North Carolina’s Favorite Christmas Song
It’s officially Christmas time, and it’s that time of year when we dust off our holiday Christmas playlist from last year and add a few new Christmas songs. Christmas songs are so much fun, and for the next month, they are going to be what some of us will be playing all day long.
Christmas songs are not a new thing. It started in the 1800s. We did some research and found that there are favorite Christmas songs per state, like in North Carolina.
“Jingle Bells” is the most popular Christmas song in North Carolina. It’s also the favorite state Christmas song in New York, Ohio, Virginia, and a couple of other states. Other songs making the favorite Christmas song state list are “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” “Let It Snow” and “Blue Christmas.”
Here’s some information about North Carolina’s favorite Christmas song, “Jingle Bells.”
Jingle Bells: The Early History
“Jingle Bells” is one of the most commonly sung Christmas songs in the world. According to the History Channel, It was written in 1850 by James Lord Pierpont at Simpson Tavern in Medford, Massachusetts. It was published under the title “The One Horse Open Sleigh” in September 1857.
It has been claimed that it was originally written to be sung by a Sunday school choir for Thanksgiving. Although it has no original connection to Christmas, it became associated with winter and Christmas music in the 1860s and 1870s, and it was featured in a variety of parlor songs and college anthologies in the 1880s. It was first recorded in 1889 on an Edison cylinder; this recording is believed to be the first Christmas record.
Jingle Bells Hits Over The Years
In 1935, Benny Goodman and His Orchestra reached Number 18 on the charts with their big band recording of “Jingle Bells.”
In 1941, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra with Tex Beneke, Marion Hutton, Ernie Caceres, and the Modernaires on vocals had a Number 5 hit on the Billboard pop singles chart with a big band arrangement of “Jingle Bells” on RCA Victor.
In 1943, Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters recorded “Jingle Bells” on Decca, which reached Number 19 on the charts and sold over a million copies.
In 1951, guitar legend Les Paul had a Number 10 hit with a multi-tracked version.
In later years, this Christmas staple song has been recorded and released by many artists, including Frank Sinatra, Michael Bublé, Dolly Parton, and William Shatner, to name a few.
Jingle Bells From Space
The song is so well-known that it was one of the first songs broadcast from space when astronauts on the Gemini 6 spacecraft performed a version for mission control in 1965.
For those of us who may be a bit forgetful about the popular lyrics, the chorus lyrics are: “Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells Jingle all the way / Oh, what fun it is to ride / In a one-horse open sleigh, hey / Jingle bells, jingle bells / Jingle all the way / Oh, what fun it is to ride / In a one-horse open sleigh.”
