‘Jingle Bells, Yeah!’ – music geeks rip into store’s Christmas notation confusion

30 November 2020, 11:28 | Updated: 2 December 2020, 17:09

When you wanted ‘Peace on Earth and Mercy Mild’, but end up with ‘Peace up, A-Town down’.

This store wanted to sell some fine, festive paraphernalia, and opted for these miniature laminate plaques with Christmas carol notation stamped on.

For the music, they chose ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’. Lovely idea. Unfortunately, the ‘generic notation’ that matched the lyrics wasn’t quite on the money.

Seeing an opportunity for some festive fa-la-la-la-la deep-fakery, LA-based composer and Internet-wizard Matthew Brown entered the meme-chat. And it was inspired.

Alongside the festive lyrics to ‘Jingle Bells’, we are offered a strangely syncopated line of endless perfect fourth jumps in the melody, with some real magic in the accompaniment – yes, that is the main riff from Usher’s ‘Yeah!’.

Read more: Musicians are tearing apart this Christmas decoration with deeply confusing music notation >

Jingle Bells played in the style of Usher

Needless to say, musicians have seized the viral opportunity and analysed the notation, made memes out of it, and performed their own versions of the arrangement.

It’s been a truly wonderful time.

The 2004 hip-hop track has sold over four million copies in the US. And now, it’s got its own Christmas version. The mark of any great song, we say.

Thank you to all the musicians for Ushering in a Merry Christmas, in this strange old year.

If you’re after more mysterious notation, here’s the rather wonderful reaction to the ‘Have Yourself a Merry Christmas’ confusion.