There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
"There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly," alternatively "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly," "There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly," or "I Know an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly," is a cumulative children's song whose music was composed by Alan Mills, and whose lyrics were written by Rose Bonne.[1] A version of the song was released on Brunswick Records in 1953, and sung by Burl Ives.
The song tells the story of an old woman who swallowed increasingly large animals, each to catch the previously swallowed animal. There are many variations of phrasing in the lyrics, especially for the description of swallowing each animal. The spider and fly are described in each verse except the last, but the other animals are only described when they are introduced. The joke of the song comes from the fact that the woman clearly should have died after swallowing the bird, but manages to swallow even more animals of ridiculous sizes with no problem and survives, and yet she suddenly dies after swallowing a horse.
In some versions, "perhaps she'll die" is replaced with "don't ask me why." Also, "she died of course" is replaced with "of course, of course, she swallowed a horse," leading to yet another cumulative verse that ends the tale.
Animals swallowed (and their descriptions)
- Fly – "But I don't know why She swallowed that fly Perhaps she'll die."
- Spider – "That wiggled and jiggled and tickled inside her."
- Bird – "How absurd to swallow a bird."
- Cat – "Imagine that she swallowed a cat."
- Dog – "What a hog to swallow a dog."
- Goat – "Just opened her throat and swallowed a goat."
- Cow – "I don't know how she swallowed a cow."
- Horse – "She's dead, of course!"
In other media
- The song was used for an animated cartoon sung by Burl Ives. Ives's version included an extra verse, involving a pig, following that involving the goat and preceding that involving the cow.
- The song's lyrics were used as the text of a children's book by Simms Taback. A video version of the song by the publisher was sung by Cyndi Lauper. Both these versions also feature the animals and the artist talking. A cow stands in the middle of one of the pages surrounded by flowers, a carton of milk, a Hershey milk chocolate bar, some different types of cheese, a bar of butter and containers of cream cheese and sour cream. So the famous moral is "never swallow a horse".
- The song's title is shared with a book by children's illustrator, Pam Adams. (ISBN 0-85953-727-7)
- The song has been adapted into a stage musical written by Steven Lee and produced by Flying Fish Records.
- A version of this song was recorded by San Francisco punk band, Flipper and released on a 7" single.
- The song was performed by Judy Collins (and Statler and Waldorf) with 2D computer animated shadow puppets[2] on a 1977 episode of The Muppet Show. This was parodied in one scene in the 2005 film The Brothers Grimm.
- Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) said the first lyrics of the song after he learned of his condition in the 1986 version of The Fly.
- The song appeared in an episode of Desperate Housewives in the season 5 finale.
- In a PBS television concert Peter, Paul & Mommy, Too, Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow perform this song. As a result, they yell nearly a minute after a verse that involved with a cow and before a verse that involved with a horse.
- In Disney/Pixar's A Bug's Life, a cricket mentions the first verse of this song at the bar.
- An Arthur episode is called "Emily swallows a horse," in which the song is used as an analogy for the increasingly complex and incredible lies that the character must use to cover her original falsehood.
- The lyrics form part of the theme song for the popular children's show Round the Twist.
- In Mr. Holland's Opus, Mr. Holland (Richard Dreyfuss) is playing and singing the song to his wife and son.
- The Bill Nye the Science Guy episode "Food Web" featured a segment called "Uncle Fran's Playhouse" which featured part of this song.
- One of Russell Bates's rejected scripts for Star Trek: The Animated Series, "The Patient Parasites," when it was finally published in Star Trek: The New Voyages 2, included the song's two earliest verses, those involving the fly and the spider in that order, in the "tag," or "epilogue," of the story.
- In the The Kids in the Hall sketch "Needed Elsewhere", a coked-up Scott Thompson yells at a cat off-camera. When one of the guests replies that she thought he had a dog, he briefly recites a paraphrasing of the song.