"Go Tell Aunt Rhody" is an

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to t ...

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...

of nineteenth-century American origin. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 3346. The tune is older, dating to the 18th century. It originated as a

gavotte The gavotte (also gavot, gavote, or gavotta) is a French dance, taking its name from a folk dance of the Gavot, the people of the Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné in the southeast of France, where the dance originated, according to one source. Ac ...

in the 1752 opera ''

Le devin du village ''Le devin du village'' ("The Village Soothsayer") is a one-act French opera ( intermède) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who also wrote the libretto. It was the first work in the repertory of the Académie Royale de Musique for which the text and mus ...

'' (''The Village Soothsayer'') by

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revol ...

. The subject of the song is grief associated with loss, in this case from the death of an "old gray goose".

References

American children's songs 19th-century songs American folk songs Traditional children's songs {{Folk-song-stub