Jolly Old Saint Nicholas

About Jolly Old Saint Nicholas

"Jolly Old Saint Nicholas" is a Christmas song that originated with a poem by Emily Huntington Miller (1833-1913), published as "Lilly's Secret" in The Little Corporal Magazine in December of 1865. The song's lyrics have also been attributed to Benjamin Hanby, who wrote a similar song in the 1860s, Up on the Housetop. However, the lyrics now in common use closely resemble Miller's 1865 poem. Some people have also attributed the lyrics to John Piersol McCaskey -a song editor and publisher, among other things, at the time. His great great grandson has said he wrote the song in 1867, and that the "Johnny" mentioned in the song who wants a pair of skates, is McCaskey's late son, John, who died as a child. However, there is no known evidence for this. McCaskey's own published 1881 book, Franklin Square Song Collection No. 1, a book in which proper attribution is given to songs' lyricists and composers, does not list himself as having had anything to do with the song. The music is generally believed to have been written by James R. Murray. The first publication of the music was in 1874 in School Chimes, A New School Music Book by S. Brainard's Sons, and attributes the music to him. The 1881 publication by McCaskey gives attribution to the S. Brainard's Sons publication, which would mean Murray. Some notable recordings were by Ray Smith in 1949, Chet Atkins in 1961, Eddy Arnold in 1962, The Chipmunks in 1963, Andy Williams in 1995, Anne Murray in 2001, and Carole King in 2017. more »

Year:

1962

1:50

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Jolly old Saint Nicholas
Lean your ear this way
Don't you tell a single soul
What I'm going to say
Christmas Eve is coming soon
Now, you dear old man
Whisper what you'll bring to me
Tell me if you can

When the clock is striking twelve
When I'm fast asleep
Down the chimney broad and black
With your pack you'll creep
All the stockings you will find
Hanging in a row
Mine will be the shortest one
You'll be sure to know

Johnny wants a pair of skates
Suzy wants a dolly
Nellie wants a story book
She thinks dolls are folly
As for me, my little brain
Isn't very bright
Choose for me, old Santa Claus
What you think is right

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The Chipmunks

Alvin and the Chipmunks, originally David Seville and the Chipmunks and billed for their first two decades as the Chipmunks, are an American animated virtual band and media franchise first created by Ross Bagdasarian for novelty records in 1958. The group consists of three singing animated anthropomorphic chipmunks named Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. Bagdasarian provided the group's voices by producing sped-up recordings of his own, a technique pioneered on the successful "Witch Doctor". Later in 1958, Bagdasarian released the similarly engineered "The Chipmunk Song" for which he came up with the chipmunk characters and their human father, attributing the track to them. David Seville and the Chipmunks released several more records over the following decade unti… more »

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