Little Bo Peep

[owlfish]

Poll

Last week in guitar class, it was news to me that "Little Bo Peep" had any tune at all. The other students were mildly astonished; they'd never known it without one.

Comments

[gillo]

Yes, it has a tune which is very firmly stuck in my head. I think sometimes they come home bringing their tails behind them.

Most nursery rhymes have tunes. Even if "Ride a cock horse" is pretty much "Lilibulero".

[starla_kid]

Yes, bringing their tails, I remember. Always had a tune. Possibly something to do with the docking of lambs' tails? I think this is now banned in the UK but was certainly common practice where I grew up.

[heleninwales]

Lambs tails are still docked in most parts of the UK, apart from parts of Wales where the little native Welsh sheep have always kept their tails because they provide extra warmth in the winter. It's the docking of dogs' tails that is now illegal, apart from some exceptions for working dogs.

[moon_custafer]

The only tune I know in connection with it is Spike Jones' "Little Bo-Peep Has lost Her Jeep."

[sioneva]

You know...I don't know whether I grew up learning it with a tune or not. My memory has been subsumed by listening to English nursery rhyme songs with Ciaran, wherein it definitely DOES have a tune.

[pwilkinson]

I've answered "wagging" but I've also realised that it's the one word in the rhyme where I'm not certain of the wording - so I may well have met different words at different times.

And I wouldn't be surprised to find that there is an English/American (and possibly also a generational) divide about whether Little Bo Peep has a tune or not. From memory, on Listen with Mother, there was a nursery rhyme each day which was invariably (at least in the late '50s/early '60s) sung to a piano accompaniment by one of the presenters - and Little Bo Peep was one of the more common choices.