Wednesday, December 23, 2009

A Pet Peeve

One thing that gets my ire up (channeling my inner Ed Anger here) is the mischaracterization of Jingle Bells as a Christmas song. Of course, the song has nothing to do with Christmas, but a little peek into history reveals a much richer backstory than I had ever expected.

Without further ado, here's a link to a story which exposes the drag-racing, rock and/or rolling origins of the song. After reading it, I suddenly realized why most renditions of the song only include the first verse.

Heh, just wait until my post about the possible origins of Santa Claus "iconography".

3 comments:

  1. You'll be happy to know that the Barenaked ladies do a version with all the verses, the latter two at an appropriately breakneck speed.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A young couple - one of 'em kinda loose - racing away on a crazed-with-speed donkey is close enough.

    ReplyDelete
  3. They have stopped along the way and are encouraging their angels to bathe in the fountain, in violation of municipal directive 16(c)/i.

    ReplyDelete