5 Christmas Songs That Originally Had Nothing to Do With Christmas
Many of our favorites Festive songs They are usually full of references to the substance Christmas Staples like roasting chestnuts and jingle bells. Many of our favorites Christmas carolsAt the same time, illustrate the true meaning of the holiday season by referring to the nativity scene, the birth of Jesus, and the story of the first Christmas.
But besides all this, strangely enough, some of our other favorite Christmas songs were originally nothing of the kind, and became associated only with music. Holiday season Thanks to the likes of their general winter theme, their upbeat and cheerful melodies, or their sonorous instrumentation. correct the date Some of these Christmas tunes are explored by proxy here.
- “Honey, it’s cold outside.”
- “Jingle bells”
- “Joy to the world”
- “Hey Tannenbaum!”
- “Troika” of Lieutenant Keji, Sergei Prokofiev
“Honey, it’s cold outside.”
This classic festive duet has been included in holiday albums by everyone from Rufus Wainwright to the cast Raptureand even found its way to Lady Gaga and the Muppets Holiday is amazing Back in 2013. Not a bad record for a song that originally had nothing to do with Christmas.
“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” was written in 1944 by Tony Award-winning Broadway legend Frank Loesser (perhaps best known for his music for Guys and dolls). According to legend, Loesser wrote the song—famous for its alternating male-female lyrics—as a kind of ballad. Jockey, flirty party piece For him and his wife, singer Lynn Garland, to perform for their friends.
The duo first sang the song at a housewarming party later that same year, but their performance quickly proved so popular that they were invited to parties around town just so people could see them sing it.
In 1948, Loesser sold the rights to the song to MGM, which promptly used it in the musical comedy. Daughter of Neptune; Meanwhile, He went on to win Academy Award for Best Original Song for the track. After “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” became more popular than ever, all the major artists of the time attempted to record it, and the song quickly established itself as a standard.
However, at no point in all of this is the song explicitly intended to be a holiday song; In fact, it’s only become associated with the holiday season thanks to the cooler weather (and now, Somewhat controversial) words.
“Jingle bells”
This may be the most surprising entry on this list: no, “Jingle Bells.” It wasn’t originally a holiday song.
The true history of “Jingle Bells” has been the subject of considerable research in recent years, even with… Long term theory Which I actually wrote the song for Thanksgiving Daynot Christmas, now It is being questioned.
What is known for certain about “Jingle Bells” is that it was first published in Boston in 1857 under the title “The One Horse Open Sleigh,” and is credited to the American composer and organist James Lord Pierpont; Pierpont changed the title on the reprinted sheet music two years later.
It is unclear where and when exactly Pierpont wrote the song, but popular history claims it was while he was staying at a boarding house in Medford, Massachusetts, in 1850. Pierpont allegedly wrote the song on the home piano, after spending an afternoon watching the town’s famous sleigh races, intending for Sunday school students to sing it at Thanksgiving. After proving as popular with parents as it did with the children’s choir, the song quickly became a holiday standard.
More recent research Published in the magazine Scans the stageHowever, it did show that the first recorded public performance of “Jingle Bells” actually was Minstrel theatrical show in Boston in September 1857 – which cast doubt on the song being written for Pierpont’s students, and indeed for Thanksgiving. Whatever the song’s true history, we can be pretty sure that it was not written with Christmas in mind.
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“Joy to the world”
Although it often finds its way into our surveys Favorite Christmas carols“Joy to the World” actually began as an adaptation of Psalm 98 from the Old Testament; Although modern hymnals tend to associate the song’s lyrics with the birth of Jesus, the psalm itself actually deals with The second coming Jesus.
Written by English Minister and hymn writer His name is Isaac Watts, Lyrics to “Joy to the World” first appeared on Watts Collection 1719 to Psalms of Davidalong with solid instructions in the book’s introduction advising the traditional tunes to which the psalm was supposed to be performed.
However, throughout the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Watts’ lyrics were set to a variety of different tunes, before The joyful tone that exists The Boston composer and church musician Lowell Mason wrote for them in 1839. Mason, in turn, is believed to have based the melody on a mixture of compositions from Handel’s famous “Messiah.” Elocution – So neither Watts’ original lyrics, nor the writing inspiration, nor Mason’s musical inspiration, were explicitly celebratory.
“Hey Tannenbaum!”
Tannenbaum The German word for spruce, this famous Christmas song is usually translated into English as “O Christmas Tree.”
The roots of this piece lie in an ancient Silesian folk tune, “Ach Tannenbaum”, which is believed to be… It dates back to the 1500s. A A variety of words This tune appears to have been played over the centuries (before it became known as “Oh Christmas Tree”, this tune was often sung in German with the words “”Long live it A journeyman carpenter”, or “Long Live the Carpenter’s Apprentice”), but in 1820, a German teacher and folklorist named August Szarnak wrote a new set of verses for this tune, in which he reimagined the spruce tree as a metaphor for strength and reliability, and compared its resilience to an unfaithful lover.
In Zarnak’s version, the second verse begins, “Little girl, little girl, / How wrong your mind is!” or “Oh maiden, oh maiden, / How lying is your heart!” Then a teacher from Leipzig named Ernst Anschutz went on to further modify Zarnack’s song, Adding his own (somewhat less offensive) lyrics.“O Tannenbaum” was born in honor of the spruce tree.
Although the English version of this song now overtly refers to Christmastime, Zarnak and Anschutz’s original lyrics did not, and it was the widespread adoption of decorative fir trees in the Victorian era that turned this into a festive favourite.
“Troika” of Lieutenant Keji, Sergei Prokofiev
It may not be the most well-known title in the world, but you’ll no doubt know that this short, bouncy, sleigh-filled piece of orchestral sound by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev is one of the most popular pieces in the Christmas classical repertoire. (Actually, you probably can Get to know this piece better As “sleigh rides”, at least considering that A Troika It is a type of Russian horse-drawn sleigh.)
Despite these ceremonial associations, Prokofiev originally wrote this piece as part of a suite of music used as the soundtrack to Lieutenant KeijiOr “The Tsar Wants to Sleep,” which is a comic story Soviet comedy film From 1934.
The widget appears About halfway through The film is accompanied by a comic scene that includes A A drunken troika rides late at night; The melody comes from an ancient one Hussar folk song (“Like a roadside inn is a woman’s heart”), which the two characters sing in the scene before riding the sleigh.
Not a single part of this takes place at Christmas time, however, and the sonorous sound of Prokofiev’s music here is merely intended to recreate the sound of horse harness bells. However, the piece has long since become closely associated with the holiday season Troika The melody even has it It has been merged In festive pop songs.
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