There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly facts for kids
Quick facts for kids "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" |
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|---|---|
| Song | |
| Language | English |
| Released | 1953 by Burl Ives on Brunswick Records |
| Genre | Children's rhyme, nonsense song |
| Songwriter(s) | Rose Bonne and Alan Mills |
"There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" (alternatively "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly", "There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly" and "I Know an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly") is a children's rhyme and nonsense song of a kind known as cumulative.
The song tells the nonsensical story of an old woman who swallows increasingly large animals, each to catch the previously swallowed animal, but dies after swallowing a horse. The humour of the song stems from the absurdity that the woman is able to inexplicably and impossibly swallow animals of preposterous sizes and survive. However, the addition of a horse is finally enough to kill her, unexpectedly applying some real-world logic to the song. The appeal to children stems from the idea that a fly can be swallowed by a human, as can a spider, but it gradually becomes clear that this is an amusingly nonsensical story.
There are many variations of phrasing in the lyrics, especially for the description of swallowing each animal. The spider and fly are described in each verse, but the other animals are only described when they are introduced starting with the bird. Three versions of the rhyme were collected in the journal Hoosier Folklore in December 1947, beginning respectively "There was an old lady — she swallowed a fly", "Poor little old lady, she swallowed a fly" and "A little old lady swallowed a fly". All three list a progression from a fly to a horse, with variations in what animals are swallowed and the rhymes for each animal.
The definitive version was written by Rose Bonne (lyrics) and Canadian/English folk artist Alan Mills and copyrighted in 1952. At that time it was entitled simply "I Know an Old Lady." A widely distributed version of the song was released on Brunswick Records in 1953, where it was sung by Burl Ives. Ives' rendition appears on his album, Folk Songs, Dramatic and Humorous—which debuted in late summer, 1953. The 1961 illustrated book by Rose Bonne also indicates that the lyrics are hers, whereas the music was composed by Alan Mills.
Lyrics
The following is one form of the lyrics, that are representative of the nature of this cumulative lyric:
There was an old lady who swallowed a fly;
- I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a spider
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her!
- She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
- I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a bird;
How absurd to swallow a bird!
- She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her! - She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
- I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a cat;
Imagine that! She swallowed a cat!
- She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
- She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her! - She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
- I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady that swallowed a dog;
What a hog, to swallow a dog!
- She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
- She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
- She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her! - She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
- I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a goat;
She just opened her throat and swallowed a goat!
- She swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
- She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
- She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
- She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her! - She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
- I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a cow;
I don't know how she swallowed a cow!
- She swallowed the cow to catch the goat,
- She swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
- She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
- She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
- She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her! - She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
- I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she’ll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a horse;
- ...She's dead, of course!
In other media
- Pete Seeger released a version on the Birds Bugs and Little Fishes LP (Folkways Records FC7610) in 1955.
- Composer Alan Mills recorded a version for Scholastic Records released in 1956 on Animals, Vol.1
- The song's lyrics were used as the text of a children's book by Simms Taback.
- The song and its title are the basis of a children's book that has been in print since the early 1970s, from illustrator Pam Adams.
- The song was performed by Judy Collins and Statler and Waldorf with shadow puppets, on a 1977 episode of The Muppet Show.
- Meredith Tax used this poetic form in her feminist poem "There was a young woman who swallowed a lie," in which the woman finally coughs up the lies she swallowed. Pete Seeger performed the work during a 1980 concert at the Sanders Theater in Boston.
