As you may have noticed, sometimes I can be a geek, especially with things I am fond of. I also happen to be very interested in certain songs' history. You can see its roots, the misconceptions that pass around as the truth, the song references in popular culture and so on. Today, I explore the popular nursery rhyme Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
The investigation and publishing of this post were made by my geeky side, so bear with it ;)
~ "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is a popular English nursery rhyme by Jane Taylor. The poem was first published (as "The Star") in 1806 in Rhymes for the Nursery, a collection of poems by Taylor and her sister Ann. It is often sung to the tune of the French melody "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman" (it was far from a children's rhyme & originated in the first half of the 18th century).
~ Many think that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the original composer of this melody, a misconception reinforced by its appearance as a "correct answer" in the original edition of Trivial Pursuit. Mozart composed 12 variations on a folk melody which was popular in Europe long before the Taylor sisters wrote their poem. (source for the last sentence)
~ Many songs in various languages have been based on the "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman" melody. In English, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" shares its melody with the "Alphabet Song" from 1834 and "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep".
~ The song is a popular target for parodies. "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Bat", a parody of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" recited by the Mad Hatter during the mad tea-party, in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventure In Wonderland. It reads:
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you're at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle—
The Mad Hatter is interrupted in his recitation. "The Bat" was the nickname of Professor Bartholomew Price, one of the Dons at Oxford, a former teacher of Carroll's and well known to the Liddell family. (follow this link to hear its recitation, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1972, starring Fiona Fullerton, Peter Sellers, Robert Helpmann and Dudley More)
~ The Elegants (a doo-wop band that was started in 1958 in South Beach, Staten Island) released a single adapted from this song called Little Star, which made #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1958".
(source wiki, unless stated otherwise)
The Elegants - Little Star:
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, with Indian flavour, for a chuckle:
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FYI I tried to have the Elegants' album in the tag, but MOG likes Doo Wop Classics, Vol. 1 better. Oh well, will do :)
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Did i just read an entire post on the history of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'??
Anna, my friend, you have passed geek and wandered into the realm of uber-geekdom(or insanity as we call it in America)
But I still find your enthusiasm charming...even if a little misguided. Can I request an essay on 'Rock A Bye Baby' for tomorrow??
PS
What is that lyric from that you have on your IM right now?
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Ah, what a classic song.
Also, new Girl Talk album
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Blair, mwuahahhahahha
Just a few trivia...
blinking slowly
Yes, you can. I won't even charge you extra.
PS The Last Shadow Puppets - Calm Like You :)
Heath....good???
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Thank you and thank you...off to listen to that Shadow Puppets song!
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Wow, great little history there. Fascinating, I to have realized how many nursery rhymes are the same song (right now at 32), my son on the other hand is already hip to it. I happen to hear this song about 100 times a day, since my two year old loves to sing it, loudly. From now on when he says a melody sounds like "twinkle twinkle" i will don my professor glasses and say, "eh , eh, en francais "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman"!" and shake my finger at him. :)
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Glad you think so, contra (see, Blair, people care :P)!
Ah, you have it on heavy rotation :) Living in Greece and all, I mostly heard it being used in films, it was never a part of my every day or before sleep life.
hehehe spread the word! :) Plus, if you ever play Trivial Pursuit and the question comes up, you can say "Mozart {not sure if they corrected it}, but it's not really the right answer....." ;)
Not to be a geek again, but I find it very impressing that people still sing a poem that was published in 1806 on such a regular base.
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hmm i speak english...how slow am i to not realize these nursery rhymes share the same tune? no don't answer.
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Greek geek? How would you say that in Greek? I would type it this way: G®eek.
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Brittany, I recommend "childhood trauma". I've yet to lose when I play that card. I also roll with the "I'm Greek" or "I'm blonde" ones, but you know :)
contra ahahhahahhaha
Utterly enjoyed and irreversibly approved :)
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and I totally didn't intend the r in the circle. just wanted it in parenthesis.
g( r )eek
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Well it's free, if you want, so try it out for yourself. I'm going to write a review later.
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Anna: well you know...i did fall down the stairs into a box of kitty litter when i was like 1 yr old. that's what it was!!
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''Shot through this thread
And you’re to blame
You give Greece a bad name - a bad name-
I play my game (Call of Duty 4 owns) while you post this song
You give Greece a bad name -a bad name indeed-.''
twinkle, twinkle... little 4 stars! ;p
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*1 star.
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contra, HTML code (I assume that's what it is...) can pleasantly surprise us sometimes :)
Heath, noted, and I'll be waiting for that review :)
Brittany hahahha good one! I say that I fell out the window into a dumpster (it justifies so many things....) ;)
Nick, accusing me of giving Greece a bad name via a Bon Jovi song actually works against you :P And extra negative points for including the backing - a bad name- vocals/lyrics.
Thankies! I'm twinkling with joy :)
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4, you promised me 4! Lies, you sit on a throne of lies!
ahahhaahha j/k :P
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Yeah, I know, but I don't mind giving Greece a bad name. >.<
...and don't call me Nick! :P
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i never realized that the alphebet shared the same melody! you were teachers pet in high school werent you...
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Interesting info dear... but London Bridge is Falling Down is an ever older nursery rhyme...
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Anna, it turns out, from this hefty post, that you're good at geeky. Another talent checked off. Back in the early 1960s I remember hearing a friend's record of some lesser-known Harvard-based folk group singing a parody of rock and roll. It was a live concert recording and the lead singer explained to the audience that rock and roll lyrics were so simple-minded that they often resorted to using nursery rhymes, whereupon the group sang a verse of the Elegants' "Little Star" and then the audience (intellectual college students) all laughed at rock and roll.
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Pyro, fine, I'll call you Pyros....
Sam ahahahah maybe. You can't prove anything ;P
Joxy, do you reckon that London Bridge Is Falling down should be a nursery rhyme? It's kinda ominous, non? Hehe
Charles, I like that you consider geekiness to be a talent; merci :)
Hah that's a good story, thank you for sharing it! They didn't know one thing though, when you laugh at rock and roll, rock and roll laughs right back at ya ;)
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anna, this is my daughter's favorite song of all time. i'm gonna have to show her this post when she comes home from summer schoool today. :)
p.s. you can hear her rendition on this podcast we made together about six minutes in.
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Oh yay! Let me know how she likes it :)
Aaawww she sounds adorable :) I was thinking that I should somehow have a little girl singing this song at my post, but I couldn't find anything. But here it is now! It's fantastic when she really rocks it, gives her all. Thank you for sharing :)
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will do :) i love it when she does her vibrato singing effect, it makes me laugh. i have to control my laughter though, or she gets self concious. glad you enjoyed that anna. i enjoyed you post, and learned a little something too!
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Great post Anna...as usual.
The original melody was composed by Monsieur Bouin in 1771 (Les Amusements d'une Heure et Demy). It was a parody of an anonymous poem titled "La Confidence" where a shepherdess confides to her mother that she has been seduced by Silvandre and that it's causing her sweet agony.
Mozart effectively composed 12 variations on Bouin's musical theme when he was 25 (1778).
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Fascinating! I had no idea this song shared the same melody w/those other nursery rhymes. Good job on the research my geeky Greek niece! What prompted you to look into this further A?
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I know this wasn't aimed at me, but I'll butt in anyway. Anna asked, "...do you reckon that London Bridge Is Falling down should be a nursery rhyme? It's kinda ominous, non?" Maybe. It depends on which story you're willing to believe. "Ring a Ring o' Roses" is even darker, but again, depending on which story you're willing to believe. :) Funny thing about folklore...
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Many think that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the original composer of this melody, a misconception reinforced by its appearance as a "correct answer" in the original edition of Trivial Pursuit.
There were several intentionally wrong answers in TP - to catch people who produced competing trivia games by simply copying the TP answers.
"London Bridge" seems to relate to the Great Fire, and "Ring a Ring o' Roses" to the Plague.
Likewise, the American "cowboy ballad" "The Streets of Laredo" (and several similar songs) derive from an old ballad about a dissolute young man (in many versions, a soldier) dying of the pox (syphilis).
Speaking of plague songs - here's a cheerful-sounding ditty by Steeleye Span, from their album Tempted and Tried...
(I still can't get an mp3 to upload - it sits on "Processing this upload" until i get disgusted and hit "Cancel")
Click here to go to my website.
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Fascinating. In my previous comment, "here's a cheerful-sounding ditty by Steeleye Span" and "Tempted and Tried" are both links, but on Opera, at least, there's no visual indication of that...
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We will not think any less of you for being a geek. I dont know if I can say the same thing for being a Greek!
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i've rocked out to this one a few times
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Twinkle, twinkle, little geek.
I'm like you: a music freak
Taken to a place so fly
By songs like diamonds in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little geek -
Be you Yank or Brit - or Greek.
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Glad to know I'm not the only one that can spend hours looking up info and a strangely random topic! Trivial Pursuit had another error in the question that was something like "Who was the only artist that was alive at the same time they were on the display at the Louvre?" The answer was listed as Pablo Picasso, but in reality they forgot about Mark Tobey...
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Interesting. I took it as an article of faith that that brat Mozart was responsible for this. You dismantle a small portion of my cultural consciousness. And I thank you.
"Ring Around The Rosie" is supposed to have something to do with The Black Plague.
Or, perhaps not:
http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.asp
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leftoverking, hehehhe that's very considerate of you :)
Glad to be of twinkling service! :D
Thank you, Rejean, and thank you for the precious extra information as well!
Uncle A, merci! Pat (walkingthecow) made a post. I wrote a word play based on the 'chorus' of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and then something snapped in my brain and I started to investigate it........
Scotch, Ring a Ring o' Roses, nice one!
I assure you that I am willing to believe the stories that are dark and horrible...
Mike, I use Safari, and they both look like links to me; thank you kindly for them. And thank you for adding syphilis to fire and plague. I've never heard that song before.
Kevin, can I interest you in a cup of Greek coffee? ;)
Todd hehehe 'tis a rocking one! :)
Mikey awwwwww! You really are a poet! Fantastic rhymes :*
BecauseYouAreHere ahhahaha researching strangely random topics is my time blackhole.....
And I also get very excited to read about such mistakes in board games' questions (yeah, I enjoy board games, big surprise...not!). Thanks for that!!!
Petey, you're very welcome. No milk today, Mozart has gone away!
I refuse to believe that. I'm too busy being fascinating that a nursey rhyme has a plague as a topic ;)