding on a sleigh and upending it into a snow drift was pretty shocking to the strict Victorians. And don't even get them started on the idea of Pierpont taking an unsupervised sleigh ride with a female! Boys and girls being around each other whilst unchaperoned? Most improper!
Jingle Bells was the first song to be broadcast from space
On December 16th 1965, astronauts on the Gemini 6 played a festive prank by claiming to see an unidentified flying object in polar orbit over the Earth. On closer inspection, they declared the UFO was being pulled by 8 smaller UFOs and the pilot was wearing a red suit. The astronauts then burst into a chorus of Jingle Bells played live on a harmonica and small jingle bells that they'd smuggled on board. This made the Earth's most well-known Christmas melody the first song to be broadcast from space.