"Polly Put the Kettle On" is an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7899.

Lyrics

Common modern versions include: :Polly put the kettle on, :Polly put the kettle on, :Polly put the kettle on, :We'll all have tea. :Sukey take it off again, :Sukey take it off again, :Sukey take it off again, :They've all gone away.I. Opie and P. Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd ed., 1997), pp. 353–54. An alternative ending in modern British versions is to add the line: :Ain’t that nice A parody version ran: :Mother put the telly on, :Mother put the telly on, :Mother put the telly on, :We don't want to play. :Don't you turn it off again, :Don't you turn it off again, :Don't you turn it off again, :Or we'll run away

Origins

A song with the title: "Molly Put the Kettle On or Jenny's Baubie" was published by Joseph Dale in London in 1803.D. M. Kassler, W. Hawes, D. W. Krummel and A. Tyson, eds, ''Music entries at Stationers' Hall, 1710–1818: from lists prepared for William Hawes'' (Aldershot: Ashgate 2004), p. 514. It was also printed, with "Polly" instead of "Molly" in Dublin about 1790–1810 and in New York around 1803–07. The nursery rhyme is mentioned in

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

' ''

Barnaby Rudge ''Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty'' (commonly known as ''Barnaby Rudge'') is a historical novel by British novelist Charles Dickens. ''Barnaby Rudge'' was one of two novels (the other was ''The Old Curiosity Shop'') that Dickens publ ...

'' (1841), which is the first record of the lyrics in their modern form. In middle-class families in the mid-eighteenth century "Sukey" was equivalent to "Susan" and Polly was a pet-form of Mary. The tune associated with this rhyme "Jenny's Baubie" is known to have existed since the 1770s. The melody is vaguely similar to "", which was published in

Mainz Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-west, with Ma ...

in 1788–89.James J. Fuld, ''The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk'' (1966, 5th ed., Dover, 2000), pp. 399–400.

Notes

{{Authority control English children's songs Songs about fictional female characters Traditional children's songs English nursery rhymes