Ace Collins
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.
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 Peirpont 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 me 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 the 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 warned himself by the fireplace, James 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 woman 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 catchon 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 his "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.
Dashing through the snow
In a one-horse open sleigh
Through the fields we go
Laughing all the way.
Bells on bob-tail ring
Making spirits bright
What fun it is to ride and sing
A sleighing song tonight.
Chorus:
Jingle Bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way.
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh, O
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way.
O what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh.
A day or two ago
I thought I'd take a ride
And soon Miss Fanny Bright
Was seated by my side;
The horse was lean and lank
Misfortune seemed his lot,
We ran into a drifted bank
And there we got upsot.
Chorus:
Jingle Bells, jingle bells....
A day or two ago
The story I must tell
I went out on the snow
And on my back I fell;
A gent was riding by
In a one-horse open sleigh
He laughed at me as
I there sprawling laid
But quickly drove away.
Chorus:
Now the ground is white,
Go it while you're young.
Take the girls along
And sing the sleighing song.
Just bet a bog-tailed bay,
Two-forty as his speed,
Hitch him to an open sleigh
And crack! You'll take the lead.
Chorus:
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