Pussy Cat Pussy Cat

"Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat"
Roud #15094
Song
Written	England
Published	1805
Form	Nursery rhyme
Writer	Traditional
Language	English

"Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat" is a popular English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 15094.

Lyrics and melody

Common modern versions include:

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?

I've been to London to look at the Queen.

Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there?

I frightened a little mouse, under her chair.^[1]

The last line sometimes sung as:

I chased a little mouse right under the chair.

The melody commonly associated with the rhyme was first noted by the composer and nursery rhyme collector James William Elliott in his National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs (1870).^[2]

Origins

The earliest record of the rhyme is publication in Songs for the Nursery, printed in London in 1805.^[1] The Queen most often depicted in illustrations is Elizabeth I, but Caroline of Brunswick has also been suggested.^[1]

References in popular culture

• In Sesame Street's Mother Goose Rhymes, Grundgetta takes the place of the cat, going to the dump and wanting to know who wants to know where she's been.
• Ernie takes the place of the pussy-cat with Bert playing the mouse in the The Sesame Street 1981 Mother Goose Calendar.

Notes

1. I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 357.
2. J. J. Fuld, The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk (Courier Dover Publications, 5th edn., 2000), ISBN 0486414752, p. 502.