Jingle Bells

If you are from my era, you probably sang this as a child:

Jingle Bells, Batman smells
Robin's flown away
The Batmobile has lost its wheel
And landed in the hay.

Yes? Good. I'd like to know I wasn't the only one. Did you, too, share a frisson of naughty delight when you sang it? Not only were you singing the wrong words, which made it already pretty naughty, but that line "Batman smells" - wasn't that just the rudest thing ever?

Times move on, but it is good to know that childhood pleasures remain if not the same, than at least similar. There are new versions of Jingle Bells being sung around the globe. I thought you'd be interested to hear what eight year olds are singing in this neck of the woods. It goes like this:

Dashing through the snow
In a hybrid SUV
O'er the hills we go
Crashing into trees.
Bells are all destroyed
Making spirits fall,
All my presents have turned into
A flaming fireball.

There aren't any extreme rudenesses like "Batman smells", but even so, there's a healthy level of violence and destruction.

I love that eight year olds are singing about hybrid SUVs. Marvellous.

Postscript:

Oh. I've just spoiled my own post. I ran the lyrics past 8-yo. "Hypered", he said. "Hypered, not hybrid. What's hybrid mean, anyway?".

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