Everyone gets songs stuck in their heads that just won’t go away. They sneak into your subconscious. They are epic earworms that you find yourself humming uncontrollably, singing in the shower, or tapping the beat to with your foot or ballpoint pen when you should be working. Sometimes they even keep you awake at night. Whether they are current hits, one-hit wonders, movie soundtrack gems, holiday favorites, or songs from your youth, their catchy vocals, riffs, hooks, and choruses seem to linger for days.
Here, those songs find a home, no matter the genre. Here, those epic earworms are revisited, explained, and celebrated. Here, you may find the song that haunts you tomorrow. Here is today’s unescapable song of the day…and the story behind it.
Today’s Epic Earworm: Frank Sinatra — “Jingle Bells”
“Jingle Bells” is perhaps the most popular of the Christmas carols. It is sung at almost every school Christmas program. It was even one of the first songs broadcast from outer space, as Gemini 6 astronauts used it as part of a prank they played on Mission Control. It seems to be the first Christmas song that every kid learns. Any singer who records a Christmas album generally covers it, from Frank Sinatra to Dolly Parton to Michael Bublé to Gwen Stefani, and dozens of others.
A Different Song Today
The original song was written by James Lord Pierpont in 1857 under the title “One Horse Open Sleigh.” It was not actually written as a Christmas song. (There are no Christmas references in any of the four verses.) In fact, a shortened version used to regularly be sung at Thanksgiving services. Both Pierpont and that original song are viewed much differently today than they were back then. After Pierpont’s wife passed, the composer abandoned their two children and moved from Massachusetts to Georgia. There, he ended up joining the Confederate army during the Civil War and composing pro-Confederacy, pro-slavery songs.
The original version of “Jingle Bells” had several more verses that were routinely skipped when sung publicly. The full version was a slightly racy song that featured a romantic sleigh ride with “Miss Fanny Bright” that ends in a crash into a snow bank (second verse). The third verse tells of the narrator slipping and falling in the snow, only to have a man passing in a sleigh laugh at him. The final verse advises men to “Go it while you’re young/Take the girls tonight.” You can see why no one ever sings more than the first verse and the chorus anymore…
