Little Tommy Tucker
| "Little Tommy Tucker" | |
|---|---|
 1901 illustration by William Wallace Denslow | |
| Nursery rhyme | |
| Published | c. 1744 |
| Songwriter(s) | Unknown |
"Little Tommy Tucker" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19618.[1]
Lyrics
Common modern versions include:
- Little Tom Tucker
- Sings for his supper.
- What shall we give him?
- White bread and butter.
- How shall he cut it
- Without a knife?
- How will he be married
- Without a wife?[2]
Origins
The earliest recorded version of this rhyme is from Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book (c. 1744), which has only four lines.[2] The full version was produced in Mother Goose's Melody (c. 1765).[2] There are references to various parts of the rhyme in earlier works.[2] To 'sing for one's supper' was a proverbial phrase by the seventeenth century. An excellent new Medley (c. 1620) included the line 'Tom would eat meat but wants a knife'.[2]
Various Thomas Tuckers have been identified, including a Bachelor of Arts who was appointed 'Prince or Lorde of the Revells' at St. John's College, Oxford in 1607, and a 'Tom Tuck' who appears in one of John Herrick's epigrams in Witt's Recreations (1640).[2]
In popular culture
- Was played by Russell Coles in Babes in Toyland
- Tommy Tucker is the name of a variety of rose.[3]
- Tommy Tucker (squirrel), possibly named for Little Tommy Tucker
Notes
- ↑ "Roud Folksong Index S377998 Little Tom Tucker sings for his supper". Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. English Folk Dance and Song Society. Retrieved May 20, 2016.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 416–7.
- ↑ http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/pl.php?n=17069 Rose: Little Tommy Tucker.
External links
The full text of Little Tommy Tucker at Wikisource
Media related to Little Tommy Tucker at Wikimedia Commons