Playground Song

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

One, two, Freddy's coming for you
Three, four, better lock your door
Five, six, grab your crucifix
Seven, eight, better stay up late

Nine, ten, never sleep again...
—A Nightmare on Elm Street

A Playground Song is a simple, vocal only song that is popular amongst children. They usually have a relatively straight forward tempo, with the lyrics as the only real consideration. Often, they are meant to be open ended, allowing for either improvisation or indefinite running length. Almost all infinite (or seemingly infinite) loop songs are either a Playground Song or descended from one. These songs are prone to Memetic Mutation and very few of them have a recorded origin. Some go back centuries. A lot are far darker and more cynical than media producers give children credit for, including the numerous Barney and Teletubbies musical Death Fics.

The name comes from the fact that the vast majority of the time, these songs are heard on playgrounds and other public areas that have a lot of children. That doesn't stop them from coming up in other situations, though. "Childrens' Song," while a more generally accepted term, can also be applied to pretty much anything specifically aimed at prepubescent children (such as songs featured on Sesame Street and similar TV shows). This article will focus exclusively on songs that circulate through elementary schools via memes.

Trying to list all the Playground Songs out there is a mostly futile endeavor. There are just way too many of them with way too many mutations and a lot of songs pop up and fade out of existence quickly. Instead, we will only list examples of their use in fiction. Please list examples with the first entry detailing the title of the song (or, if there is no definitive title, the first stanza) and list all examples of usage/mutations under it.

Examples of Playground Song include:


  • Playground songs in general:
    • The webcomic "Li'l Mell and Sergio" had a storyline in which Sergio was trying to find the origin of playground songs. As it turns out, they're all written by a secret cave-dwelling tribe of mole people. The mole people are cannibals, but they refuse to eat anyone who knows their songs, so they end up capturing a homeschooled kid and trying to eat him.
    • A short story in Evan Dorkin's Dork was about the guy who wrote all those playground songs and his unfortunate end.
  • John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
    • Referenced in Robert Heinlein's novel I Will Fear No Evil
    • The character played by Robin Williams in the movie To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar is literally named John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt and is tired of the song.
    • The movie In the Army Now has a couple characters sing it to the annoyance of the other soldiers.
    • The movie Disney's The Kid has the title character singing it to the annoyance of the older character.
    • Mikey in Recess actually gave a bass version.
    • Sung by a music teacher in an issue of Barry Ween.
    • Truth in Television: His name is my name, too. (Come on, somebody had to do it eventually.)
  • 99 Bottles of Beer
    • In National Lampoon's Vacation, Clark, while lost in the desert and trying to find help, starts the song at 1000, passing out when he's in the single digits.
    • The bus scene in the camp super special of The Baby-sitters' Club has David Michael starting up a rendition of "a million bottles of beer on the wall" to take up the time.
    • In As seen in this strip, A Modest Destiny's Hechter apparently sang this for a good part of five years when buried in the desert.
    • One Calvin and Hobbes strip has Calvin starting this song (at ten million bottles of beer, no less!) during a road trip in order to annoy his dad into stopping for hamburgers.
    • In one of the Ramona Quimby books, Ramona and her friend Howie sing this while they're going about the neighborhood on tin can stilts.
    • In one Foxtrot strip, Jason sings his version of this, replacing the bottles of beer with (several thousand) minutes until school starts.
    • In fiction they're sometimes Bowdlerized to bottles of milk, adults being more squeamish than kids.
      • The How I Spent My Summer Vacation special episode of Tiny Toon Adventures finds Hamton and his parents singing "99 Bottles Of Non-Alcoholic Beverage On The Wall". When Plucky, who's traveling with them, asks "Isn't it 99 Bottles Of Beer On The Wall?" Hamton's mom replies, "We don't drink in our family, Plucky"
    • In Zork: Grand Inquisitor, when you enter the Hall of Inquisition, you hear a Totemized Lucy Flathead singing "9999 Bottles of Mead on the Wall", though she may have started at a much higher number.
    • Left behind on the Lexx for an episode, 790 sings his way up to "790 kisses from Kai on the head."

"That's one more kiss from the man who is dead..."

    • Glen Cook's Garrett, P.I. references this in his narration, after having to explain to one person after another after another what he's investigating. He wonders if he'll run out of bottles of beer on the wall before the mystery finally starts making sense.
    • An issue of Thor has Asgardian children singing "99 Bottles of Grog on the Wall."
    • In Sinfest sung by God (with an open bottle of "Nectar of the Gods" in hand). Of course, since He starts with "infinity bottles of beer on the wall", the song doesn't change.
    • This is a popular programming challenge.
  • Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit/Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit (and variations)
    • Referenced in The Simpsons. One episode has Bart transfer to a Christian school and get asked to recite a psalm. He says that the one he knows about is about beans, then starting this song. It cuts just before the word "toot", with a shot of him being chased out of the school.
      • Not sure if it was related to this incident, but one of his blackboard lines was once "Beans are neither a fruit nor musical."
    • A tagline for the Mr. Bean movie referenced the song ("The more you laugh, the better you feel / So go see Bean, he'll make you squeal," or something along those lines).
    • Heifer of Rocko's Modern Life is asked briefly to speak at an impromptu funeral for Filbert's dead parrot. He uses a variation.

"Beans, beans, they're good for your heart. The more you you eat, the more you--"
"That's enough."

    • Used in a Frazz comic strip, opening with a girl skipping rope while singing the rhyme, only to be reprimanded by her teacher that "beans aren't fruit." Next panel: Girl skipping rope, singing "Beans, beans, the charmed legume / eat a bunch and clear the room..." (Frazz observes that the thesaurus is there for everyone to use.)
    • A hermit's crow sings random phrases from this in the Stephen King short story "The Gunslinger". Given the author, it's creepy.
    • Time-traveler Claire Fraser teaches this one inadvertently to a bunch of 18th century Scots in Outlander.
    • From a "Dot's Poetry Corner" segment on Animaniacs: "Beans, beans, the musical fruit. The more you eat, the more they kick you off the air if you finish this poem!
  • London Bridge is Falling Down
  • Miss Lucy Had A Baby / Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat (and variants)
    • An episode of The Simpsons has Lisa singing this while Homer listens in horror as he thinks she's going to swear, with a big sigh of relief whenever the rhyme is subverted.
    • Emilie Autumn's variant "Miss Lucy Had Some Leeches" which is about the conditions of 1840's asylums set to the same tune and dosed up on Nightmare Fuel.
    • Wendy sings one of the dirtier versions in South Park.
  • The Song That Doesn't End

"This is the song that never ends/ And it goes on and on my friends/ Some people started singing it not knowing what it was/ and now they keep on singing it forever just because--"
Repeat ad infinitum.

  • "Ring Around the Rosy" is one of those "centuries-old" songs, dating back to at least 1790. It was not originally about dying in the black plague, but so many people think this that it might as well be anyway.
    • An alternate ending of Heathers has the title characters perform this.
    • Orson Scott Card wrote a short story in the Foundation universe, "The Originist", that showed that a recognizable version of this was around thousands of years later—and how that showed that some human communities, like "young children playing" were effectively immortal.
    • In On the Banks of Plum Creek, Nellie Oleson demands the little girls play "Ring Around the Rosy" every day at recess. No exceptions.
  • "Boa Constrictor" started as a poem by Shel Silverstein, but has made rounds as a playground song as well.
  • The novel This Perfect Day is a Dystopia with a fictional Playground Song which ties into the title of the book:

Christ, Marx, Wood and Wei,
Led us to this perfect day.

  • " Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack/All dressed in black, black, black"
  • Creepy playground jump rope rhymes are quite popular in horror movies:

One, two, Freddy's coming for you
Three, four, better lock your door
Five, six, grab your crucifix
Seven, eight, better stay up late
Nine, ten, never sleep again...

      • This song, Freddy's theme, is a corruption of One, Two, Buckle My Shoe. The above version is often sung at an actual playground in dream sequences before a switch to the signature boiler room that Freddy uses for his killing grounds.
    • Another lesser known one is the one from Dr. Giggles:

This town has a doctor and his name is Rendell
Stay away from his house 'cause he's the doctor from Hell.
He killed all his patients, every last one,
And cut out their hearts, purely for fun.
So if you're from Moorehigh and you get sick
Fall on your knees and pray you die quick.

  • In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Hush, Buffy has a dream at the beginning where a young girl sings in the playground song method to foreshadow the appearance of the episode's demons.
  • A popular Japanese playground song makes an appearance in a later episode of Excel Saga with the lolicon doctor. The song in question is titled Kagome, Kagome, and has absolutely nothing to do with Inuyasha; it is supposedly about a nightingale. English lyrics:

kagome, kagome,
when does the bird inside the cage come out?
at dawn and evenings
who is in the front of the back where a crane and turtle slipped and fell?

Crashing through the snow
on a pair of broken skis
rolling down the mountain
smashing into trees!
The snow is turning red,
I think I'm nearly dead,
I woke up in the hospital
with stitches in my head!
(Refrain)

Jingle bells, Muk smells
Chansey laid an egg
Pidgeotto broke its wing
And Hitmonchan took ballet.

  • We should have this one already: [Name] and [Name] sittin' in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.

First comes love, then comes marriage/ Then comes the baby in the baby carriage!
That's not all, that's not all, here comes the baby playin' basketball!

    • Better yet, "drinkin' alcohol".
    • This one appeared in Calvin and Hobbes, with Hobbes singing it about Calvin and Suzie.
    • Probably also appeared in The Simpsons, too, although I can't remember when.
      • That was in the episode "Lisa the Tree Hugger".
    • And in Friends, after Chandler gets drunk and makes out with one of Joey's sisters, then manages to convince Joey that he's honestly interested in her:

Joey: You and my sister sittin' in a tree!
Chandler: Heh-heh... yup, I'm in a tree.

"Uh huh." Sirius said and nodded slowly, not convinced. He put his hands behind his back and started to sing: "Remus and Alexandra sitting on a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! First.."

      • Note: Sirius is 34 in this story.
    • This was used a few times in Recess, and one episode did a parody of it:

Various students: Vince and Prickly, standin` on the green, P-U-T-T-I-N-G!

    • Rapper Nas parodied this in the chorus of his song "K-I-S-S-I-N-G"

Picture us married, you and me, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. I remember the first time, girl you and me, F-U-C-K-I-N-G.

  • Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divy. A kiddly divy too, wouldn't you?
    • Referenced in Piers Anthony's Mode series.
    • During the air raid drill in The Mouse That Roared, the people in the shelters start with "Nearer, My God, To Thee" and wind up singing "Mairzy Doats".
  • Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts, marmaladed monkey meat, little dirty birdie feet! *hums the words that nobody ever remembers* Ate it without a spoon, got a straw! Slurp!
    • An alternate version says "mutilated monkey meat, French fried flamingo feet."
    • Or Stimpy's version:

Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts / Teeny weeny birdie's feet / French fried eyeballs / Smothered in a pool of blood / And me without a - *whistle* - spoon!

  • "I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee . . ." As a note, most printed versions end with wiping up the squished bee, but there's a version out there with licking it up, followed by puking, followed by licking that up, and so on, literally ad nauseam.
  • "Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?"
  • The song "Asante Sana, Squash Banana" from The Lion King is a popular playground song in many parts of Africa where Swahili is spoken. The whole song translates as "Thank you very much, squash banana, You are a baboon and I am not."
  • The WWII favorite "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball", sung to the tune of Colonel Bogey. Countless variations exist - a typical example:

Hitler has only got one ball
The other is in the Albert Hall
Himmler is very sim'lar
And Goebbels has no balls at all!

  • "There was a dustbin man", to the tune of Lonnie Donegan's "My Old Mans's a Dustman":

There was a dustbin man,
who wears a dustman's hat,
he bought five thousand tickets, to watch a football match.
Fatty passed to skinny,
Skinny passed it back.
Fatty too a rotten shot and knocked the goalie flat.
Put him on a stretcher,
take him off the pitch,
Stuff his bum with [3 forgotten syllables], and pour it out his dick.

Joy to the world,
The teacher's dead.
We barbecued her head.
Don't worry about the body,
We flushed it down the potty,
And round and round it goes,
And round and round it goes,
And rooound it gooes, around it goes.

Like many of these songs, it also has lots of variations, including a Barney version.
    • This was sung by Nelson Muntz on the Simpsons episode "Lisa's Date With Density".
  • "I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves. I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, and this is how it goes, bum bum bum-" (Repeat until the nearest adult(s) pop(s) a blood vessel)
  • "On Top of Old Smokey":

On top of Old Smokey
All covered with sand
I shot my poor teacher
With a red rubber band
I shot her with pleasure
I shot her with pride
Oh, how could I miss her?
She's forty feet wide!

  • Then there's "...I lost my poor meatball/When somebody sneezed," some versions of which seemed to go on forever.
  • Then, of course:

Miss Susie had a steamboat
 The steamboat had a bell
Miss Susie went to heaven
The steamboat went to...

  • The Battle Hymn of the Republic

My eyes have seen the glory
of the burning of the school
we have tortured all the teachers,
we have broke the Golden Rule.
We marched into his office
and we tickled the Princible!
Our troops go marching on!
Glory, Glory, Halleuja,
Teacher hit me with a ruler
I bopped her on the beanie
with a rotten tangerinie,
and her teeth came marching out!

  • Parody of "We Three Kings"

We three kings of Orient are
Trying to smoke a rubber cigar
But it was loaded and exploded killing one of us
We two kings of Orient are...

    • The version this troper has heard ends the last stanza with "siiiiileeeent niiiiiiight"
  • One to the tune of the Ozzy Osbourne song "Iron Man"

I am ice cream man
Runnin over fat kids with my van!
Don't care if they run
Chasin' em down is much more fun!

    • There's also:

I am Iron Man
Do not need a woman 'cause I've got my hand.

There's a place in France
Where the naked ladies dance
There's a hole in the wall
Where the men can see it all.

    • And the variant:

There's a place on Mars
Where the woman smoke cigars
And the men wear bikinis
And the children drink martinis
Every sip they take
Is enough to kill a snake
When the snake is dead
They put roses on its head
When the roses die
They put diamonds in its eyes
When the diamonds fade
They call the king of spades
And the king of spades yells FREEZE!

  • Then there's this song

Deck the Halls with Gasoline
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Light a match and watch it gleam
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Watch your school burn down to ashes
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Aren't you glad we played with matches?
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-LA!!!

  • The Diarrhea Song, a very versatile song poking fun at the condition, partly popularized by the film Parenthood but also pre-dating it. The lyrics follow a rhyme scheme that can easily be changed around, with a chorus of "Diarrhea *fart fart* Diahrrea" (or sometimes "Mama Mia"). Some examples:

When you're driving in your Chevy and you feel something heavy (chorus)
When you're sitting on the john and the toilet paper's gone (chorus)

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