Row, Row, Row Your Boat
| "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Song | |
| Language | English |
| Written | USA |
| Published | 1852 |
| Songwriter(s) | Traditional |
"Row, Row, Row Your Boat" is an English language nursery rhyme and a popular children's song, often sung as a round. <phonos file="Row Your Boat round.mid">Play</phonos> It can also be an "action' nursery rhyme, whose singers sit opposite one another and "row" forwards and backwards with joined hands. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19236.
Contents
Lyrics
The most common modern version is:
- Row, row, row your boat,
- Gently down the stream.
- Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
- Life is but a dream.
Origins
It has been suggested that the song may have originally arisen out of American minstrelsy.[1] The earliest printing of the song is from 1852, when the lyrics were published with similar lyrics to those used today, but with a very different tune.[1] It was reprinted again two years later with the same lyrics and another tune. The modern tune was first recorded with the lyrics in 1881, mentioning Eliphalet Oram Lyte in The Franklin Square Song Collection but not making it clear whether he was the composer or adapter.[1]
Additional or alternative verses
People often add additional verses, a form of children's street culture, with the intent of either extending the song or (especially in the case of more irreverent versions) to make it funny, parody it, or substitute another sensibility for the perceived innocent one of the original.[2] Versions include:
- Row, row, row your boat,
- Gently down the stream.
- If you see a crocodile,
- Don't forget to scream.[citation needed]
- Row, row, row your boat,
- Gently down the stream.
- Throw your teacher overboard
- And listen to her scream.[3]
- Row, row, row your boat,
- Gently down the stream.
- Ha ha, fooled ya,
- I'm a submarine.[4]
In popular culture
The song has been used extensively in popular culture, often to reflect existential questions about reality.[citation needed] For example:
Film
- It was sung by Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) and David Langley (Peter MacNicol) in the film Bean (1997).
- It was sung at the start of Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966).
- In the film Dirty Harry (1971), the main villain Scorpio hijacks a school bus and forces the children to sing the rhyme.[5][6]
- In the film Troll 2 (1990), the main characters, the Waits family, sing the song during their car journey to the town of Nilbog.
- It was sung in the film Dante's Peak (1997).
- Samantha Morton quoted it in the film Code 46 (2003)
- In the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), the song is used on the soundtrack and by Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) as they try to hide from the memory erasers, reflecting issues of the importance of memory to reality.[7]
- Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Spock sang "Row, Row, Row, Row Your Boat" at the beginning and end of the film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), reflecting issues about the need for self-discovery.[8]
Literature
- Lewis Carroll, in the poem at the end of Through the Looking-Glass (1871), used a variation of "Row, Row, Row, Row Your Boat", sometimes called "A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky".
Stage productions
- The 1947 Broadway revue Angels in the Wings included an elaboration entitled, "The Thousand Islands Song".[9]
Television
- Lieutenant George and General Melchett sang an alternative version of the song in "Captain Cook", Episode 1 of Blackadder Goes Forth.
- In Fringe, the character Walter, whilst in a mental institute, remarks that he sometimes hears someone whistling the song but is not sure if it is in fact himself whistling.[10] and later in the same episode refers to his time in the hospital as like being asleep.
- Jimmy Fallon sang the song on his March 2013 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon program, along with Justin Timberlake and Michael McDonald. Fallon and Timberlake are dressed as McDonald, with white wigs and beards. The song is sung in a round, and then the segment is closed with a "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" jam.[11]
- It is the main child song used in HBO's series such as Oz, Deadwood, and AMC's Breaking Bad. The song was also used in the movie Insidious: Chapter 2.
- In 2011, the new MTV series Teen Wolf began using a darker, more edgy version of the song as its theme song.[12]
- It features in a Bagpuss episode with additional verses telling the story of 2 mice. Row Row becomes the chorus.
- Stargate SG1 Season 3 Ep 13, the whole SG1 team ends up singing this while under the influence of an alien. [13]
Notes and references
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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- ↑ http://sorakimblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/dirty-harry-film-analysis/
- ↑ http://www.quotefully.com/movie/Dirty+Harry/Scorpio+Killer
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- ↑ SG1 S3E13 Hugo
