Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas by Ace Collins

Author:Ace Collins [Ace Collins]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780310873877
Publisher: Zondervan

17

JINGLE BELLS

Jingle Bells” is perhaps the most well-known, most sung Christmas carol in America. For millions, this simple little song is as much a part of Christmas as Santa, reindeer, greeting cards, family dinners, evergreen trees, mistletoe, and presents. Yet in one of the season’s greatest ironies, “Jingle Bells” does not contain a single reference to the holiday with which it is associated and was actually written for a completely different day of celebration.

Medford, Massachusetts native James S. Pierpont had always shown a great deal of musical talent. As a child he not only sang in church, but played the organ. As an adult, Pierpont continued to assist his father, the pastor of Medford’s Unitarian church, by working with the choirs and musicians. Around 1840 young Pierpont was given the assignment to write special music for a Thanksgiving service. As James sat in his father’s home at 87 Mystic Street contemplating his chore, through a window he watched young men riding their sleds down a hill. Bundling up to ward off the extremely cold weather, Pierpont stepped outside. Caught up in the moment, recalling the many times he had also raced sleds and sleighs sporting bands of merry, jingling bells, he not only watched, but also began to root for the participants. Within an hour he was congratulating the day’s winner.

As he stepped back into the house, a melody came to him; while he warmed himself by the fireplace, James hummed the little ditty. Feeling as if this just might be the foundation for the music his father’s church program needed, Pierpont threw on his coat and trudged through the snow to the home of Mrs. Otis Waterman. Mrs. Waterman owned the only piano in Medford. When the woman answered the door, James matter-of-factly said, “I have a little tune in my head.” The homeowner was familiar with James, knew what he wanted, and immediately stepped aside.

As he sat down at the old instrument and worked out the melody, Mrs. Waterman carefully listened, then said, “That is a merry little jingle you have there.” When he finished a few moments later, the woman assured James that the song would catch on around town. Later that evening, Pierpont combined his “jingle” with his observations of the day’s sled races and his memories of racing horse-drawn sleighs. Just that quickly a legendary song was born.

James taught his “One Horse Open Sleigh” to the choir at the Medford Church. The fully harmonized arrangement was then presented at the annual Thanksgiving service. Since Thanksgiving was the most important holiday in New England at the time, there was a large audience when “One Horse Open Sleigh” debuted. The number went over so well that many of the church members asked James and the choir to perform it again at the Christmas service. Although a song that mentioned dating and betting on a horse race hardly seemed appropriate for church, “One Horse Open Sleigh” was such a smash at the second performance that scores of Christmas visitors to the Medford sanctuary took it back to their own communities.

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