Are there racist lyrics or verses associated with early versions of Jingle Bells?
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Executive summary
Research by Boston University theatre historian Kyna Hamill documents that "One Horse Open Sleigh" — the tune now known as "Jingle Bells" — was first publicly performed in a Boston minstrel show in September 1857, where white performers wore blackface [1]. The surviving lyrics most people sing today contain no overt racial slurs, but scholars and commentators connect the song’s earliest performance context and some phrases (e.g., “laughing all the way”) to minstrel-era tropes and a history of racially demeaning entertainment [2] [3].
1. A cheerful tune with a darker first stage
"Jingle Bells" began life as "One Horse Open Sleigh" and, according to Hamill’s archival work, its first known public appearance was inside a minstrel show at Boston’s Ordway Hall in 1857 — a venue where white performers appeared in blackface and presented caricatures of Black people [1]. Hamill’s paper argues that the song’s presence in that repertory ties it to a theatrical tradition built on mocking and stereotyping Black Americans [2].
2. The written lyrics vs. the performance context
The lyrics printed and sung today — “Dashing through the snow… Laughing all the way” and verses about sleigh rides and mishaps — do not include explicit racist epithets or references [4] [5]. Multiple lyric sources reproduce those stanzas without racial language [4] [5]. Available sources do not claim the standard printed verses themselves contain slurs; instead they emphasize the song’s early use within a racist performance form [1] [2].
3. Why historians flag particular lines
Some commentators and social-media posts have singled out lines such as “laughing all the way” as potentially resonant with minstrel-era comic routines — for example, the comic trope called the “Laughing Darkie” — arguing that performance conventions could make even neutral-seeming phrases function as racial mockery in context [3] [6]. Hamill’s scholarship stresses that performance history matters: songs performed in minstrelsy participated in constructing racist images even when sheet-music text appears innocuous [2] [1].
4. Dispute over scope and remedies
Hamill and those who follow her research say uncovering the minstrel connection helps explain how aspects of the song’s origins were "subtly and systematically removed" from public memory [2]. Critics, including some on the right, framed the research as an attack on Christmas traditions and accused scholars of politicizing the song; Hamill herself said she did not call for banning the song and pushed back against sensationalized coverage [2] [7]. Reporting shows both academic claims and polarized media reactions exist in the record [2] [8].
5. What the primary sources show and what they don’t
Primary evidence cited by Hamill includes playbills and minstrel repertory records showing the song performed in blackface troupes and Pierpont’s association with Ordway’s performers; later sheet-music reprints removed any explicit tie to those performances [1] [9]. Available sources do not present contemporaneous printed lyrics that include explicit racial epithets in the surviving standard verses — rather the case made by scholars links performance practice and cultural meaning, not a changed printed lyric containing racial slurs [5] [1].
6. How journalists and commentators treated the finding
Coverage ranges from measured academic summaries to sensational rhetoric. Outlets such as The Guardian and BU Today foreground Hamill’s archival findings and her caution that she did not call the modern song "racist," while right-leaning media amplified accusations of "ruining Christmas" and framed the work as cultural overreach [2] [1] [8]. Opinion pieces and cultural commentators extrapolated different lessons about erasure, historical memory, and the persistence of racist entertainment forms [7] [9].
7. Takeaway for listeners and institutions
The evidence in current reporting establishes a documented link between the song’s earliest known public performance and blackface minstrelsy, and it shows how performance history can change the ethical reading of otherwise neutral lyrics [1] [2]. Decisions about singing or commemorating the song rest on how institutions choose to reckon with that performance history; Hamill’s work is presented as an invitation to contextualize rather than a straightforward call to ban the carol [2] [1].
Limits of this account: I relied only on the provided reporting and academic summaries; available sources do not discuss every variant of the song’s early circulation nor do they provide unambiguous proof that any specific printed line was written as an explicit racial slur [1] [5].