With bells on

Meaning

Eager; ready to participate.

Origin

This phrase is frequently used in reply to a party invitation and the common format in that case is to indicate one's enthusiasm with 'I'll be there with bells on!'. The phrase originated in the late 19th/early 20th centuries and most of the early citations of it suggest a US origin. The first record of it that I have found in print, which I doubt is the earliest usage, is in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and the Damned, 1922:

"All-ll-ll righty. I'll be there with bells!"

The phrase is paralleled in the UK by 'with knobs on', which means, 'with additional ornament'. This is recorded from the 1930s onward, as in the English novelist Margaret Kennedy's The Fool of the Family, 1930:

"I'm waiting for the Marchese Ferdinando Emanuele Maria Bonaventura Donzati." "With knobs on," agreed Gemma airily. "Who's he?"

The ornamentation is sometimes added to, using the intensified form 'with brass knobs on'. Eric Partridge, in A Dictionary of Catch Phrases, 1977, states that 'with brass fittings' was also known in the USA by 1930, but unfortunately omits any documentary evidence and, as yet, I've been unable to verify that assertion.

Whilst 'with bells on' is largely reserved as being an enthusiastic response or as indicating additional ornament, both it and 'with (brass) knobs on' are also used as aggressive responses to a challenge. One might hear all of these in conversation - or rather one might have heard, as all versions are now falling out of use:

"Your 21st? - I'll be there with bells on".
"Little Richard; he's like Jerry Lee Lewis with bells/brass knobs on" and
"You incompetent dummy!". "Same to you with bells/brass knobs on!".

The knobs in the above are fairly easy to identify. The allusion is to the iron bedsteads which were commonplace items of furniture at the time the term was coined. The better class examples were embellished with brass knobs at the top of each bedpost.

The 'bells' derivation is less clear-cut. Bells are often used to indicate ornament or exuberance, as in the late 20th century phrase 'bells and whistles' and the earlier British expression 'pull the other one [leg], it's got bells on'.

The explanation most often put forward as the source of the bells in 'with bells on' is that they were those worn as part of jesters' costumes. The 'going to a party' scenario certainly fits with that. However, the distance in time and place between the world of mediaeval court jesters and the emergence of the phrase in 20th century USA tends to call that explanation into question. Another speculative suggestion along similar lines is that the bells are the bell-bottomed trousers that were worn by sailors. The US Navy and the British Royal Navy both issued bell-bottoms for their sailors in the 19th century but, that aside, there's nothing to support a naval origin. 'Pull the other one, it's got bells on' seems an apt response there.

A stronger contender comes from the settlement of US immigrants in Pennsylvania and other states. Their preferred means of transport were large, sturdy wooden carts, called Conestoga wagons. These were drawn by teams of horses or mules whose collars were fitted with headdresses of bells.

George Stumway, in Conestoga Wagon 1750-1850, states that the wagoners personalised the bells to tunings of their liking and took great pride in them. If a wagon became stuck, a teamster who came to the rescue often asked for a set of bells as reward. Arriving at a destination without one's bells hurt a driver's professional pride, whereas getting there 'with bells on' was a source of satisfaction.

That's not a conclusive proof of derivation but it offers better circumstantial evidence than the others.