135.2 - The Story of "Jingle Bells"

In today’s lesson, you’re going to hear the story of the creator of Jingle Bells, his hear about questionable character. We’ll also go through the lyrics of the song so if you want to sing it in English, you can.

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In December of 1965, a spacecraft called Gemini 6 was flying in outer space, looking back down at earth. The crew members on board were on call with Mission Control when they announced the following alarming message: “We have an object, looks like a satellite going from north to south, up in a polar orbit. He’s in a very low trajectory traveling from north to south and has a very high climbing ratio. It looks like it might even be a … Very low….” 

After a few more details, sleigh bells started to jingle and the familiar tune Jingle Bells  passed from Gemini 6 to Mission Control. With a harmonica and sleigh bells, Wally Shirra (Walter M. Shirra Jr.) and Tom Stafford, played the first live song from space: Jingle Bells. 

You heard me. The popular Christmas song, Jingle Bells was the first song ever played live from space.

And yes, the astronauts were playing a joke on Mission Control;  they were in fact pretending to see Santa. 

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