Jingle Bells

Hello everyone and welcome back to EnglishPod.

My name is Marco.

And my name is Catherine and it's the holiday season.

That's right.

It's almost Christmas and so we are bringing you one of the most typical Christmas songs

or Christmas carols I guess in all over the world probably.

That's right and I've heard it in many different languages, even Chinese.

Yeah, even Chinese.

Ding dong dang.

Ding dong dang.

Okay, I'll have to ask.

Yeah, you have to ask.

But yeah, we're talking about Jingle Bells today.

So the famous song Jingle Bells, you'll hear it everywhere, especially during the Christmas

season, only during the Christmas season.

And so let's listen to the song.

The song is pretty long.

It has like a couple of different verses.

But we've taken the main one, the first one, and the chorus, which are like the most famous

ones.

And so let's listen to the song.

This is going to be stuck in my head all day, Marco.

I know.

It's kind of catchy though.

How can you not get into the spirit with this song?

Well, as you said, a carol, a Christmas carol is a song and they're meant to be catchy.

You get them in your head and they stay there forever.

I think it's also because every mall or shopping center you go to, they're playing these songs.

So they just kind of get stuck in your head.

In the background all the time.

Yeah, exactly.

It makes you want to shop more.

Or kill someone.

Alright, so there were probably a couple of different words that you didn't understand

here.

So we're going to go through the whole song little by little and we'll explain it.

So starting out with the first line, it says, dashing through the snow.

Well, okay.

This is interesting because in sports, there's an event called a 100 meter dash.

Okay, so a dash is a very quick run.

Very fast, right?

That's right.

So dashing through the snow is you're kind of running or going through the snow very

quickly.

Right, we don't know who is running through the snow but we know something or someone

is going very quickly through the snow.

And in the second line it says, in a one horse open sleigh.

Okay, so now we know who's dashing through the snow.

It's a horse.

It's a horse and you're in a sleigh.

Okay, so an open sleigh means that there's no roof.

So you're sitting under the stars and there's a horse pulling your sleigh through the snow.

Okay, so a sleigh is kind of like a vehicle for the snow, right?

There's no wheels.

Okay, because it's hard to drive in snow and so this is an old kind of vehicle that has

maybe wood or metal underneath to make it slide.

To make it slide, very good.

Alright and then we have this strange word here.

It's o apostrophe er, or, or the field we go.

Or the field we go.

Well, this is very, very common in poetry.

Okay.

So this is a way to make the word over shorter because over, you can hear it, two syllables,

over.

But sometimes we only want one.

So we say or.

Okay, or the fields we go.

It's over.

Okay, interesting.

Laughing all the way.

Bells on bobtails ring.

Now what are bobtails?

What are these bells on bobtails?

Okay, well bobtails are the tails of certain animals, okay?

So we could say we have a bunny rabbit with a bobtail.

That means the tail sticks up.

But it's also maybe reindeer have bobtails because their tails stick up.

You can see them.

Okay, so I guess in this case, because it's Christmas, these animals like reindeer and

rabbits have little bells on them.

And according to the next line, making spirits bright, right?

So you're making people happy.

That's right.

Spirit is your, your attitude or your soul.

And in this case, you're being made happy.

You're happy because it's Christmas.

You're outside.

Very good.

And well, he says, what fun it is to laugh and sing a slaying song tonight.

Now slaying, we know that slay is this vehicle to go through the snow.

But a slaying song, I guess is.

Is the song we sing when we're in a slay.

So this isn't a real word, but this is something that makes the song kind of makes you think

that these people are just singing a special song for being in a slay.

All right.

Let's go to the chorus, jingle bells, jingle bells.

So this word jingle, it's a verb, right?

Yeah.

To jingle, we can do it with your keys too.

To jingle is to make noise when metal is touching metal.

So we have bells and they ding ding ding ding ding.

They hit each other.

I got some keys here.

I'll show you what jingling is.

So we go like this.

Oh, jingle.

To jingle your keys, right?

Yeah, exactly.

So you can use it with keys, with bells.

Can you use it with anything else?

Anything that makes it sound like that?

Chimes, jingle.

Okay, chimes, jingle.

All right, very good.

So jingle all the way.

Oh, what fun it is to ride again in a one horse open sleigh.

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.

So all the way, maybe we're going someplace.

All the way, wherever you're going, right?

Home or to dinner.

And oh, what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh.

So the chorus is not very hard and neither is the first verse, but you know, sometimes

the song is pretty fast, so sometimes you don't really understand what they're saying.

Personally, I did not know the lyrics of Jingle Bells until we started doing this podcast.

Really?

Well, because when we sing it, we mumble.

You know, you can't hear all the words.

So jingle bells, jingle bells, you don't know the words, but dashing through the snow.

Sometimes you have to just think of it very clearly.

Very good.

So that's all the words we have for this podcast.

It's a very good Christmas carol.

It's very catchy and I don't know how old it is.

I've heard it since I was small.

Well probably old enough to come from a time when there weren't cars because there was

sleigh.

And when they used ore, because I don't see people use ore anymore.

No, I think it's mostly just songs and poems.

You see it a lot in the 19th century.

But it is interesting also, I guess, the relationship between the sleighs and snow.

Christmas is always related to this, even though in some places you don't have snow

during Christmas.

That's right, but it does.

I mean, we're here in Shanghai and we can hear people singing this song, so.

And there's no snow.

So I think it's just a way to think about the season of Christmas and the attitude of

people when it's Christmas time.

Right.

So I hope you enjoyed our lesson.

If you have any questions about this Christmas carol, you can let us know on EnglishPod.com.

And we'll also post the other verses, the less known verses of Jingle Bells because

it's actually a pretty long song.

Very long and I don't know any of the other verses to be honest with you.

Exactly.

We'll post the first one and the chorus because it's the most popular one.

So we'll see you guys there and Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Bye.