The sleigh riders eat pumpkin pie, then sing one more time about how great the sleigh ride was, remembering their awesome day.Īfter listening to 4.5 hours of my self-made “Sleigh Ride” Abyss, I feel comfortable choosing the ten best versions. But it’s a shame, because there are fun moments like chestnuts “pop-pop-pop”-ing that just beg for another bit of artistic license. A lot of versions stop there, preferring to edit out the further birthday party (and further variation on the orchestral theme) at Farmer Gray’s house. They ride and enjoy the snow, get cold and snuggle together, singing songs. And the lyrics are a short story, admittedly one low on conflict - friends arrive, call “yoo-hoo,” and everyone gets in the sleigh. “Sleigh Ride” is particularly full of hooks for artists to interpret as they please. Lots of Christmas music is like this - any standard is only as good as the person singing it, the liberties they took with your familiarity.
SLEIGH RIDE FOREVER” has 94 versions of the song, and they are sonically diverse enough that you might put it on and forget it’s the same song over and over. I love it so deeply that at the time of writing, my Spotify playlist titled “JUST SLEIGH RIDE. Whenever it came on and filled the vaulted ceilings of the shoe store with horns, it put a sprightly spring in my step. I started setting it apart from other holiday classics when I worked in a shoe store in college. With three main versions - instrumental, full lyrics, partial lyrics - there are endless permutations, little moments throughout just asking for whoever’s taking on the reins to make their own. It also doesn’t reference the consumerism of the season in the least, instead taking a winter experience and encapsulating it perfectly in song. It’s a song that celebrates the moment, telling you to be present and enjoy what’s around you. “Sleigh Ride,” originally conceived by Leroy Anderson, doesn’t want to make you miss someone who isn’t there, or remind you of Christmases past.
No, this is a song about a sleigh ride: of eating pumpkin pie with pals, of feeling warm despite the cold. And it’s not even a Christmas song - it’s a holiday song, a celebration of the winter season despite folks like the Carpenters and Sesame Street trying to change a lyric from “birthday” to “Christmas” and claim it for the all-consuming tinsel avalanche of Christmas ubiquity.
“Sleigh Ride” is unequivocally the best Christmas song of all time.
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