A large number of Christian devotees around the world celebrate Christmas with festivity and devotion. The song ‘Jingle Bells…Jingle Bells’ is an often-heard song in this Christmas season. It has been like the symbol of the Christmas season.
Recently, some people have posted some posts stating that the ‘Jingle Bells’ song is not a Christmas song and so we decided to investigate on that.
Social Media Posts
A post was circulated in social media stating that the ‘Jingle Bells’ song was not originally written for the Christmas but it was a song composed in 1850 for the American thanksgiving ceremony, and now it has become a song sung for Christmas.
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Explanation
The melody and the lyrics of the song ‘Jingle Bells’ is closely associated with Christmas. Therefore, sometimes you may feel a great curiosity when it is mentioned that this is not a song written for Christmas.
However, this American song has a history as far back as 1857. Many articles state that this song was written as a thanksgiving song and for a Sunday school choir, but this is not based on solid evidence.
Composed in the 18th century, this song was composed by James Lord Pierpont. The special thing here is that this is not a song written for Christmas. However, historians debate the original identity of this song.
It is also clear from its lyrics that this song was not created as a Christmas song. This song does not mention Christmas reindeer and instead says “One Horse Open Sleigh”.
However, because the sleigh in the song is symbolic of Christmas and the snowing in December month is symbolic of Christmas holidays, the song has the ability to add stimulation and beauty to a festive and happy feeling that combines winter, Christmas and all these things.
In fact, the song does not contain any reference to Christmas or December. The reference to the snow experienced during those seasons is the factor that connects this song with Christmas.
There are several origin stories about the song “Jingle Bells”. However, researching historical evidence, in 2017, theater historian Kyna Hamill identified a document showing that the first performance of this song was in 1857 as part of a minstrel theater in Boston.
According to findings by Kyna Hamill, James Lord Pierpont originally named the song “One Horse Open Sleigh”. Then in 1859, James Lord Pierpont named the song as “Jingle Bells”.
The song was performed by minstrel actor Johnny Pell on September 15, 1857, and further evidence that Pell sang the exact song we now know as “Jingle Bells” can be found on the original sheet music cover of the 1857 song. It has been dedicated by James Lord Pierpont to John P. Ordway, the owner of that place.
Hamill’s research has revealed that the song Jingle Bells was just one of many songs written for minstrel theater in the northern United States in the 1840s and 1850s.
However, there have been various opinions about this song for some time and newspaper articles and books have presented facts without any proof that Pierpont composed the song for a Sunday school choir. And by the mid-1980s, it has been suggested that this was composed as a thanksgiving song.
Hamill points out that he speculates that James Lord Pierpont wrote the song in the Boston boarding house where he lived before moving to Savannah in the fall of 1857.
Adding primary sources to his investigations, Hamill says the best available evidence for the song’s first performance is that Pierpont originally wrote “Jingle Bells” as a minstrel song satirizing black participation in a winter activity in the northern United States.
Hamill says based on his research sources that this song was not written as a Christmas song or a Thanksgiving song or for a Sunday school choir performance.
Sources from here, here and here.
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