Catchy Christmas song ‘Jingle Bells’ began life as a pick-up song

'Jingle Bells' is one of the most Christmassy of songs – but if you think about the lyrics, there actually isn't any mention of the festival at all. — freeimageslive.co.uk

This is the first holiday season where my boy is cognisant enough, at two years and nine months old, to actually register a lot of it. The Christmas tree and all the decorations, the idea of Santa Claus – although he assures me that if he has to be a good boy to get gifts, he’d rather not get gifts – and festive songs.

The songs might be his favourite. In no small part because we’ve been putting him to sleep using a rendition of Silent Night ever since he was born. This is not because we’re some kind of Yuletide fanatics, it’s just one of the random songs on his baby monitor that we would play as white noise.

The thing is, we’ve played it as white noise his whole life and he knows the ins and outs of that song. But Silent Night isn’t the most fun song to sing, so I introduced him to Jingle Bells. Which he latched onto, like most kids – the jingle bells refrain is probably one of the catchiest tunes ever thought up.

So when I took him to a mall and there were carolers there, I thought, “This is awesome! He’s going to love the singing!” And even better, they were singing Jingle Bell Rock! A variation on Jingle Bells!

My boy looked at me and asked “Is that Jingle Bells?”

I nodded. My boy frowned, unsure.

Which made me wonder about the origins of Jingle Bells. A famous Christmas song which wasn’t actually written for Christmas. If you run though the lyrics there is no mention of Christmas or the holiday season or really anything.

In fact, the origins of Jingle Bells might be that it was a drinking song.

Is that true?

Jingle Bells was initially titled A One-Horse Open Sleigh and was written by JP Morgan's uncle. Yes, that JP Morgan. A One-Horse Open Sleigh was written in the 1800s by an American, James Lord Pierpont, whose sister Juliet married banker Junius Spencer Morgan – the lesser known JS Morgan – who went on to have a child called John Pierpont Morgan, better known as JP Morgan. (Now I know the “P" in JP Morgan stands for Pierpont. Yay.)

But what was the purpose of A One-Horse Open Sleigh? Historians have said that it was either meant as a song for choirs or a drinking song, or a party song.

Let’s look at some of the original lyrics.

We all know the bit about “Dashing through the snow”, but do you know the other three verses? The next verse goes like this:

“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

“We got into a drifted bank,

“And then we got upsot.”

This is a curveball. Who was this Fanny Bright and why was she seated next to JP Morgan’s uncle. Some Internet forums have suggested that Fanny Bright is an off-colour name for a female in the vein of Pussy Galore, while records have actually turned up a Fanny Bright who would have been 11 at the time and living in the area the songwriter was living in. (And, no, by the way, that's not a spelling mistake, "upsot" is how it's spelt in the original version.)

Whatever the motivation to have Fanny Bright in the song, the horse tumbling seems to point at this being a fun song. One point for party song.

The final verse is even more on the side of party song with these lyrics:

“Now the ground is white

“Go it while you're young

"Take the girls tonight

“And sing this sleighing song”

“Just get a bob tailed bay

“Two-forty as his speed

"Hitch him to an open sleigh

“And crack! you'll take the lead.”

I’m not sure there’s any way to read this except as some kind of weird 1800s pick up song. Maybe James Lord Pierpont was the Drake of his day. Add these lyrics to the fact that the song was written in a tavern in Massachusetts by a 35-year-old Pierpont, I think we can all safely conclude One-Horse Open Sleigh was the 1850s version of 2022’s I’m Good by Bebe Rexha and David Guetta.

Back to my boy listening to those carolers singing Jingle Bell Rock. When we left, I asked him, “Did you like the singers?”

“No,” he said. “They didn’t sing the right Jingle Bells.”

Ever the purest, my boy prefers the drunken version written in a tavern by JP Morgan’s uncle and I don’t blame him.

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Big Smile, No Teeth columnist Jason Godfrey – a model who once was told to give the camera a ‘big smile, no teeth’ – has worked internationally for two decades in fashion and continues to work in dramas, documentaries, and lifestyle programming. Write to him at [e-mail] and follow him on Instagram @bigsmilenoteeth and facebook.com/bigsmilenoteeth. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.