Oh yes, Struwwelpeter. When I was a kid in the 70s it was still a book that was present in almost every German household with children, a cultural icon. It was terrible and gave me the creeps, but I also was fascinated.
What is a little disturbing is that not one of the above rhymes is new to me. They were all familiar to me as a child, and many more. The overall theme of childhood rhymes is ghoulish, at least it was when I was growing up. Many of them are passed from child to child through many generations with never an adult involved.
I learned a the lyrics a bit differently as a child:
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
Think I’ll go eat worms.
Big fat juicy ones, little skinny scrawny ones,
Just so they wiggle and squirm.
First I’ll bite their heads off,
Then I’ll suck their guts out,
Then I’ll throw the skins away
('Cause I don’t like them).
Nobody knows that I eat worms
Three times a day.
We must’ve had the first edition (1967).
I know, right?? Creepy!!!
I got my stepdaughter a Mother Goose book that had that some horrific stuff I would never have read to her - and it was a modern print, too.
See-saw Margery Daw
Sold her bed and lay on straw
Was she not a dirty slut
To sell her bed and lie in the dirt?
I’ve definitely never heard that version in person.
“Oranges and Lemons” is creepy when done properly. Actually, it’s creepy anyway, but moreso when done like we used to do it at school when I was 5-7 years old. You probably know the rhyme:
Oranges and lemons
Say the bells of St. Clement’s
You owe me five farthings
Say the bells of St. Martin’s
When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey
When I grow rich
Say the bells of Shoreditch
When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney
I do not know
Says the great bell of Bow
The bit that’s often left out is the last part, which is said in a loud whisper:
Here comes a candle to light you to bed
Chip-chop-chip-chop
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head
Chip-chop-chip-chop
The last man’s… head… is… off!
It’s a song that you sing while children dance in a round, with two children forming an arch, to try to chop off the head of the last child to go through at the word “off”.
I’m not familiar with the original, but does this ‘remake’ count?
(Just the first one with Doc Brown, ends at 2:45)
and I won’t link to it, but I assume all/most of us are familiar with the works of Andrew Dice Clay.
Slut had an earlier meaning of dirty or slovenly, which is a measure less unpleasant than later usage. Why is the word 'slut' so powerful? - BBC News.
A bunch from Struwwelpeter:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=calvin+and+habs+german+stories
A couple of German lullabies:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=calvin+and+habs+german+songs
My mom sang this to me all the time:
I wonder if she knew what the words meant.
Kind of cheating: The traditional “Have You Seen the Ghost of John?”
Kristen Lawrence (champion of the “Halloween Carol”) has a version with a few more verses:
I’ve just started rereading 1984 which references fragments of old nursery rhymes that only live in the memories of the very elderly. The “St. Clements” rhyme was unfamiliar to me, so thank you for posting the complete rhyme.
This is actually the trailer (and song), which inspired the thread. . Not spooky by itself, I know, but mixed in with the images. Pity the movie wasn’t as good.
The thing is, I know the old meaning - from reading lots of old books, basically - but this is a modern imprint, and it just does not work any more, so it was rather surprising!
Oranges and Lemons is very, very well known in the UK, not just to very old people, but it’s not surprising that this particular one is regional and less known in the US. They’re all real London churches - the Stepney one is my nearest functioning church.
As a kid I had a record that contained The Cat Came Back. Verse after verse about the many ways old Mr. Johnson tried to get rid of/ kill a cat. The Wiki entry calls it “a comic song”. I guess my six year old self had a different definition of the word “comic”.
I did not intend for this to become a “vent about the very creepy songs I was exposed to as a child” but I fully support and endorse it. We teach kids some really weird stuff.
“All the Pretty Little Horses” has already been used as a horror song at least once, in the X-Files (very effectively, esp for a late-season episode). I love the song and used to sing it to my stepdaughter sometimes, and it helped her sleep, but my ex found it disturbing just from the song itself (I can sing in tune, so it’s not that).
The original words are horrific, but even with more modern versions it’s haunting. (“Flutter round his eyes” was originally “pecking out his eyes,” which is a bit too directly graphic even for a toddler)
Lots of famous people have sung it, but my favourite is this one, probably because it includes music box sounds:
I’ve always thought “I Know an Old Lady (who swallowed a fly)” was a little creepy. I could picture something like an old witch living in a cabin in the forest (like in Cinderella), shuffling around and swallowing live insects for no apparent reason. Then swallowing birds, cats, and anything else she can catch.
The whole point was to make the current victim animal chase and presumably kill the previously swallowed animal… but no mention of how they were to get back out of her stomach… so she was in essence banishing all these innocent animals to a small Hell in her belly where they needed to kill something and then be killed themselves.
And then the old lady just dies and the song ends. Uhhhhhhm, ok… let me think about all that while I try to fall asleep.
This modern kid’s song isn’t exactly spooky, but disturbing. My daughters asked me to play it on my phone during dinner a couple years back; at that time I didn’t remember seeing the “death and suicide” warnings at the beginning.
Yes! The commercials for the show Joe Pickett featured the lead character singing it to his daughters. I had no idea what it was called or if it had been written for the show but just the song itself compelled me to watch. I don’t think they included the verse about the lamb but just the melody itself is haunting.
Gary Lucas, “Sandman”:
Glad I helped you find out the name! It’s such a beautiful song.
The link says the video (which is just the lyrics) isn’t available, but it is. I’ll try again: