Author Unknown
American songs
The first European settlers in America were English speaking. They brought their language, their customs and their skills. They also brought their songs. Many American folk songs are identical to British songs in arrangements, but with new lyrics. Anglo-American traditional music also includes a variety of ballads, humorous stories, and disaster songs regarding mining, shipwrecks and murder.
1. “Jingle Bells” is one of the best known and commonly sung winter songs in the world.
Jingle Bells, one of the most famous American Christmas songs, was originally written for Thanksgiving. The author and composer of Jingle Bells was a minister James Lord Pierpoint who composed the song in 1857 for children celebrating his Boston Sunday School Thanksgiving. The song was so popular that it was repeated at Christmas. A traditional Christmas is captured in the lyrics of Jingle Bells and the sound effects using the bells have become synonymous with the arrival of Father Christmas or Santa Claus to the delight of children of all ages.
The word “jingle” means a certain kind of bell. The narrator takes a ride with a girl and loses control of the sleigh. He falls out of the sleigh and a rival laughs at him. And he gives advice to a friend, who then picks up some girls, finds a faster horse, and takes off at full speed.
Jingle bells
1. Dashing through the snow, in a one-horse open sleigh,
O'er the fields we go, laughing all the way.
Bells on Bobtail ring, making spirits bright,
What fun it is to ride and sing a sleighing song tonight!
CHORUS:
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.
Oh! What fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.
Oh! What fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh!
2. A day or two ago, I thought I’d take a ride,
And soon Miss Fannie Bright was sitting by my side.
The horse was lean and lank, misfortune was his lot.
He got into a snowdrift bank – and we? We got upsot!
CHORUS
3. So now the moon is bright, enjoy it while you’re young.
Invite your friends tonight to sing this sleighing song.
Just get a bob-tailed nag and give him extra feed.
Then hitch him to an open sleigh – and crack! You’ll take the lead!
CHORUS
o’er = over
Bobtail – a nickname for a horse with a short or “bobbed” tail
upsot – the past tense of upset
nag = horse
2. “Billy Boy” is a Protestant song from Glasgow. It originated in the 1930s as the song of a Glasgow street gang led by Billy Fullerton. It is associated in particular with Rangers football club. It is also sung by supporters of other football clubs, using slightly different lyrics.
In the New World a woman’s work was essential for her family’s survival. For the first two hundred years of American life, almost everything that the family ate or wore was produced at home. Women helped to plow the fields, plant seeds and pick crops. They made wheat or corn into flour and made the flour into bread. Women made clothes. A girl who learned to cook and sew well became a valuable wife.
In the song, Billy’s mother questions him about the girl he plans to marry. Like a mother in any country, she wants her son to find a wife who is polite (“Did she ask you to come in?”), attractive (“How tall is she?”), skillful at housekeeping (“Can she bake a cherry pie?” “Can she make a feather bed?”) and young (“How old is she?”). In answering his mother, Billy is joking speaking about the qualities of the girl he wants to marry.