Jingle Bells. Jingle Bells. Jingle All The Way....I dont believe theres a person alive who doesnt know THAT popular holiday song. But, did yall know it isnt even a Christmas tune? Nope, it actually began life in 1850 as a DRINKING song in Medford, Massachusetts, whose main industry at the time was rum-making.The catchy words spilled from the pen of prolific songwriter, James Pierpont while he drank inside the local Simpson Tavern. In fact, Jingle Bells describes in glorious detail the high-speed drag racing shenanigans by one-horse open sleighs popular with the rowdy crowd in & around the community in the early-to-mid 1800s, And especially because horse harnesses back then were adorned with little jingling bells to alert others as to their presence as they zipped through the silent snow. Pierpont, who was also a real cat-about-town, also served as a music director at a Unitarian Church & according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Pierpont originally copyrighted the song with the name One Horse Open Sleigh in 1857, but in 1859 he revised the title to simply Jingle Bells -- and the first recording ever made of the now-celebrated song was in 1898 by the Edison Male Quartette on an Edison cylinder as part of a Christmas medley entitled Sleigh Ride Party. So how did a drinking song written by a lousy husband & deadbeat father even get to be one of the most popular Christmas songs of all times? Well, rumor has it he sang the catchy tune from his pulpit one Thanksgiving Eve & the congregation loved it. They promptly requested that particular sermon again at Christmas time. The rest, as they say, is history. Oh, and one final historical tidbit bout thisn. During a Gemini space mission in December, 1965, the rollicking drinking tune about high jinks & sparking with the ladies shenanigans also became the first song ever broadcast to earth from space. So...there you have it, yall! Altogether now...lets raise our glasses high & belt out this spirited drinking tune -- after all, every shopping mall & radio station in America is doing exactly that same thing right now. Well, minus the holiday spiced rum, of course! Wheeeeee! :)
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 19:56:26 +0000
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