"Did You Ever See a Lassie?" is a traditional

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

with a

Roud Folk Song Index The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the London ...

number of 5040.

Lyrics

Modern versions of the lyrics include: :Did you ever see a lassie, :A lassie, a lassie? :Did you ever see a lassie, :Go this way and that? :Go this way and that way, :Go this way and that way. :Did you ever see a lassie, :Go this way and that? :Did you ever see a laddie, :A laddie, a laddie? :Did you ever see a laddie, :Go this way and that? :Go this way and that way, :Go this way and that way. :Did you ever see a laddie, :Go this way and that?

Origins

The use of the terms "lassie" and "laddie" mean that this song is often attributed to possible origins in Scotland (by various forms of media; see "references" section), but it was first collected in the United States in the last decade of the nineteenth century and was not found in Great Britain until the mid-twentieth century. However, it can be surmised that the words to the song may have come from Scottish immigrants or Scottish-Americans because of the aforementioned terms. Along with " The More We Get Together", it is generally sung to the same tune as "

Oh du lieber Augustin "" ("Oh, you dear Augustin") is a popular Viennese song, first published about 1800. It is said to refer to the balladeer Marx Augustin and his brush with death in 1679. Augustin himself is sometimes named as the author, but the origin is uncle ...

", a song written in Germany or Vienna in the late seventeenth century.J. J. Fuld, ''The Book of World-famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk'' (Dover, 5th edn., 2000), p. 399. It was first published in 1909, in ''Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium'' by

Jessie Hubbell Bancroft Jessie Hubbell Bancroft (1867-1952) was an American educator, a pioneer of physical educationRuth Evan"Jessie H. Bancroft" ''Journal of Health, Physical Education, Recreation'', Volume 31, Issue 4, 1960, and a founder and a president of the Ameri ...

As a game

The song is often accompanied by a circle singing game. Players form a circle and dance around one player. When they reach the end of the verse they stop, the single in the middle performs an action (such as Highland dancing), which everyone then imitates, before starting the verse again, often changing the single player to a boy, or a boy can join the center player - thus creating an extra verse in the song ("Did you ever see some children...").A. S. Fraserae, ''Ye min' langsyne?: A pot-pourri of games, rhymes, and ploys of Scottish childhood'' (London: Routledge, 1975), p. 23.

References in popular culture and children's media

The song is featured in the 1963 motion picture '' Ladybug, Ladybug''. In the movie, children sing the song as part of a game while walking home from school during a nuclear bomb attack drill. The song, as sung by children, was used in a 1990 commercial for

Maidenform Maidenform Brands is a manufacturer of women's underwear, founded in 1922 by seamstress Ida Rosenthal; Enid Bissett, who owned the shop that employed her; and Ida's husband, William Rosenthal. They rebelled against the flat-chested designs of ...

, and played over a succession of pictures of women in uncomfortable-looking clothing, was followed by the tag-line, "Isn't it nice to live in a time when women aren't being pushed around so much anymore?" The song is featured in an episode of '' The Simpsons'', "

The Otto Show "The Otto Show" is the twenty-second episode of the third season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 23, 1992. In the episode, Bart wants to become a rock ...

", and was titled "Hail to the Bus Driver".

References

{{Portal , Children's literature Scottish folk songs English children's songs Traditional children's songs American nursery rhymes English nursery rhymes Singing games Nursery rhymes of uncertain origin Year of song unknown Songwriter unknown