A classic Mother Goose tune. A Mother Goose song that’s popular with children.
We’d like to introduce Mother Goose, a collection of English nursery rhymes that are especially beloved and passed down in the UK and the United States!
Mother Goose is said to include anywhere from 600 to over 1,000 rhymes, such as riddles, lullabies, play songs, tongue twisters, and memory songs.
In this article, we’ve gathered some of the most iconic and child-popular rhymes from Mother Goose.
When you listen, you’ll likely find many you already know, and because they’ve been sung for generations, they can be enjoyed by people of all ages.
Some of these songs are a fun way to spark your child’s interest in English, so be sure to enjoy them together as a parent and child, with family, or with friends!
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Classic Mother Goose songs. Popular Mother Goose songs for children (31–40)
Baa Baa Black Sheep (Mee mee Kuro Hitsuji)
This song is called “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.” At first it sounds like a simple, trivial children’s song with no real content, but it’s said to include satire about taxation: of the three bags of wool, one is paid to the king, one to the landowner, and only one bag remains for the people themselves.
The rhyming lyrics make it fun for children to sing.
The melody is essentially the same as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” There are many parody and variant versions of this song, so it could be interesting to compare them.
Old King Cole
The “Old King Cole” or “King Cole” mentioned in the song’s title is a legendary British Celtic king.
There are various theories about his model, ranging from a real monarch to a mythological figure.
It’s said that the stage name of Nat King Cole, the American jazz singer and pianist who was popular from the 1940s to the 1960s, was taken from this nursery rhyme.
The Ants Go Marching (Ari no Heitai)
“The Ants Go Marching” translates into Japanese as “Ari no Heitai” (The Ant Soldiers).
Have you ever seen a line of ants walking in single file? The song likens that scene to soldiers, and in the first verse there’s one ant, in the second verse there are two ants, and so on, with one more ant added in each verse.
It goes up to the tenth verse, ending with ten ant soldiers—a counting song of sorts.
No matter the country or the era, ants work so diligently that they look like soldiers to us.
There Was a Crooked Man (The Crooked Man)
The Japanese title is “The Crooked Man.” In the song, the word “crooked” appears repeatedly, but the key point is that its nuance changes depending on the context—for example, a “crooked-backed man,” a “crooked/winding road,” or a “tilted/slanted house.”
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear is a song featuring the teddy bear plush toy that children love.
It’s an adorable tune where the teddy bear does actions like touching the ground and turning around on the spot, much like a finger-play song.
Even little ones who don’t understand English can enjoy it, and children old enough to recognize what a teddy bear is can sing and dance along.
In the first verse the teddy bear moves, and in the second verse it gets ready for bed, so it might also be nice to sing it as a bedtime prep song.
Classic Mother Goose songs. Popular Mother Goose songs for children (41–50)
Peter Piper
This song is known as an English tongue twister and is listed as number 19745 in the Roud Folk Song Index, a collection of English nursery rhymes.
The oldest known source is John Harris’s 1813 publication, “Peter Piper’s Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation,” from the UK.
However, it is said that “Peter Piper” was already widely known a century earlier.
Even native speakers sometimes trip over their tongues with this challenging twister, but try singing it slowly to music and give it a go!
Little Jack Horner
There’s also a Mother Goose rhyme related to Christmas.
In Japanese it’s titled “Little Jack Horner.” It’s an adorable song about a boy who’s so eager for the Christmas pie that he can’t wait—he sticks his hand into the pie and sneaks out a plum.
It’s also a finger-play song, so it’s fun to sing along with your child.