Jingle Bells is perhaps the most well-known, most sung Christmas carol in America. For millions, this simple little song is as much a part of Christmas as Santa, reindeer, greeting cards, family dinners, evergreen trees, mistletoe, and presents. Yet in one of the season’s greatest ironies, “Jingle Bells” does not contain a single reference to the holiday with which it is associated and was actually written for a completely different day of celebration.
Jingle Bells Started as a Thanksgiving Song?!
Medford, Massachusetts native James S. Pierpont had always shown a great deal of musical talent. As a child he not only sang in church, but played the organ. As an adult, Pierpont continued to assist his father, the pastor of Medford’s Unitarian church, by working with the choirs and musicians.
Around 1840 young Pierpont was given the assignment to write special music for a Thanksgiving service. As James sat in his father’s home at 87 Mystic Street contemplating his chore, through a window he watched young men riding their sleds down a hill. Bundling up to ward off the extremely cold weather, Pierpont stepped outside. Caught up in the moment, recalling the many times he had also raced sleds and sleighs sporting bands of merry, jingling bells, he not only watched but also began to root for participants. Within an hour he was congratulating the day’s winner.
As he stepped back into the house, a melody came to him; while he warmed himself by the fireplace, Jmes hummed the little ditty. Feeling as if this just might be the foundation for the music his father’s church program needed, Pierpont threw on his coat and trudged through the snow to the home of Mrs. Otis Waterman. Mrs Waterman owned the only piano in Medford. When the women answered the door, James matter-of-factly said, “I have a little tune in my head.” The homeowner was familiar with James, knew what he wanted and immediately stepped aside.
As he sat down at the old instrument and worked out the melody, Mrs. Waterman carefully listened, then said, “That is a merry little jingle you have there.” When he finished a few moments later, the woman assured James that the song would catch on around town. Later that evening, Pierpont combined his “Jingle” with his observations of the day’s sled races and his memories of racing horse-drawn sleighs. Just that quickly a legendary song was born.
James taught hi “One Horse Open Sleigh” to the choir at the Medford Church. The fully harmonized arrangement was then presented at the annual Thanksgiving service. Since Thanksgiving was the most important holiday in New England at the time, there was a large audience when “One Horse Open Sleigh” debuted. The number went over so well that many of the church members asked James and the choir to perform it again at the Christmas service.
Although a song that mentioned dating and betting on a horse race hardly seemed appropriate for church, “One Horse Open Sleigh” was such a smash at the second performance that scores of Christmas visitors to the Medford sanctuary took it back to their own communities. Due to the fact that they had heard it on the twenty-fifth of December, they taught it to their friends and family as a Christmas song.
Pierpont had no idea his little jingle would have such infectious power; he knew only that folks seemed to like his “winter” song. So when he moved to Savannah, Georgia, he took “One Horse Open Sleigh” with him.
He found a publisher for the song in 1857, yet it was not until the Salem Evening News did a story about the carol in 1864 that James truly understood he had written something special. By then, the song was fast becoming one of the most popular carols in New England, as well as rushing across the man’s adopted South. Within twenty years, “Jingle Bells” was probably the best known caroling song in the country.
As one of the oldest American carols, this “Thanksgiving song,” with its rural imagery of snow, sleighs, and jingle bells, has impacted more than a century of Christmas images in greeting cards, books, movies, and scores of Christmas songs.
Pierpont’s rather strange Christmas song has been recorded hundreds of times. Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and Les Paul all landed on the charts with “Jingle Bells” The most popular recorded version of the song belongs to Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters. The little merry jingle can also be found in numerous Hollywood films and television shows, and parts of it have even been used in other Christmas songs. Bobby Helms’s hit, “Jingle Bell Rock” – Inspired in large part by “Jingle Bells” – has become another well-known modern secular holiday offering.
Today “Jingle Bells” seems to be everywhere. Even though few people have even seen a one-horse open sleigh, millions have jingle bells hanging from their doors at Christmas. Most paintings of Santa show jingling bells adorning his reindeer. And scores of holiday songs and television commercials begin with the jingle of bells. Thanks to James Pierpont and a Thanksgiving request, when people see a picture of snow and a horse-drawn sleigh, their first thought is of Christmas.
Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells All the Way – Here are Some Great Versions
Jingle Bells Piano
Jingle Bells Lyrics
Dashing through the snow In a one-horse open sleigh
O’er the fields we go Laughing all the way
Bells on bobtails’ ring Making spirits bright
What fun it is to ride and sing A sleighing song tonight,
oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride In a one-horse open sleigh,
hey! Jingle bells, jingle bells Jingle all the way
Oh what fun it is to ride In a one-horse open sleigh
Now the ground is white Go it while you’re young Take the girls tonight Sing this sleighing song Get a bobtailed bay Two forty for his speed And hitch him to an open sleigh And you will take the lead Oh, jingle bells, jingle bells Jingle all the way Oh, what fun it is to ride In a one-horse open sleigh, hey! Jingle bells, jingle bells Jingle all the way Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh Oh, what fun it is to ride in one horse open sleigh!
