"Cock a Doodle Doo" (

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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 the ...

nursery rhyme A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes. From ...

Lyrics

The most common modern version is:

Cock a doodle doo! My dame has lost her shoe, My master's lost his fiddling stick And knows not what to do.I. Opie and P. Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 128.

Origins

The first two lines were used to mock the

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crow A crow is a bird of the genus '' Corvus'', or more broadly a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. Crows are generally black in colour. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not pinned scientifica ...

". The first full version recorded was in ''Mother Goose's Melody'', published in London around 1765. By the mid-nineteenth century, when it was collected by James Orchard Halliwell, it was very popular and three additional verses, perhaps more recent in origin, had been added:

Cock a doodle doo! What is my dame to do? Till master's found his fiddling stick, She'll dance without her shoe. Cock a doodle doo! My dame has found her shoe, And master's found his fiddling stick, Sing cock a doodle do! Cock a doodle doo! My dame will dance with you, While master fiddles his fiddling stick, And knows not what to do.

(Verse four's alternative ending line: For Dame and Doodle Doo.)

Notes

{{authority control English nursery rhymes Songwriter unknown Year of song unknown English folk songs English children's songs Traditional children's songs