A multimillion-dollar mystery: Who really wrote the holiday staple ‘Jingle Bell Rock?’

Bobby Helms couldn’t have asked for a better first year in the music business. And that’s one reason Christmas is not mentioned in the song.” Helms and Garland transformed “Jingle Bell Hop” into “Jingle Bell Rock,” a catchy little rock ‘n’ roll tune released at a time the music was still young enough to seem a fad. “He thought this was just another Christmas song.” Far from being “just another Christmas song,” “Jingle Bell Rock” turned out to be one of the defining holiday songs of the rock ‘n’ roll era, as instantly recognizable today as Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” or Nat “King” Cole’s “The Christmas Song.” Sixty-five years after its initial release, it’s still gaining popularity and profitability with each passing year. Alongside Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ and Brenda Lee’s ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,’ ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ is in the top three.” Molanphy says that the recent popularity of “Jingle Bell Rock” doesn’t mark a resurgence so much as a reckoning driven by the rise of streaming music on demand. For instance, when you stream Lindsay Lohan’s new version of “Jingle Bell Rock,” from the Netflix movie “Falling for Christmas,” the credited songwriters get paid but Helms does not.