Did You Know These Nursery Rhymes Had Racist Roots?

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It’s almost easy to forget just how racist America used to be — until you hear the origins of most of your favorite nursery rhymes. Now that we’ve stopped teaching kids catchy racist tunes, do you keep singing the cleaned-up version?

Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Mo

Remember playing this choosing game on the playground? You probably sang something about a tiger, but the original lyrics go like this:

“Eenie, meenie, minie mo/
Catch an nigger by the toe/
If he hollers, let him go/
Eenie, meenie, minie mo.”

And people still use that version to this day. Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson recently got in trouble for using it while taping his internationally syndicated show. How comfortable with using the n-word do you have to be to say it when you know you’re on TV?

Ten Little Indians

“One little, two little, three little Indians” are the lyrics we sing today. Back when mystery-novel maven Agatha Christe wrote “Ten Little Niggers,” they were the main characters.

The main characters were eventually changed from “niggers” to “injuns” — which, for some reason, seemed less racist to songwriters back then — and then eventually to “Indians” (which still isn’t great).

The Ice Cream Song

You know the song that the ice cream man plays to tell you he’s coming? Did you know that the lyrics to that song are “Nigger Love A Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!?”

This song was originally used in a minstrel show about a free black man “attempting to conform to white high society by dressing in fine clothes and using big words.” Then in 1916, the “Nigger Love A Watermelon” lyrics were added and it became a folk song so popular that ice cream trucks still play it today.

Shoo Fly Don’t Bother Me

Ever wonder why the lyrics to this nursery rhyme don’t make a lot of sense? Because teachers were forced to whitewash the lyrics after integration. This is a song about a lazy slave who’s trying to sleep on the “job” but a fly is keeping him awake:

Shew! fly, don’t bother me,
Shew! fly, don’t bother me,
Shew! fly, don’t bother me,
I belong to Comp’ny G.

I feel, I feel, I feel,
That’s what my mother said,
Whenever this nigger goes to sleep,
He must cover up his head.

If I sleep in the sun this nigger knows,
If I sleep in the sun this nigger knows,
If I sleep in the sun this nigger knows,
A fly come sting him on the nose.

And back in 2012, parents were still fighting to keep it out of schools.

Oh! Susanna

The lyrics to “Oh! Susanna” don’t make any sense on purpose. This was a popular minstrel song — written by Stephen Foster — sung by a man in black face playing a slave that is so stupid he doesn’t understand the concept of temperature or geography:

“It rain’d all night de day I left, De wedder it was dry, The sun so hot I froze to def…”

The original version also contains a lot of n-bombs so maybe don’t turn this track up at work.

Rock-A-Bye Baby

This classic nursery rhyme is thought to originate from colonization’s early days. Certain groups of Native Americans rocked their children in wooden cradles suspended in trees. The song is about those babies falling out of those trees…

Camptown Races

This is another minstrel-show staple by Stephen Foster about how dimwitted slaves are:

“De Camptown ladies sing dis song — Doo-dah! Doo-dah!/
I come down dah wid my hat caved in — Doo-dah! Doo-dah!/
I go back home wid a pocket full of tin — Oh! Doo-dah day!”

Little Monkeys

Did you ever sing “five little monkeys jumping on the bed/one fell off and bumped his head?” Well those lyrics used to be “five little niggers” lying in the bed. For some reason they thought changing it to “monkeys” was better.

These are the original lyrics recorded in American Ballads and Folk Songs:

Two little Niggers lyin’ in bed/
One of ‘em sick an’ de odder mos’ dead/
Call for de doctor an’ de doctor said/
Feed dem darkies on short’nin bread/
Mammy’s little baby loves short’nin short’nin/
Mammy’s little baby loves short’nin bread

Jimmy Crack Corn

I remember singing “Jimmy Crack Corn” as a kid and thinking that it mentioning “massa” was a little weird. But I had no idea that this was a minstrel song with lyrics about a slave who can go back to drinking all of the corn whisky he wants because his master is dead.

Pick A Bowl of Cherries

When we were young, my cousins and I would “jump down, turn around, pick a bowl of cherries.” But the original lyrics to this children’s song was “jump down turn around pick a bale of cotton.”

Some people still sing the cotton version. But whatever lyrics you use, you should know that this is what people call an old “work song (really slave song)” about plantation life.

Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport

The Australian children’s group “The Wiggles” got in trouble for singing this racist song about emancipating an “Abo” (a racial slur for Aboriginals) after he’s been worked for so many years he was no longer of any use. The Wiggles took out the most offensive of the lyrics,

Let me Abo go loose, Lou
Let me Abo go loose:
He’s of no further use, Lou
So let me Abo go loose.

But they were still forced to apologize for singing the 1957 song which is one of the best-known and most successful Australian songs.

This clip features The Beatles singing it.

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Chinese, Japanese…

Remember the rhyme that went: “Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these?” Did you have any idea that it was racist when you repeated it as a kid?

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Me Chinese…

Remember this doozy? “Me Chinese, me play joke me put pee pee in your Coke?”
I think that even as a kid I knew that this one was bad…

Baa Baa Black Sheep

This age-old nursery rhyme does involve a black sheep and a “master.” But scholars think that it’s most likely a ditty about a wool tax imposed in 13th century Europe. That’s as close to a bright side as we can end this post on.