The 2017 New England Legends Podcast Holiday Musical Spectacular! Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore the controversial roots of the song “Jingle Bells,” and its connection to Medford and Boston, Massachusetts. Is it just an innocent Christmas carol about a ride in the snow, or is it a circa 1850 song about a booty call? You’ll never hear this tune the same after this! Kelley Cocuzzo McCauley joins us on piano.
CREDITS:
Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Recorded/Mixed by: Jim Ligor SideTraxx (SoundCloud) | Facebook
Piano: Kelley Cocuzzo McCauley
Theme Music by: John Judd
Jeff Belanger with the Jingle Bells plaque in Medford, Massachusetts
SYLVIA
January 4, 2018Who knew! Way to make a legend truly interesting. There is truth to the words “lost in translation”. Good job, guys!
Sandra Dolan
December 21, 2019Nah, I don’t buy this explanation of Jingle Bells. Making spirits bright, cleary means, to me, that the sleigh ride is making them happy. A snowy winter’s day, and you’re flying across a field, bundled up in a sleigh would make most young adults pretty happy after being inside the house doing chores of whatever! It would make MY spirits bright, right now!
That’s not true that girls and boys weren’t allowed to ride together in a sleigh in the 1880’s. In one of the LIttle House On The Prairie, books, Laura’s rides with Almanzo, as other girls and boys are racing down the street in horse drawn sleds.
The gent was laughing at him, in my opinion, because he was stuck there on his back. He quickly drove away and left him there, maybe thinking of him as one of those young’uns, who thought they knew how to do everything, and he could get himself out of the fix. Anyway, who the heck would thing of doing hanky-panky in a snowbank! COLD!!!
Well, that’s my feeling, anyway. It’s still stay a innocent song about a winter’s ride with your girl in a one horse open sleigh! 😀