Row, Row, Row Your Boat

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Row, Row, Row Your Boat

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"Row, Row, Row Your Boat"
Nursery rhyme
Published	1852

"Row, Row, Row Your Boat" is an English language nursery rhyme and a popular children's song. It can also be an "action" nursery rhyme, whose singers sit opposite one another and "row" forwards and backwards with joined hands. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19236.

Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs (1961). Crosby also used the song as part of a roundwith his family during his concert at the London Palladium in 1976. The performance was captured on the album Bing Crosby Live at the London Palladium.

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1Lyrics
• 2Origins
• 3Additional or alternative verses
• 4Notes and references

Lyrics[edit]

The most common modern version is often sung as a round for four voice parts ( play (help·info)). A possible arrangement for SATB is as follows:

Soprano	Contralto	Tenor	Bass
Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.	Row, row, row your boat,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,	Gently down the stream.	Row, row, row your boat,
Life is but a dream.	Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,	Gently down the stream.	Row, row, row your boat,
	Life is but a dream.	Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,	Gently down the stream.
		Life is but a dream.	Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
			Life is but a dream.

The text above is often sung multiple times in succession to allow for the different voices to interweave with each other, forming four-part harmony.

Origins[edit]

It has been suggested that the song may have originally arisen out of American minstrelsy. The earliest printing of the song is from 1852, when the lyrics were published with similar lyrics to those used today, but with a very different tune. It was reprinted again two years later with the same lyrics and another tune. The modern tune was first recorded with the lyrics in 1881, mentioning Eliphalet Oram Lyte in The Franklin Square Song Collection but not making it clear whether he was the composer or adapter.^[1]

Additional or alternative verses[edit]

People often add additional verses, a form of children's street culture, with the intent of either extending the song or (especially in the case of more irreverent versions) to make it funny, parody it, or substitute another sensibility for the perceived innocent one of the original. In Bean, where Rowan Atkinson (Mr.Bean) and Peter MacNicol(David Langley) also used this parody singing in the film. ^[2] Versions include:

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
If you see a crocodile,
Don't forget to scream.

And:

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Throw your teacher overboard
And listen to her scream.^[3]

Notes and references[edit]

1. Jump up^ Studwell, S. M. (1997). The Americana Song Reader. New York: Haworth Press. p. 82. ISBN 0-7890-0150-0.
2. Jump up^ Johnson, B. & Cloonan, M. (2009). Dark Side of the Tune: Popular Music and Violence. Aldershot: Ashgate. p. 98. ISBN 1-4094-0049-2.
3. Jump up^ Lightfoot, C. (1997). The Culture of Adolescent Risk-Taking Culture and Human Development. New York: Guilford Press. p. 78. ISBN 1-57230-232-1.

[hide] v t e Nursery rhymes (list)
"A-Tisket, A-Tasket" "Aiken Drum" "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" "Did You Ever See a Lassie?" "Hey Diddle Diddle" "Hickory Dickory Dock" "Hot Cross Buns" "Humpty Dumpty" "I'm a Little Teapot" "It's Raining, It's Pouring" "Jack and Jill" "Little Bo-Peep" "Little Boy Blue" "Little Jack Horner" "Little Miss Muffet" "Mary Had a Little Lamb" "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" "Old King Cole" "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" "Old Mother Hubbard" "Peter Piper" "Polly Put the Kettle On" "Poor Mary" "Pop Goes the Weasel" "Pussy Cat Pussy Cat" "Rain Rain Go Away" "Roses Are Red" "Rub-a-dub-dub" "Simple Simon" "Sing a Song of Sixpence" "Sticks and Stones" "The Grand Old Duke of York" "The Queen of Hearts" "There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" "Three Little Kittens" "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"
Clapping	"A Sailor Went to Sea" "Down Down Baby" "Mary Mack" "Miss Susie"  "Miss Lucy"   "Pat-a-cake" "Pretty Little Dutch Girl" "Pease Porridge Hot"
Counting	"Duck, duck, goose" "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" "One, Two, Three, Four, Five" "This Old Man" "Tinker, Tailor"
Finger- plays	"Five Little Monkeys" "Five Little Ducks" "Five Little Speckled Frogs" "Itsy Bitsy Spider" "Little Robin Redbreast" "Round and Round the Garden" "This Little Piggy" "Two Little Dickie Birds"
Games	"London Bridge" "The Muffin Man" "Mulberry Bush" "Oranges and Lemons" "Ring a Ring o' Roses" "The Farmer in the Dell"
Riddle	"As I was going to St Ives"
Lullabies	"Hush, Little Baby" "Rock-a-bye Baby"
Rounds	"Ding Dong Bell" "Frère Jacques" "Kookaburra" "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" "Scotland's Burning" "Three Blind Mice"

Categories: 

• 1852 songs
• American nursery rhymes
• Children's songs
• Roud Folk Song Index songs
• Rounds (music)