Jingle Bells played on chromatic harmonica..

"Jingle Bells", originally "One Horse Open Sleigh", is one of the best known and commonly sung secular Christmas songs in the world. It was written in 1857 by James Pierpont (1822–1893) to be sung at a Thanksgiving program at his church in Savannah, Georgia. Some reports say Pierpont wrote the song while living in Massachusetts but the copyright was granted in 1857, while he was serving as the organist for a Unitarian congregation in Georgia. It was repeated at Christmas due to its instant popularity. The song has been translated into many languages.

Overview

As originally published, the song had a different melody as its chorus part, which was less joyful and more classical, Mozart-like sounding. It is unknown who replaced the chorus with its modern version.

The first verse and chorus are the most often sung (and remembered) parts 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!
O what fun 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
We ran into a drifted bank
And there we got upsot

|: chorus :|

In the next verse he falls out of the sleigh and a rival laughs at him:

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 at me as I there lay
But quickly drove away

|: chorus :|

In the next verse, he picks up some girls, times a horse, bets on it, and then takes off at full speed:

Now the ground is white
Go it while you're young
Take the girls along
and sing this sleighing song
Just bet a bobtailed bay
Two forty as his speed
Hitch him to an open sleigh and crack!
You'll take the lead

|: chorus :|

In spirit – "Go it while you're young" – the song influenced the themes of songs about girls and cars of a century later like Chuck Berry's "Maybellene" or the Beach Boys' "Fun Fun Fun".[citation needed]

"Jingle Bells" in space

"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. Contacting Mission Control with a 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" (Smithsonian Magazine December 2005 pp25ff).