This Week’s Theme: Ring Them Jingle Bells

If aliens came down and asked us to explain Christmas carols to them, we would be smart to play “Jingle Bells” as example number one. It has all the qualities of a classic Christmas carol. There are sleigh bells, there is a sing-a-long chorus that even a three-year old can handle, and there is plenty of space for vocal improvisation such as “Hey!,” “Ha Ha Ha,” and even a big raspberry at the end if that is your kind of fun. The fact that we’ve all heard it and sung it a thousand times does not mean we shouldn’t embrace it as what is most likely America’s greatest addition to the holiday music canon.

“Jingle Bells” was written by James Lord Pierpont around 1850 and was copyrighted in 1857 under the name “The One Horse Open Sleigh.” You can spend the rest of this year’s holiday season reading about the song and it’s history, so I’ll just hit some highlights.

• It was most likely a collection of stolen ideas and lyrics from other popular songs of the era. In that sense it is one of the first rock and roll songs.
• Bells on horse-drawn sleighs were important to alert others to your presence. There was no sleigh insurance back then.
• Although the verses have remained mostly unchanged, the original chorus resembled Pachelbel’s Canon. The chorus we all know dates back to at least 1898 and the first recorded version, released on Edison Records.
• Pierpont is in the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and “Jingle Bells” is one of the most recognized, performed, and recorded songs in the history of whenever we started tracking these sorts of things. Almost everyone in every country around the world knows and sings the song. Only “Happy Birthday” can claim to be as well-known.
• It was the first song broadcast from space, with astronauts Wally Schirra on harmonica and Tom Stafford on bells. They smuggled the instruments onto their 1965 Gemini VI mission. They played the song while relaying a message about an object entering a low orbit from The North Pole.

Part three of this four-part, holiday-themed Faux Show series includes forty different versions of “Jingle Bells” by forty different artists. Every year at the Faux household, we select one holiday standard and make a massive playlist of as many versions as we can find of that one song. Of all of these collections, the “Jingle Bells” version is still the best. The diversity of artists, styles, renditions, and arrangements for this one simple song is astounding. This week’s show is a sampling across that diverse selection. So get out your sleigh bells and start jingling. And please, whatever you do, don’t get upsot!

Kay Thompson’s Jingle Bells

Artist of the Week: All of Them

Any artist who records holiday music is the artist of the week.

Thanks for listening (and reading)!

Track List

Track	Artist	Song Title
1	Brian Setzer & The Brian Setzer Orchestra	Jingle Bells
2	Frank Sinatra	Jingle Bells
3	The Osmonds	Kay Thompson’s Jingle Bells
4	Rev. T.L. Barrett	Jingle Bells, Pt. 1
5	Rev. T.L. Barrett	Jingle Bells, Pt. 2
6	Ella Fitzgerald	Jingle Bells
7	Barbra Streisand	Jingle Bells?
8	Dalida & Raymond Lefevre et son Orchestre	Jingle Bells, Vive Le Vent
9	Ed Calle, Arturo Sandoval, and Jim Gasior	Jingle Bells
10	Dave Brubeck	“Homecoming” Jingle Bells
11	Ramsey Lewis Trio	Jingle Bells
12	Johnny Bowtie Barstow	Jingle Bells
13	Fats Waller & His Rhythm	Swingin’ Them Jingle Bells
14	Booker T. and the MG’s	Jingle Bells
15	Roy Richards	Jingle Bells
16	The Blues Magoos	Jingle Bells
17	The Reverend Horton Heat	Jingle Bells
18	The Partridge Family	Jingle Bells
19	Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass	Jingle Bells
20	Ferrante and Teicher	Jingle Bells
21	Duke Pearson	Jingle Bells
22	The Count Basie Orchestra	Jingle Bells
23	Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters	Jingle Bells
24	Johnny Mercer	Jingle Bells
25	Jimmy Martin	Jingle Bells
26	Maddox Brothers & Rose (Spotify = Bobby Helms)	Jingle Bells
27	Arthur Guitar Boogie Smith	Guitar Jingle Bells
28	Les Paul	Jingle Bells
29	Brenda Lee	Jingle Bells
30	Jose Feliciano	Jingle Bells
31	Mannheim Steamroller	Jingle Bells
32	The Mormon Tabernacle Choir	Jingle Bells
33	The Chipmunks	Jingle Bells
34	The Ray Conniff Singers	Jingle Bells
35	Glenn Miller & His Orchestra	Jingle Bells
36	Kenny Davern & Howard Alden	Jingle Bells

37	The Roches	Jingle Bells
38	Too Many Zoos	Jingle Bells
39	Al Green	Jingle Bells
40	Jumpin’ Jimmy & The Mistletones	Jingle Bells
41	Duke Ellington	Jingle Bells

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