Tag Archives: jingle bells

Morbid Jingle Bells

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Ramon, CA
Performance Date: 3/20/2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

I was first taught this song at the age of 10 while at a ski lodge in Lake Tahoe:

Dashing through the snow, On a pair of broken skis

O’er the hills we go, Crashing into trees

The Snow is turning red, I think I’m almost dead

I woke up in the hospital with staples in my head, Oh! 

Jingle bells, Jingle bells, Santa’s almost dead!

Rudolph brought an atom bomb and blast it on his head, Oh! 

Barbie doll, Barbie doll, tried to save his life,

But G.I. Joe from Mexico (??) and stabbed him in the head! 

The entire some makes absolutely no sense, grammatically or logically, but it was catchy and as children it was easy to latch onto because American pre-teens have a tendency to want to appear grown-up by pretending to be unfazed by gruesome ideas. Also, the people I was friends with at the age of 10 all spoke English as a second language, so we never noticed how ungrammatical it was until years later. There are in fact other versions of the song with similar violent vibes, but usually only the first verse (before Jingle Bells) is the same. I tried to look up any instances of this that appear in media, but all I found was that this morbid version is actually very widespread.

In December 2014, I heard a few lines from this version of the song while on vacation in Reno, sung by two giggling Chinese-American girls between the ages of 7 and 10. I had always thought that this was something my friend AZ had made up back in 2003, so I tracked him down to find out where he’d heard it.

AZ told me that he had heard it while in art class from GT, who I happen to now know. He was singing the song for attention at the time, but the lyrics he knows were grammatical, as it removes the “and” in the last line, AZ just remembered it wrong when he sang it back. When I asked him where he’d heard it, he only remembered that it was from Minnesota, but no longer remembers the details of who sang it at him and the circumstances under which he learned it.

Children’s Jingle Bells

Nationality: American
Age: 57
Occupation: Finance (Retired)
Residence: Orange, CA
Performance Date: 4/15/12
Primary Language: English

To the tune of “Jingle Bells”

Jingle bells

Jingle bells

We will hear no more.

We have captured Butterballs

and nailed him to the floor.

 

Took his boots

and his loot

only left his socks.

We gave him a beach party

and dumped him off the docks

 

Splishy, splash

Splishy, splash

We will hear forever more

Now the Fat Man’s hauling toys

Across the ocean floor.

 

My informant learned this version of jingle bells from a friend of his in elementary school. He and the other “no talent brothers” sang a number of these songs throughout elementary school. This song is sung primarily at christmas time, especially in the car after a version of jingle bells is aired on the radio. The song originally demonstrated the children’s rebellion against parental influences as many children’s songs do. However, my father only introduced this song to my brother and I after we had entered high school, past the point that we would sing it ourselves, so now it reflects more his desire to show that he is still a child at heart.