__NOTOC__ "It's Raining, It's Pouring" is an

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

nursery rhyme A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and other European 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. Fr ...

and

children's song A children's song may be a nursery rhyme set to music, a song that children invent and share among themselves or a modern creation intended for entertainment, use in the home or education. Although children's songs have been recorded and studie ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

origin. It has 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. Roud's Index is a combination of the Broadsid ...

number of 16814.

Origins

The first two lines of this rhyme can be found in ''The Little Mother Goose'', published in the US in 1912. The melody is the same as " A Tisket, A Tasket" and has been associated with "

What Are Little Boys Made Of? "What Are Little Boys Made Of?" is a nursery rhyme dating from the early 19th century. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 821. The author of the rhyme is uncertain, but may be English poet Robert Southey (1774–1843). Lyrics Here is a rep ...

", which has a different melody. The earliest known audio recording of the song was made in 1939 in New York by anthropologist and folklorist

Herbert Halpert Herbert Halpert (August 23, 1911 – December 29, 2000) was an American anthropologist and folklorist, specialised in the collection and study of both folk song and narrative. Biography Herbert Norman Halpert's interest in folklore emerge ...

and is held in the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, actuary and businessman. Ives was among the earliest renowned American composers to achieve recognition on a global scale. His music was largely ignored d ...

added musical notes in 1939, and a version of it was copyrighted in 1944 by Freda Selicoff. The lyrics of the poem go as follows: :It's raining, it's pouring, :The old man is snoring, :He went to bed and bumped his head, :And couldn't get up in the morning.

Interpretation

It has been suggested that “it’s raining. It’s pouring” is a metaphor for

alcohol Alcohol may refer to: Common uses * Alcohol (chemistry), a class of compounds * Ethanol, one of several alcohols, commonly known as alcohol in everyday life ** Alcohol (drug), intoxicant found in alcoholic beverages ** Alcoholic beverage, an alco ...

liberally flowing. The old man gets drunk causing him to bump his head. It has further been suggested that the verse is a "classic description" of a

head injury A head injury is any injury that results in trauma to the skull or brain. The terms ''traumatic brain injury'' and ''head injury'' are often used interchangeably in the medical literature. Because head injuries cover such a broad scope of inju ...

("bumped his head"), followed by a lucid interval and an inability to resume normal activity ("couldn't get up in the morning"). Andrew Kaye in Essential Neurosurgery suggested that, in regard to the first verse at least, the rhyme is an interpretation of an accidental death.

References

{{authority control American nursery rhymes Songs about weather Year of song unknown Songs with unknown songwriters American children's songs Traditional children's songs