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| "Jingle Bells" | |
|---|---|
 Title page of "The One Horse Open Sleigh" | |
| Song | |
| Language | English |
| Published | September 16, 1857, by Oliver Ditson & Co., Boston |
| Genre | Christmas |
| Songwriter(s) | James Lord Pierpont |
| Originally titled as "The One Horse Open Sleigh" | |
"Jingle Bells" is one of the most commonly sung[1] Christmas songs in the world. It was written by James Lord Pierpont. It is an unsettled question where and when Pierpont originally composed the song that would become known as "Jingle Bells".[2] It was published under the title "The One Horse Open Sleigh" in September 1857. Although it has no original connection to Christmas,[3] it became associated with winter and Christmas in the 1860s and 1870s, and it was featured in a variety of parlor song and college anthologies in the 1880s.[4] It was first recorded in 1889 on an Edison cylinder; this recording, believed to be the first Christmas record, is lost, but an 1898 recording—also from Edison Records—survives.[5]
It has been claimed that the song was originally written to be sung by a Sunday school choir for Thanksgiving, or as a drinking song.[6] However, these claims are not supported by any primary sources. According to more recent research, the song was originally written as a minstrel song satirizing Black participation in northern winter activities.[2][7]
- ^ Collins, Ace. Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas Archived January 16, 2023, at the Wayback Machine Zondervan, 2004. ISBN 0310264480. p. 104.
- ^ a b Wazer, Caroline (December 23, 2024). "'Jingle Bells' Wasn't Written as a Christmas Song. Here's the Real History". Snopes.
- ^ Doyle, Steven (September 16, 2017). "This day in history: Sept. 16, 1857". Greensboro News & Record. Archived from the original on September 16, 2017. Retrieved September 16, 2017.
- ^ Brown, Joel (December 8, 2016). "History of Jingle Bells". BU Today. Archived from the original on November 14, 2020. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
yulewas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "A Thanksgiving Carol". snopes.com. December 18, 2014. Archived from the original on December 23, 2014. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
- ^ Hamill, Kyna (September 2017). "'The story I must tell': 'Jingle Bells' in the Minstrel Repertoire". Theatre Survey. 58 (3): 375–403. doi:10.1017/S0040557417000291.