A children's song may be a nursery rhyme set to music, a song that children invent and share among themselves, or a modern creation intended for entertainment, used in the home or education. Although children's songs have been recorded and studied in some cultures more than others, they appear to be universal in human society.
Criteria for a children's song include child-friendly lyrics and a melody appropriate to the lyrics, whose range does not exceed the child's vocal range.Andreas Mohr: Handbuch der Kinderstimmbildung. Verlag Schott, Mainz 1997, ISBN 3-7957-8704-1 Furthermore, the song should be written in a key suitable for the child's voice.
In folklore, the term "children's songs" is sometimes also used to refer to nursery rhymes.Kinderlieder der Deutschen Schweiz. Nach mündlicher Überlieferung gesammelt und hrsg. von Gertrud Züricher. Helbig & Lichtenhahn, Basel 1926, zur Terminologie S. X (= Schriften der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde, Band 17).
Categories Iona and Peter Opie, pioneers of the academic study of children's culture, divided children's songs into two classes: those taught to children by adults, which when part of a traditional culture they saw as nursery rhymes, and those that children taught to each other, which formed part of the independent culture of childhood. A further use of the term children's song is for songs written for the entertainment or education of children, usually in the modern era. In practice none of these categories are entirely discrete, since, for example, children often reuse and adapt nursery rhymes, and many songs now considered as traditional were deliberately written by adults for commercial ends.
The Opies further divided nursery rhymes into a number of groups, including Amusements (including action songs) Counting rhymes Lullabies Riddles
Playground or children's street rhymes they sub-divided into two major groups: those associated with games and those that were entertainments, with the second category including Improper verses Jingles Joke rhymes Nonsense verse Macabre rhymes Parodies Popular songs Slogans Tongue-twisters
In addition, since the advent of popular music publication in the 19th century, a large number of songs have been produced for and often adopted by children. Many of these imitate the form of nursery rhymes, and a number have come to be accepted as such. They can be seen to have arisen from a number of sources, including: Film Publishing Recording
Nursery or Mother Goose rhymes
The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" songs for young children in Britain and many English speaking countries, but this usage dates only from the 19th century, and in North America the older Mother Goose rhyme is still often used.H. Carpenter and M. Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 383. The oldest children's songs of which there are records are lullabies, which can be found in every human culture.I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 6. The Roman nurses' lullaby, "Lalla, Lalla, Lalla, aut dormi, aut lacte", may be the oldest to survive. Many medieval English verses associated with the birth of Jesus (including "Lullay, my liking, my dere son, my sweting") take the form of lullabies and may be adaptations of contemporary lullabies.H. Carpenter and M. Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 326.
However, most of those used today date from the 17th century onwards. Some rhymes are medieval or 16th-century in origin, including "To market, to market" and "Cock a doodle doo", but most were not written down until the 18th century, when the publishing of children's books began to move towards entertainment.I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 30–31, 47–48, 128–29, 299. The first English collections were Tommy Thumb's Song Book and a sequel, Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, both thought to have been published before 1744, and at this point such songs were known as "Tommy Thumb's songs".H. Carpenter and M. Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 382–83. The publication of John Newbery's Mother Goose's Melody; or, Sonnets for the Cradle (c. 1785) is the first record of many classic rhymes still in use today.H. Carpenter and M. Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 363–64. These rhymes seem to have come from a variety of sources, including traditional riddles, proverbs, ballads, lines of mummers' plays, drinking songs, historical events, and, it has been suggested, ancient pagan rituals. Roughly half of the current body of recognised "traditional" English rhymes were known by the mid-18th century.I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997).
In the early 19th century, printed collections of rhymes began to spread to other countries, including Robert Chambers's Popular Rhymes of Scotland (1826) and, in the United States, Mother Goose's Melodies (1833). The origins and authors of rhymes from this period are sometimes known, such as "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", which combined an eighteenth-century French tune with a poem by the English writer Jane Taylor, and "Mary Had a Little Lamb", written by Sarah Josepha Hale of Boston in 1830. Nursery rhymes were also often collected by early folk-song collectors, including, in Scotland, Sir Walter Scott and, in Germany, Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim in Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1806–08).H. Carpenter and M. Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 384. The first, and possibly the most important, academic collections to focus in this area were James Orchard Halliwell's The Nursery Rhymes of England (1842) and Popular Rhymes and Tales (1849).R. M. Dorson, The British Folklorists: a History (Taylor & Francis, 1999), p. 67. By the time of Sabine Baring-Gould's A Book of Nursery Songs (1895), child folklore had become an academic study, full of comments and footnotes. The early years of the 20th century are notable for the addition of sophisticated illustrations to books of children's songs, including Caldecott's Hey Diddle Diddle Picture Book (1909) and Arthur Rackham's Mother Goose (1913). The definitive study of English rhymes remains the work of Iona and Peter Opie.
Children's playground and street songs
In contrast to nursery rhymes, which are learned in childhood and passed from adults to children only after a gap of 20 to 40 years, children's playground and street songs, like much children's lore, are learned and passed on almost immediately.I. Opie and P. Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Granada, 1977), p. 27. The Opies noted that this had two important effects: the rapid transmission of new and adjusted versions of songs, which could cover a country like Great Britain in perhaps a month by exclusively oral transmission, and the process of "wear and repair", in which songs were changed, modified and fixed as words and phrases were forgotten, misunderstood or updated.I. Opie and P. Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Granada, 1977), p. 26.
Origins of songs Some rhymes collected in the mid-20th century can be seen to have origins as early in the 18th century. Where sources could be identified, they could often be traced to popular adult songs, including ballads and those in music hall and minstrel shows.I. Opie and P. Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Granada, 1977), p. 33. They were also studied in 19th-century New York. Children also have a tendency to recycle nursery rhymes, children's commercial songs and adult music in satirical versions. A good example is the theme from the mid-1950s Disney film Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, "The Ballad of Davy Crockett", with a tune by George Bruns; its opening lines, "Born on a mountain top in Tennessee / The greenest state in the land of the free", were endlessly satirised to make Crockett a spaceman, a parricide and even a Teddy Boy.I. Opie and P. Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Granada, 1977), pp. 138–40.
Action songs Some of the most popular playground songs include actions to be done with the words. Among the most famous of these is "I'm a Little Teapot". A term from the song is now commonly used in cricket to describe a disgruntled bowler's stance when a catch has been dropped. A "teapot" involves a person standing with one hand on their hip in disappointment, a 'double teapot" involves both hands on hips and a disapproving glare.
Game songs Many children's playground and street songs are connected to particular games. These include clapping games, like "Miss Susie", played in America; "A sailor went to sea" from Britain; and "Mpeewa", played in parts of Africa.S. E. D. Wilkins, Sports and games of medieval cultures (Greenwood, 2002), p. 32. Many traditional Māori children's games, some of them with educational applications—such as hand movement, stick and string games—were accompanied by particular songs.M. McLean, Maori Music (Auckland University Press, 1996), pp. 147–64. In the Congo, the traditional game "A Wa Nsabwee" is played by two children synchronising hand and other movements while singing.T. Mukenge, Culture and customs of the Congo (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002), p. 56. Skipping games like Double Dutch have been seen as important in the formation of hip hop and rap music.K. D. Gaunt, The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-hop (New York University Press, 2006), pp. 158–80.
If a playground song does have a character, it is usually a child present at the time of the song's performance or the child singing the song. Awkward relations between young boys and girls is a common motif, as in the American playground song, jump-rope rhyme,Heitzig, Lenya and Rose, Penny (2009). Live Relationally, p. 196. . or taunt "K-I-S-S-I-N-G", spelt aloud. The song is learned by oral tradition:
Food songs Children's songs are often connected to food, both for educational purposes and entertainment. These songs use rhyme, action, game and satire. From the Opie's research, "Pease Porridge Hot" is an example of an action song incorporating a food theme. In humour, "Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit" is a playground song about the capacity for beans to contribute to flatulence. The New Zealand song "Fish and Chips" by Claudia Mushin uses rhyme and a chanting rhythm, particularly in the chorus, to celebrate popular contemporary food: "Fish and chips / Fish and chips / Make me want to lick my lips."
Pastime songs