Secular Christmas carols

Christmas carolers have a huge repertoire of songs from which to choose. Some, like “Silent Night” or “Joy to the World,” have religious themes that often date back hundreds of years. Other songs follow a more mainstream, secular path but still have a great deal of history behind them. In particular, three of them have histories that are a little out of the ordinary.

“Jingle Bells”

Jingle Bells is a staple for any band of carolers, mainly because it’s fun to sing, easy to learn, and relies more on enthusiasm than vocal talent. The original title of the song was “One Horse Open Sleigh,” written in 1857 by James Lord Pierpont. It differed from other Christmas carols written around that time period, since it had no reference to any religious elements of Christmas.

Few elements of Christmas are without at least some sort of controversy, and Jingle Bells is no different. While everyone agrees on Pierpont’s authorship, both Savannah, Ga., and Medford, Mass., lay claim to being the place where Jingle Bells was first performed. The issue seems to be where Pierpont purportedly wrote the song (Medford) versus where he was living (Savannah) when he copyrighted it and it became famous.

The typical version of the song includes only the first verse and the chorus. In fact, there are at least three other verses. Maybe they fell by the wayside over the years because they included references to fast sleigh rides with female companions. This verse, for example:

Now the ground is white, so do it while you’re young,
Take the girls tonight, and sing this sleighing song;
Just get a bobtailed bay, two-forty as his speed,
Hitch him to an open sleigh, and crack, you’ll take the lead!

It’s tough to imagine children singing that during a Christmas program.

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”

Most people associate the song either with Gene Autry’s famous rendition released in 1949, or with an animated TV special in 1964. The show took quite a few liberties with the song, adding new characters and a romantic interest for Rudy. It has been a seasonal holiday staple ever since. But not many people know that Rudolph was a marketing campaign before he was a holiday icon.

Montgomery Ward, a chain of department stores based in Chicago, wanted to release a customized coloring book for children in 1939 as a seasonal promotion, and the task fell to copywriter Robert L. May.  After experimenting with different concepts and names (including Rollo and Reginald), he borrowed liberally from the tale of the Ugly Duckling as well as his own childhood and created a poem that was the foundation for the coloring book. It was a hit, and the store distributed more than 6 million copies of the book between 1939 and 1946.

The story took an unusual twist in 1947. At the time, May was deeply in debt because of his wife’s terminal illness, but received no royalties from Rudolph, since the character was technically the intellectual property of the company. To help him, Montgomery Ward executives agreed to transfer the copyright to May. His brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, wrote the song that was recorded by Gene Autry in 1949, and it sold more than 2 million copies in its first year.

May quit his job in 1951 and lived off Rudolph’s earnings for several years, but eventually went back to work for Montgomery Ward and retired in 1971.

“Frosty the Snowman”

Gene Autry also plays a prominent role in the birth of another famous Christmas icon of the 20th century. After seeing Autry’s success with the 1949 recording of “Rudolph,” two songwriters saw a chance to capitalize on the trend (and make money in the process) by writing another Christmas song.  Jack Nelson and Steve Rollins decided to continue the theme of giving human characteristics to non-human characters, and finally settled on a snowman named Frosty who briefly comes to life.

There was only one problem; Autry, who had become famous as a “singing cowboy,” wasn’t too enthusiastic about recording another Christmas song. So Nelson and Rollins wrote “Peter Cottontail” to sweeten the deal, and presented the two songs to Autry as a package in 1950. Soon, Autry had another Christmas hit on his hands.

Frosty also followed in Rudolph’s footsteps with a TV deal, an animated special in 1969 featuring the voice of Jimmy Durante. The song has been recorded by an eclectic list of performers over the years, including Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Beach Boys, Leon Redbone and – weirdly enough – Burt Reynolds.