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'Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush' (or simply 'Mulberry Bush') is an English language nursery rhyme and singing game. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7882.

Lyrics

The most common modern version of the rhyme is:

Here we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush.
Here we go round the mulberry bush
On a cold and frosty morning.

Origins and meaning

The rhyme is first recorded as a children's game by James Orchard Halliwell in the mid-nineteenth century.^[1] He also noted that there was a similar game with the lyrics 'Here we go round the bramble bush'. Some commentators believe that the bramble bush was the earlier version, and perhaps changed because of the difficulty of articulating the alliteration, not least because mulberries do not grow on bushes.^[2]

Halliwell noted that subsequent verses included: 'This is the way we wash our clothes', 'This is the way we dry our clothes', 'This is the way we mend our shoes', 'This is the way the gentlemen walk' and 'This is the way the ladies walk'.^[1]

The song and associated game is traditional, and has parallels in the Scandinavian languages and in Dutch (although the mulberry bush is replaced by a juniper bush in Scandinavia).

R. S. Duncan has suggested that the song derives from female prisoners at HMP Wakefield entertaining their children by walking around a mulberry bush within the prison area.^[3] There is no corroborative evidence to support this theory.

The rhyme is traditionally sung in Christ's College Cambridge by student scholars at 12midnight on the last Friday of the Michaelmas term (the term which ends in December) around the famous mulberry bush, planted by College alumnus John Milton. The tradition is that the College Chaplain 'unofficially' opens the gate of the College fellows' garden and allows the scholars in to the garden to dance in a large circle around the bush.

The game & song

The simple game involves holding hands in a circle and moving around to the first verse, which is alternated with the specific verse, where the players break up to imitate various appropriate actions.^[1]

A varient of this rhyme is Nuts in May, both sharing the same tune.

In popular culture

• In 1953, Bill Haley & His Comets recorded a rock and roll version of this song, which was retitled "Stop Beatin' Round the Mulberry Bush" and had topical rock-related lyrics added.

• In a 1970s commercial for Oster electric toothbrushes, the song was used with the line "This is the way we brush our teeth".

• A commercial for Scoop Away cat litter used the song with the line "This is the way we wash our face".

• Anne Dalton wrote a book called "This is the Way" using this song.

• T. S. Eliot used the nursery rhyme in his poem, "The Hollow Men," replacing the mulberry bush with a prickly pear and "on a cold and frosty morning" with "at five o'clock in the morning."

• In Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, Gordon lies in a ditch all day and the Boys sing at him:

Silly old Gordon fell in the ditch,
Fell in the ditch,
Fell in the ditch.
Silly old Gordon fell in the ditch
All on a Monday morning.

• Led Zeppelin would sometimes cover this song during the extended jam section in the middle of How Many More Times.

• Some songs in Barney and Friends uses the tune of this song since Barney and the Backyard Gang video, "A Day at the Beach.

The Merry-Go-Round

The Merry-Go-Round is a song with the same tune as "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush", but some notes are removed. The song tells the story of several children on a merry-go-round that—in a sadistic twist—collapses due to the fact that so many children are riding it. The circle game that accompanies it is similar to the one for Ring Around the Rosie, as described below. This song is one of the last three songs in Grandpa's Magical Toys and is one of the songs on its "companion" audio CD WeeSing and Play as well.

The merry-go-round goes 'round and 'round,
The children laughed and laughed and laughed,
So many were going 'round and 'round,
That the merry-go-round collapsed.

The verse is usually repeated for a second time.

The circle singing game that accompanies these verses also changes by region, but the most common form consists of participants standing in a circle and holding hands, followed by skipping in one direction as they sing the tune that accompanies these verses. As the word collapsed in the second verse is sung, the group usually falls down into a heap.

Notes

See also

Nuts in May (rhyme)

External links

• A full text