Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
| "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" | |
|---|---|
| Roud #7666 | |
 | |
| Song | |
| Written | England |
| Published | 1806 |
| Form | Nursery rhyme |
| Lyricist(s) | Ann Taylor |
| Language | English |
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is a popular English lullaby. The lyrics are from an early 19th-century English poem by Jane Taylor, "The Star". The poem, which is in couplet form, was first published in 1806 in Rhymes for the Nursery, a collection of poems by Taylor and her sister Ann. It is sung to the tune of the French melody Ah! vous dirai-je, maman, which was published in 1761 and later arranged by several composers including Mozart with Twelve Variations on "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman".[1] The English lyrics have five stanzas, although only the first is widely known. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7666. This song is usually performed in the key of C Major.
The song is in the public domain,[2] and has many adaptations around the world.[3]
Lyrics
The English lyrics were first written as a poem by Jane Taylor (1783–1824)[4] and published with the title "The Star" in Rhymes for the Nursery by Jane and her sister Ann Taylor (1782–1866) in London in 1806:[5]
 |
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (tune)
 Tune for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star |
| Problems playing this file? See media help. | |
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Then the traveller in the dark
Thanks you for your tiny spark;
He could not see where to go,
If you did not twinkle so.
In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye
Till the sun is in the sky.
As your bright and tiny spark
Lights the traveller in the dark,
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
The lyrics from "The Star" were first published with the tune in The Singing Master: First Class Tune Book in 1838.[4]
Other text versions
Play Additional variations exist such as from 1896 in Song Stories for the Kindergarten[6] by Mildred J. Hill.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How we wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
When the glorious sun has set,
And the grass with dew is wet,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
When the golden sun doth rise,
Fills with shining light the skies,
Then you fade away from sight,
Shine no more 'till comes the night.
The song is a popular target for parodies. "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat" is a parody of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" recited by the Hatter during the mad tea-party, in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). It reads:
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you're at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle—[1]
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Cryer2009was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Another parody has been circulated among English academics, often being given to people unaware of the parody and then being asked what it is; in effect to translate the parody:
Scintillate, Scintillate, Oh thou vivific,
Fain would I fathom thy nature specific,
Airily poised 'neath the capacious,
Faintly resembling a gem carbonaceous.
The Elegants released a single adapted from this song called "Little Star", which made #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1958. In 1962, Alvin and the Chipmunks performed a jazz rendition of the song for their album The Chipmunk Songbook.
An adaptation of the song, named "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Earth", was written by Charles Randolph Grean, Fred Hertz and Leonard Nimoy (Nimoy recites the text as Spock explaining how the star-people wish upon an earth and so forth). It is included on his first 1967 album Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock's Music From Outer Space.
The song has been quoted by the American hip hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince on the track, "Twinkle, Twinkle (I'm Not a Star)" from their 1993 final studio album, Code Red.
This song was parodied by the group Science Groove in their song "Twinkle, Twinkle, T2 Star" [7]
A version using synonyms from Roget's Thesaurus exists.[8]
An anonymous astronomy parody, quoted in Violent Universe by Nigel Calder (BBC, 1969), refers to pulsars and quasars. A different version of this parody attributed to George Gamow and Nigel Calder was published in Galaxies in the Universe: An Introduction by Linda Sparke and John Gallagher (Cambridge University Press, 2000 - ISBN 0-521-59740-4).
Vashti Bunyan, an English singer-songwriter, composed "Lily Pond" based on this tune. It can be found on her 1970 album Just Another Diamond Day.
American singer Elizabeth Mitchell covers the song on her 2006 album You Are My Little Bird.
In 2008 a creepy version was used as the theme for the video game "Dead Space".
New Zealand singer Hayley Westenra covered it on her 2013 album Hushabye.
A short parody version was used in the 2015 animated film Hotel Transylvania 2, credited to Jane Taylor, Adam Sandler, and Robert Smigel. In the film, Dracula sings to his daughter lyrics intended for monsters, such as, "Suffer, suffer, scream in pain. Blood is spilling from your brain."
In 2016, the artist D'Nihil released a creepy version of the song for the album Nursery Crimes.[9]
Henry Reich created a long version of a variation proposed by Zach Weinersmith,[10] called Astronomically Correct Twinkle Twinkle, which explains various astronomical objects which can be seen to twinkle in the night.[11]
Piano Tiles 2 a rhythm ios/Android app created by Cheetah Mobile use this music to the first level. The song level named "Little Star".
See also
Notes
- ↑ http://listserv.bccls.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0112B&L=OPERA-L&D=1&P=78015&F=P
- ↑
- ↑
- 1 2 M. Cryer, Love Me Tender: The Stories Behind the World's Best-loved Songs (Frances Lincoln, 2009), pp. 83–5.
- ↑ I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 397–8.
- 1 2 https://archive.org/details/SongStoriesForTheKindergarten
- ↑ http://www.science-groove.org/Now/Twinkle.html
- ↑ G. Hughes, A history of English words (Wiley-Blackwell, 2000), p. 40.
- ↑ https://soundcloud.com/dnihil/twinkle-twinkle-little-star?in=dnihil/sets/nursery-crimes
- ↑ http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3304
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhn-RzMELhY
External links
 |
Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. |
- Lullabies of Europe/Languages from the Cradle Dead Link! A European Union, government-funded education project to collect lullabies (in their native language) from across Europe - includes samples in seven languages.
- SoundBeep Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with two Instrument versions, piano and kalimba.
- Audio segment from BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour,
