One of the best parts about modern music is that there are always new songs coming out every day. Pop music is always creating fresh tunes. But while there are new hot singles churning out regularly, one of the other great things about music (and creativity, in general) is that there are classics that will never go away.
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Sometimes those classics are rock songs, sometimes they are rap songs and sometimes, well, they are nursery rhymes. And for whatever the reason, these all-timers seem to last for years, decades and generations. That’s what timeless things do. They exist outside of temporality. Yet, there is a third category at hand, too. Those pop songs that take advantage of the timeless for their effectiveness.
[RELATED: Behind the Hard Working Nursery Rhyme “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe”]
Here, let’s dive into five popular songs that reference nursery rhymes. Those cute, charming stories we learn as children—they, too, end up in pop music. Let’s explore below.
“Cats in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin
This song by Chapin and his wife Sandra is about the relationship between a father and his son. In the opening stanza, the father is too busy working to spend time with his young boy. In the final verse, it’s the son who doesn’t have enough time. It’s a beautiful, sad song about family and ambition. But it also seems to reference the nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle,” which reads,
Hey diddle diddle
The cat in the fiddle
The cow jump over the moon
The little dog laughs to see such sports
And the dish went away with the spoon
Sings Chapin on the song from the 1974 album Verities & Balderdash,
And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
“When you coming home, dad?” “I don’t know when”
But we’ll get together then
You know we’ll have a good time then
“Peter Piper” by Run-DMC
This song from the legendary rap group’s 1986 album Raising Hell cites the well-known nursery rhyme “Peter Piper.” You know, that tongue twister all about Peter Piper picking a peck of pickled peppers. That one you say as fast as you can and as many times as you can until your tongue practically falls out of your mouth. But the song also references a number of other nursery rhyme characters. For example,
Now Peter Piper picked peppers, but Run rapped rhymes
Humpty Dumpty fell down, that’s his hard time
Jack B. Nimble, what, nimble, and he was quick
But Jam Master much faster, Jack saw Jay’s dick
Now little Bo Peep cold lost her sheep
And Rip van Winkle fell the hell asleep
And Alice chillin’ somewhere in Wonderland
Jack serving Jill busta in his hand
And Jam Master Jay’s is making out our sound
The turntables might wobble but they don’t fall down
“Humpty Dumpty” by Aimee Mann
This song from Aimee Mann’s 2002 album Lost in Space takes its title from the famed nursery rhyme about the egg who sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty. This song was the album’s first single and it also opens the record. To begin the track, which is all about the heaviness of life and love, Mann sings,
Say you were split, you were split in fragments
And none of the pieces would talk to you
Wouldn’t you want to be who you had been
Well baby I want that too
And to conclude it, she offers,
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put baby together again
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put baby together again
“All the King’s Horses” by Dusty Springfield
This is another song that references Humpty Dumpty. The track, which is from Dusty Springfield’s 2015 album Faithful, which was recorded in 1971, is all about heartbreak. It begins with Springfield singing,
Mmm, my friends keep telling me to pull myself together
They try to cheer my up but it’s not gettin’ better
They say that time will pass and i’ll love again some day
But time is standing still ever since you went away
Now, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men
You’ll never get me back together again
‘Cause i just fall apart each time i look at you
No, all the king’s and all the king’s men
Are never gonna make me smile again
How can i smile just knowin’ you’re with somebody new?, ooh
“Country Grammar (Hot S–t)” by Nelly
This is one of the St. Louis rapper Nelly’s most popular songs and one of the reasons it is so is because Nelly knows how to use lyrics that relate to as many people as possible. One of the ways he does that is by using the children’s rhyme “Down Down Baby.” Sung often on the playground, the kids’ rhyme involves hand claps and sing,
Down, down, baby
Down by the roller coaster
Sweet, sweet, baby
I’ll never let you go
Shimmy, Shimmy Ko Ko Bop
Shimmy Shimmy Pow
Shimmy, Shimmy Ko Ko Bop
Shimmy Shimmy Pow
And on his famed hip-hop track, which was the title track from his 2000 breakout LP, Nelly raps,
I’m goin’ down, down baby, yo’ street in a Range Rover (c’mon)
Street sweeper baby, cocked ready to let it go (hot s–t!)
Shimmy, shimmy cocoa, what? Listen to it pound
Light it up and take a puff, pass it to me now
I’m goin’ down, down baby, yo’ street in a Range Rover
Street sweeper baby, cocked ready to let it go
Shimmy, shimmy cocoa, what? Listen to it pound
Light it up and take a puff, pass it to me now
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