Jingle Bells

"Jingle Bells" is not specifically a Christmas song.

The first verse and chorus are the most often sung (and remembered) section of "Jingle Bells":

Dashing through the snow, In a one-horse open sleigh

O'er the fields we go, Laughing all the way

Bells on bobtail 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 [joy] it is to ride, In a one-horse open sleigh.

Jingle bells, jingle bells, Jingle all the way;

Oh! what fun [joy] it is to ride, In a one-horse open sleigh.:

Although less well known than the opening, the remaining verses depict high-speed youthful fun. In the second verse the narrator takes a ride with a girl and loses control of the 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

He got into a drifted bank, and then we [And we—we] got upsot.b[›]

In the next verse (which is often skipped), he falls out of the sleigh and a rival laughs at him: Note the incorrect form of the verb "lie." The event is being told using the past tense and should be "lay." List of commonly misused English words

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 as there I sprawling lie, But quickly drove away.

In the last verse, after relating his experience, he gives equestrian advice to a friend, who then picks up some girls, finds a faster horse, and takes off at full speed:

Now the ground is white, Go it while you're young,

Take the girls tonight, and sing this sleighing song;

Just get a bobtailed bay, Two fortyc[›] as [for] his speed

[and] Hitch him to an open sleigh, And crack! you'll take the lead.

"Jingle Bells" was first recorded by the Edison Male Quartette in 1898 on an Edison cylinder. In 1902, the Hayden Quartet recorded the song.

In 1943, Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters recorded "Jingle Bells" as Decca 23281 which reached No. 19 on the charts and sold over a million copies. In 1941, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra with Tex Beneke, Marion Hutton, Ernie Caceres and the Modernaires on vocals had a No. 5 hit with "Jingle Bells" on RCA Victor, as Bluebird 11353. "Jingle Bells" has been performed and recorded by Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Count Basie, Ray Brown, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Mike Horsfall, The Hoppers, Boney M and Ann Hampton Callaway. In 2006, Kimberley Locke had a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart with a recording of "Jingle Bells".

"Jingle Bells" was the first song broadcast from space, in a Christmas-themed prank by Gemini 6 astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra, December 16, 1965. They sent Mission Control this report: "We have an object, looks like a satellite going from north to south, probably in polar orbit ... I see a command module and eight smaller modules in front. The pilot of the command module is wearing a red suit ..." The astronauts then produced a smuggled harmonica and sleighbells and broadcast a rendition of "Jingle Bells"

Like many simple, catchy, and popular melodies, "Jingle Bells" is often the subject of parody. Some of the most notable include:

"Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" (Elmo & Patsy), uses a variation of the "Jingle Bells" chorus as an opening; in addition, the chorus of "Grandma" uses slightly different chord patterns.

Bart Simpson sings a version on The Simpsons, the first time being on "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire".

"The Christmas Song" (Nat King Cole), "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" (Bruce Springsteen), "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" (Elmo & Patsy), "Christmas at Ground Zero" ("Weird Al" Yankovic), "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" (John Denver and the Muppets), "River" (Joni Mitchell) — these songs all close with variations of the "Jingle Bells" chorus.

Toward the end of A Christmas Story a group of waiters in a Chinese restaurant sing the chorus of this song to the Parker Family, of course mispronouncing some words as "Jinger Bears" and "shreigh", in a confusion of Asian stereotypes, as it is actually the Japanese who tend to convert L's to R's, whereas the L is a common vocal sound in Chinese.

Finally, Barbra Streisand's Jingle Bells?, on her 1967 album A Christmas Album, is a faster, sillier version of the original, arranged by Marty Paich. Streisand uses "Upsought" effectively (and comedically) as a question. Here is a very young Streisand singing that version. Jingle Bells.

Source Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingle_bells