Hickory Dickory Dock [S. Worthen

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Hickory Dickory Dock
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one,
The mouse ran down
Hickory Dickory Dock.

[Poll #1939966]

I'm not used to this song having additional verses, but that's how it's sung at local playgroups. Is this a recent development? A UK thing? A local thing?

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There are 14 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

I have heard the verses up to four (hence my vote that way), but usually I hear it as just the first verse.

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That may be the American passion for sequels; I've never heard more than one verse. Nor do I think it needs them. This isn't a serial drama, it's a stand-alone.

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Yet as a stand-alone it becomes merely derivative of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider". Hence the need for further verses, to improve upon the original by expanding the theme, with a more positive conclusion.

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I've only ever heard one verse (UK London and Swansea)

Back in the days when I was studying linguistics I reduced my lecturer to silence by saying that "three mice elapsed" wasn't a good example of a grammatical sentence that did not make semantic sense because obviously it meant that enough time had gone by for the clock to show 1 three times

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When I was a child I remember my sister having a book that went all the way around the clock with Hickory Dickory Dock. (Thankfully, only once.)

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I had never heard extra verses until my three year old came home from nursery singing them about a fortnight ago.

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"and down he run" ;)

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NEver heard extra verses, but I've made some up myself.

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Do you keep making up new ones, or have regular ones you use? (And are you willing to share?)

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I keep making up new ones; I do this all the time with, er, everything I sing/recite, frankly. Sometimes I remember them or write them down after, but usually I don't get the chance, and often they're based on pleas for the baby to stop crying or whatever is going on at the time. Can't remember any of the Hickory Dickory Dock ones just now, but here's one of my versions of the mockingbird song:

Hush little baby, don't cry at all
Mama's gonna buy you a rubber ball
If that rubber ball won't bounce
Mama's gonna buy you a cat named Pounce
If that cat named Pounce runs off
Mama's gonna buy you a hat to doff
If that hat to doff goes flat
Mama's gonna buy you your own black bat
If that black bat flies away
Mama's gonna buy you some Oil of Olay
If that Oil of Olay goes squish
Mama's gonna buy you a giant fish
If that giant fish should drown
We'll fry it up and we'll feed the whole town.

...hey, the real versions of these things don't make sense either, so why should mine? *grin*

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Where in the english-speaking world do "one" and "down" rhyme? Wherever it is, someone there might know about the correct number of verses.

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I am not acquainted with all the dialects of England but it wouldn't surprise me if there was one. In any case there's a lot of slack in nursery rhymes ("alone" and "home", for example)

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I didn't know the other verses until Owen came along, so imagine they are relatively recent. He keeps asking for hickory dickory dock at the moment in fact and knows the verses which I do (up to four).

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I always have it followed by "All around the mulberry bush the monkey chased the weasel...."

Possibly I had a record where the two tunes ran directly one into the other? But as far as I'm concerned, "Pop goes the weasel" is the second verse to "Hickory Dickory Dock"

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October