This Old Man
| "This Old Man" | |
|---|---|
| Nursery rhyme | |
| Songwriter(s) | Traditional |
"This Old Man" is an English language children's song, counting exercise, folk song, and nursery rhyme with a Roud Folk Song Index number of 3550.
Origins and history[edit]
The origins of this song are obscure. There is a version noted in Anne Gilchrist's Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (1937), learned from her Welsh nurse in the 1870s under the title "Jack Jintle".[1] [2]
Variations[edit]
A typical verse from a standard version of the rhyme is:
This old man, he played one,
He played knick-knack on my thumb (or drum).
With a knick-knack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone.
This old man came rolling home.[3]
Subsequent verses follow this pattern, rhyming the continually increasing numbers with other items, such as 'two' with 'my shoe', 'three' with 'my knee', 'four' with 'my door', and so on.
Nicholas Monsarrat (1910–1979), in his autobiography Life Is a Four Letter Word, refers to the song as being 'a Liverpool song' adding that it was 'local and original' during his childhood in Liverpool. A similar version was included in Cecil Sharp and Sabine Baring-Gould's English Folk-Songs for Schools, published in 1906.[4] It was collected several times in England in the early 20th century with a variety of lyrics. In 1948 it was included by Pete Seeger and Ruth Crawford in their American Folk Songs for Children and recorded by Seeger in 1953.
It received a boost in popularity when it was adapted for the film The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958) by composer Malcolm Arnold as "The Children's Marching Song", which led to hit singles for Cyril Stapleton and Mitch Miller,[5] both versions making the Top 40.[6] A later version by The Snowmen, under the name "Nik Nak Paddy Wak", was also a minor hit in the UK singles charts in 1986.[7]
References[edit]
- ^ A. G. Gilchrist, "Jack Jintle", Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, 3 (2) (1937), pp. 124–5.
- ^ Thompson, Debbie; Hardwick, Darlene (1993). Early Childhood Themes Through the Year. Teacher Created Resources. ISBN 978-1-55734-146-4. Retrieved 2 February 2023.
- ^ Kathleen M. Bayless, Marjorie E. Ramsey (1978). Music, a Way of Life for the Young Child. p. 161.
- ^ S. B. Gould and C. J. Sharp English Folk-Songs for Schools (London: J. Curwen & Sons, 1906) pp. 94–5.
- ^ N. Musiker and D. Adès, Conductors and Composers of Popular Orchestral Music: a Biographical and Discographical Sourcebook (London: Greenwood, 1998), p. 248.
- ^ "billboard.com". billboard.com. Retrieved 28 January 2021.
- ^ "NIK NAK PADDY WAK by SNOWMEN". Official Charts. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
