![]() ![]() Jill followed during the Reign of Terror in 1793. Jack didn’t just break his crown – he, in fact, was beheaded. Jack) and his Queen, Marie Antoinette (a.k.a. The story isn’t actually about an innocent boy and girl fetching a pail of water, but instead about King Louis XVI (a.k.a. Apparently Jack and Jill originated in France. This rhyme also details a historical event. Jack and Jill went up the hill / T o fetch a pail of water. That’s not exactly what I pictured as I sung this rhyme growing up, happily twirling around in a circle.Įven the nursery rhyme “Jack and Jill” isn’t as simple as you may have thought growing up. Pocketful of posies – People often carried fresh herbs in their pockets, also known as “posies,” since it was believed that the disease was carried by bad smells.Īshes – This last line supposedly refers to the cremation of the bodies of plague victims. Ring around the rosie – This refers to one of the symptoms of bubonic plague, a ring-shaped rash. Sounds innocent enough at first, but apparently this rhyme relates to the Great Plague of London, dating back to 1665. When you get to the real meaning behind many of these rhymes, they’re not exactly suited for “sweet dreams” and “happily ever after.” Rhymes were also used as a means of spreading propaganda or even displeasure toward the government or politics. Just like “Rock-a-bye Baby,” most nursery rhymes originated from historical events and became ingrained into our culture hundreds of years later. Supposedly, the lullaby was written by an English immigrant about the way Native American women rocked their babies to sleep in birch-bark cradles suspended from the branches of trees. The couplet you cite expresses this in the contrast between the two rhyming terms: "Slim Shady" is the aggressive persona he adopts when he sings to his audience, the persona which "made" him a star, "Rock-a-bye-baby" is the persona he strains to adopt at home, singing to his daughter.There are various explanations, but the American roots trace back to the 17th century. The song is about the conflict between the demands of his career and the needs of his daughter and estranged wife. And Eminem is doing something similar in When I'm gone. ![]() In 1918 Al Jolson had a #1 hit with the song Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody, where rock-a-bye has taken on the sense "sing a lullaby to". Cole Porter, for instance, in his reworking of Shakespeare's Shrew as Kiss Me Kate, echoes hey, nonny, nonny very wittily: Once they've been created, however, these nonsense patterns take on a life of their own (the word lullaby itself probably started as a series of meaningless but soothing syllables), and it's not at all unusual for them to be employed as allusions to the work or genre from which they're drawn. Hey-diddle-diddle, the cat and the fiddle They're particularly common in songs and verses for very young children: ![]() Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, bra-la-la how the life goes on - The Beatles They're intended not to communicate a 'meaning' but to create a rhythm or a mood or to establish a sonic pattern. Light songs and verses often incorporate nonce-expressions (expressions made up for the immediate occasion) and nonsense words and intruded syllables. Rock-a-bye has no particular meaning, though it's obviously patterned on lullaby, with rock replacing lull. ![]()
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