Star Light, Star Bright

"Star Light, Star Bright" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 16339.

Lyrics

The lyrics usually conform to the following:

Star light, star bright,

The first star I see tonight;

I wish I may, I wish I might,

Have the wish I wish tonight.^[1]

Origins

The supersition of hoping for wishes granted when seeing a shooting or falling star may date back to the ancient world.^[2] Wishing on the first star seen may also predate this rhyme, which first begins to be recorded in late nineteenth-century America.^[3] The song and tradition seem to have reached Britain by the early twentieth century and have since spread worldwide.^[2]

References in popular culture

• It is used in Walt Disney's movie Pinocchio (1940) and then in Walt Disney World's and Disneyland Paris's Wishes firework shows.

• It is the name of a 1979 crime novel by Stanley Ellin.

• It forms some of the lyrics of Madonna's song, "Lucky Star" (1983).

• It forms the name and some of the lyrics of Syl Johnson's song, "Star Bright, Star Lite" (1975).

• This nursery rhyme appears in the movie 8 mm (1999)

• The Metallica song, "King Nothing" (1999), features the line "I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight"

• It is cited in Star Trek: The Original series: The Conscience of the King (at the 19 minute 5 seconds mark)

• In the movie, The Last Starfighter (1984), the movie begins in a trailer park name "StarLight StarBright"

• It is used in the Abbott and Costello film In the Navy (1941).

• Is used as title of the short fiction 'Star light, star bright', 1953 by Alfred Bester.

• It is also mention in Samantha: An American Girl movie. When she hears that she would move in with her uncle, she and her friend runs away to Samantha's boathouse and wishes on a star.

• Jeannie (Barbara Eden) says the Star Light Star Bright nursery rhyme in the I Dream of Jeannie series, season 1, episode 7, Anybody Here Seen Jeannie, around the 24th minute.

Notes