Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
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"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is one of the most popular English nursery rhymes. It combines the tune of the 1761 French melody "Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman" with an English poem, "The Star", by Jane Taylor. 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.
The English lyrics are normally as follows:
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
- Up above the world so high,
- Like a diamond in the sky.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
The repetition of the first two lines at the end is not in the original poem, but it allows the words to fit the melody.
Contents |
Origins
A common misconception, reinforced by its appearance as a "correct answer" in the original edition of Trivial Pursuit, is that the music was written by Mozart. Mozart did not compose the original French melody, but he did write 12 variations on it; these variations are listed as K. 265 in the Köchel-Verzeichnis. [1]
Melody
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in ABC notation, C major:
- CCGGAAG
- FFEEDDC
- GGFFEED
- GGFFEED
- CCGGAAG
- FFEEDDC
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in sol-fa notation (d r m f s l t d = do re me fa so la ti do)
- d d s s l l s
- f f m m r r d
- s s f f m m r
- s s f f m m r
- d d s s l l s
- f f m m r r d
Other appearances of the melody
Many songs in various languages have been based on the French original, "Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman". In English, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" shares its melody with the "Alphabet song" from 1834, and "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep". The German Christmas carol "Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann" with words by Hoffmann von Fallersleben also uses the melody, as does the Hungarian Christmas carol "Hull a pelyhes fehér hó" (the first two lines repeated with different lyrics) and the Dutch "Altijd is Kortjakje ziek".
Several famous classical compositions have been inspired by the tune:
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Theme and Variations (K265)
- Camille Saint-Saëns, Carnival of the Animals, 12th movement (Fossiles) quotes the tune
- Ernő Dohnányi, Variations on a Nursery Tune
Parodies
The song is a popular target for parodies. One transmogrification of the English lyrics into deliberately obfuscated English was cited in the Quarterly Review of Doublespeak..
- Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific
- Fain would I fathom thy nature specific.
- Loftily poised in the aether capacious
- Vaguely resembling a gem carbonaceous.
A parody of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", recited by the Mad Hatter, appears in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It reads:
- Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
- How I wonder what you're at!
- Up above the world you fly,
- Like a teatray in the sky.
- Twinkle, twinkle—[little bat!
- How I wonder what you're at.]
The Mad Hatter is interrupted in his recitation, but the ending shown in brackets would be the logical one. "The Bat" was the nickname of Professor Bartholomew Price, one of the Dons at Oxford, a former teacher of Carroll's and well known to the Liddell family. It is one of the few parodies in the Alice books of which the original is still widely known.
A Latin translation appears in Mary Dodge's When life is young (1894):
- Mica, mica, parva stella,
- Miror quaenam sis tam bella.
- Super terra in caelo,
- Alba gemma splendido.
- Mica, mica, parva stella,
- Miror quaenam sis tam bella.
Another parody was created for Sesame Street . In a short skit, Muppet composer Don Music, overcoming writer's block, struggles to pen the nursery rhyme. The product of his effort is:
- Whistle, whistle little bird
- Isn't eating crumbs absurd
- Try a ham and cheese on rye
- And a piece of cherry pie
- If those crumbs are all you want
- Don't come in my restaurant
- Try a ham and cheese on rye
- And a piece of cherry pie
- If those crumbs are all you want
- Don't come in my restaurant
An anonymous astronomy parody, quoted in Violent Universe by Nigel Calder (BBC, 1969), refers to pulsars and quasars:
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star
- We know exactly what you are:
- Nuclear furnace in the sky,
- You'll burn to ashes by and by.
- But tick, tick, tick pulsating star,
- Now we wonder what you are:
- Magneto-nucleo-gravity ball,
- Making monkeys of us all!
- And twinkle, twinkle, quasi-star,
- You're the limit, yes you are:
- With such indecent energy,
- Did God not say you couldn't be?
Another parody by Ian D. Bush, writer:
- Twinkle, twinkle little star
- I don't wonder what you are
- For the spectroscopic ken
- tells me you are hydrogen
Another parody (can someone confirm if the author was William Pratt ?):
- Twinkle, twinkle little star
- I don't wonder what you are
- I surmised your spot in space
- When you left your missile base
- Any wondering I do
- Is centres on the price of you
- And I shudder when I think
- What you are costing us per twink!
French lyrics
The original French rhyme Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman:
| French lyrics | English translation |
|---|---|
|
Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman, |
Ah! I shall tell you, mum, |
Variations
| French lyrics | English translation |
|---|---|
| A variation | |
|
Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman, |
Ah! I would tell you, Mama, |
| Another variation | |
|
Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman, |
Ah! I shall tell you, Mama, |
Notes: *An antienne is literally an antiphon, a short liturgical text chanted or sung alternately by two choirs preceding or following a psalm or canticle.
The complete lyrics
Perhaps it is little known that Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star actually consists of 5 verses, with the fifth verse rarely sung. Here's the complete 5 verses, taken from the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (2nd edition, 1997), with the repetition of the first two lines added to fit the melody.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
- Up above the world so high,
- Like a diamond in the sky.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
- When the blazing sun is gone,
- When he nothing shines upon,
- Then you show your little light,
- Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
- Then the traveller in the dark,
- Thanks you for your tiny spark,
- He could not see which way to go,
- If you did not twinkle so.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
- 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.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!
- As your bright and tiny spark,
- Lights the traveller in the dark,—
- Though I know not what you are,
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
- Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
- How I wonder what you are!ja:きらきら星