Clearly the English are just less bossy than the French 
(or it just scans better…)
The song that leaps to my mind for nonsense lyrics is Innanay, a traditional Aboriginal song. Except, to the best of my knowledge, it doesn’t actually mean anything in any extant Aboriginal language (though there are a lot of them to go through)
Youtube version (I have no idea if this is any good or not - I have no sound on this computer)
It isn’t a song or nursery rhyme, but there’s an Australian author who wrote poems in “Strine”. I remember translating “Hagger Nigh Tell” in high school English class.
I was going to post that. I remember reading it in Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way. Eenie meenie minie moe - it’s supposed to be from a pre-Anglic tongue, possibly one that was spoken while the Romans occupied Great Britain.
I hadn’t heard that about hickory dickory dock, though. Cool.
The OP made me think of Mots D’Heures: Gousses, Rames. This delightful 1967 book by Louis d’Antin van Rooten requires a slightly more sophisticated reader than Mairzy doats. You need to know English and be able to read (or at least correctly pronounce) French.
Here’s a sample. (The link above provides three others, without giving away the secret. Google elsewhere if you can’t figure it out.)
Un petit d’un petit
S’étonne aux Halles
Un petit d’un petit
Ah! degrés te fallent
Indolent qui ne sort cesse
Indolent qui ne se mène
Qu’importe un petit d’un petit
Tout Gai de Reguennes.
The author helpfully points out that when read aloud, “these poems assume a strangely familiar, almost nostalgic, homely quality.” Enjoy.
My French is inadequate to get the last two, and it’s driving me nuts!
Edit - Actually, I just worked out the last one…the third one is still not working for me.
Roses are red, violets are blue
Those were fun
Aaaah!
Thanks, now it makes sense. The longer ones are easier, since there are more chances for them to click…
I have always remembered this tune as “Little lambs a dozy” not “Little lambs e divy”. I don’t know why, though.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
Here’s something seasonal. Our chorus just performed “This Special Holiday Presentation,” which includes:
*Trim up the tree with Christmas stuff, like dingle balls and hoo-foo fluff.
Trim up the tree with goo-goo gums, and bizzle-finks, and wumps!
. . .
Hang up koo-hoo-hoo bricks, then run out and get some more!
Hang pantookas on the ceiling, pile pampoonas on the floor.
. . .
Trim up the tree with buzzle fuzz, and blipper bloops, and wuzzle-wuhs.
Trim up your uncles and your aunts with yards of hoo-fron,
Trim up the tree with yards of hoo-fron plants!
*That’s only a small part of a long medley, which also includes “Fahoo forays, dahoo dorays.” It took forever to memorize.
Interestingly, this thread is the first time I’ve ever heard of this “Marzy Dotes” Nursery Rhyme; is it a largely American one, perhaps?
It’s not a nursery rhyme. It’s a novelty song composed in 1943. As someone upthread noted, it IS based on an English nursery rhyme, “Cowzy tweet and sowzy tweet and liddle sharksy doisters”, though.
A b. C d puppies? M n o puppies. O s a r!
I can’t say I’m familiar with that one, either…
This is just pure nonsense, plain and simple- written by Albert Hague and Dr. Seuss for the 1966 special How The Grinch Stole Christmas! When it comes to silly words, Dr. Seuss was the king.
I was going to say that the “fahoo-foray, dahoo-doray” sounded awfully familiar…
C D E D B D ducks?
M R not ducks!
M R! C D E D B D wing?
L I B! M R ducks!
We must have the same WWII era aunt!
I was hoping to show you a link to a scene from Woody Allen’s Radio Days that features the song, but all I could find is this Spanish-language clip. The song is in English, but the brief explanation of it and the narrator’s description of what happened that day are not.
I think I heard it back in the '90s. Some comic doing a bit on ‘How to speak Southern’.
I saw this as a mimeographed page in the early 1980s. From my West Virginia secretary.