Popular Kids' Songs in Translation

Cultural transformations of nursery rhymes and familiar tunes

May 5, 2006

Our nursery rhymes are close to all our hearts. But what happens when those familiar tunes cross cultural wires, for instance in translation?

We all grew up with nursery rhymes and popular children's songs, and in a way they are "ours," and rarely questioned. Then one day we hear a song sung, and it sounds so familiar, but so strange... The melody is the same, but the lyrics are different, even in a different language.

While strolling with my daughter, here in Boston, I was vigorously singing a popular Dutch sing-along called 'k Heb de zon zien zakken, when someone behind me inquired what version of She'll be coming down the mountain that was. I was taken aback, but not so much because I thought I was alone in the street. I had heard and sung She'll be coming, but it had never struck me that "my" song was sung to the same tune!

(I've seen the sun go down into the sea / I've seen the sun go down into the sea / I've seen the sun go down / I've seen the sun go down / I've seen the sun go down into the sea)

I should have known. Not long ago I was on the other side of this exchange. When I pointed out to my husband that his favorite Bengali nursery rhyme has the same melody as Yankee Doodle, he too was shocked: he has sung Yankee Doodle (along with the Pops and the crowds on the Fourth of July), but had not made the connection.

Laal jhuti kakatua

Such popular songs go back a long way and have gone through so many variations that it is often impossible to find the original version, or author.

We know that my husband's melody goes back to a 15th century Dutch harvesting song. Later it served the English nursery rhyme Lucy Locket, from whence it was picked up by Richard Schuckburgh, a British Army surgeon who in the 1750s put the famous Yankee Doodle lyrics to it. But where the Bengalis picked it up is anyone's guess.

As for She'll be coming and 'k Heb de zon zien zakken: I haven't been able to locate the origin of the melody or the history of either lyrical version.

But no matter. What is fascinating is that delicious surprise we get when we hear a song that we grew up with sung in a different language. It sounds so familiar, yet so strange... It is a sweet kind of shock, but for all its innocence, it resonates deeply.

Some songs, especially those that go all the way back to infancy, nursery rhymes, are full of such surprises.

The copyright of the article Popular Kids' Songs in Translation in Children's Music is owned by Katrien Vander Straeten. Permission to republish Popular Kids' Songs in Translation in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.