Jingle Bells

For the instrument, see Jingle bell.

"Jingle Bells"
Title page of "The One Horse Open Sleigh"
Song
LanguageEnglish
PublishedSeptember 16, 1857, by Oliver Ditson & Co., Boston
GenreChristmas
Composer(s)James Lord Pierpont
Lyricist(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 in 1850 by James Lord Pierpont at Simpson Tavern in Medford, Massachusetts. It was published under the title "The One Horse Open Sleigh" in September 1857. It has been claimed that it was originally written to be sung by a Sunday school choir for Thanksgiving, or as a drinking song.[2] Although it has no original connection to Christmas,[3] it became associated with winter and Christmas music 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]

  1. ^ Collins, Ace. Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas Archived January 16, 2023, at the Wayback Machine Zondervan, 2004. ISBN 0310264480. p. 104.
  2. ^ "A Thanksgiving Carol". snopes.com. December 18, 2014. Archived from the original on December 23, 2014. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ Brown, Joel (December 8, 2016). "History of Jingle Bells". BU Today. Archived from the original on November 14, 2020. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference yule was invoked but never defined (see the help page).