Children’s Songs. Nursery Rhymes. Those high-pitched melodies simple enough for children to remember, and for adults to have stuck on their mind as an annoying LSS. We all know how sickeningly-sweet they go – or so we may have thought. Apparently those tunes you have on loop next to your infant’s crib hide more horrible stories than the latest literary folio from your old highschool. Here are some examples:
She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain
She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain is a popular kids’ ditty that is often sang by children when playing prospector or caravan. It’s old timey rhythm and country-music stylings make them easy to remember – quite catchy even. Let’s check out the words, shall we:
She’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes, (when she comes).
She’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes, (when she comes).
She’ll be coming ’round the mountain, she’ll be coming ’round the mountain,
She’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes, (when she comes).
The same structure is repeated with the following verses:
She’ll be ridin’ six white horses when she comes, etc.
Oh we’ll all come out to meet her when she comes, etc.
She’ll be wearing pink pyjamas when she comes, etc.
We will kill the old red rooster when she comes, etc.
We’ll all be shoutin’ “Halleluja” when she comes, etc.
She’ll be comin’ down a road that’s five miles long, etc.
So what’s the song about? At first glance it just seems like a simple song about a visit from a fun-loving cowgirl who’ll be taking the path ‘’round the mountain’ for a visit – totally harmless, right? Well, it turns out that the song is actually about death – and how it’s coming for all of us.
That’s right, it’s about impending doom. Apparently, the song takes form a much older song called ‘When the Chariot Comes’, which is an old spiritual singing about the how Jesus Christ will bring about the Rapture. Here’s how the original goes:
O, who will drive the chariot When she comes? O, who will drive the chariot When she comes? O, who will drive the chariot, O, who will drive the chariot, O, who will drive the chariot When she comes?
King Jesus, he’ll be driver when she comes, When she comes . . . .
She’ll be loaded with bright Angels When she comes . . . .
She will neither rock nor totter, When she comes . . . .
She will run so level and steady, When she comes . . . .
She will take us to the portals, When she comes . . . .
So from the looks of things, the song is about the Rapture, and Jesus will be driving the chariot (of death) to bring it all about, which leaves us all praying that we’d done good enough to be worthy of hitching a ride ‘when she comes’.
Ring Around The Rosie
A sweet-sounding rhyme to go with a little game kids play, here are the words to Ring around the Rosie:
Ring-a-round the rosie,
A pocket full of posies,
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down!
The song comes from an old folk song commonly sang on playgrounds, but is also purportedly about the Great Plague of England. So yeah, that ‘fun game’ your daughter keeps dragging you off your butt to play is a re-enactment of the Great Plague.
The explanation goes that ‘ring around the rosie’ referred to a ring-shaped rose-red rash which was allegedly a symptom of the plague. People at the time carried herbs and posies with them at all times to protect themselves from the plague, hence the ‘pocketful of posies’. A final symptom was sneezing and coughing fits, followed by death; ‘a-tishoo, a-tishoo, we all fall down’, indeed.
Mary, Mary – Quite Contrary
A popular English nursery rhyme sang to children, the rhyme has been rumored to hold historical and religious significance – well that doesn’t sound too bad now, does it? Let’s have a look at the words:
Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.
So it’s about a rather eccentric woman, perhaps? Who tends to her garden? And the rest refers to the different flowers she keeps, I guess. Research shows, however, that the story behind the rhyme is a lot more darker than that. According to some, the titular rhyme is about Mary I of England, also known as ‘Bloody Mary’ – yeah this is gonna be good.
The only surviving child of the disastrous marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, Mary I got her namesake ‘Bloody Mary’ from her brutal persecution of Protestants. ‘How does your garden grow’ was an allusion to her rule, as well as the lack of her heirs do to her miscarriages. ‘Silver Bells’ and ‘Cockle Shells’ were references to torture devices, while the ‘pretty maids’ was said to be about a beheading device, also known as ‘The Maiden’.
Humpty-Dumpty
We all know this playful little rhyme concerning a portly little egg-man precariously perched on a wall. He eventually topples over, breaks into a bajillion pieces, well beyond the help of anyone. Here’s how the rhyme goes:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Apparently, the rhyme is about Richard III of England. Whose poor physical stature (he had a crooked-back, a deformed body, one shoulder higher than the other) was alluded to by portraying ‘humpty’ as an eggman. According to researchers, Humpty falling off the wall and shattering into pieces was a reference to Richard III’s death in the Battle of Bosworth Field, where Richard III was thrown off his horse, and hacked to pieces by the forces of Henry Tudor.
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