Baa, Baa, Black Sheep
Template:Short description Template:About
"Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" is an English nursery rhyme, the earliest printed version of which dates from around 1744. The words have barely changed in two and a half centuries. It is sung to a variant of the 18th-century French melody "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman".
Modern version
The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes gives this modern version:<ref name=opie1997>Template:Cite book</ref> Template:Image frame
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />
<poem>Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool? Yes, sir, yes, sir, Three bags full; One for the master, And one for the dame, And one for the little boy Who lives down the lane.</poem>{{#if:|
|}}{{#if:|
— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries
}}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}
The rhyme is a single stanza in trochaic metre, common in nursery rhymes and relatively easy for younger children.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Roud Folk Song Index classifies the song as 4439; variants have been collected across Great Britain and North America.<ref>"Search 'Baa, Baa, Black SheepTemplate:'" Template:Webarchive, English Folk Song and Dance Society, retrieved 20 July 2024.Template:Better source needed</ref>
Melody
The rhyme is sung to a variant of the 18th-century French melody "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman",<ref name="opie1997" /> also used for "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", "Little Polly Flinders", and "The ABC Song". The words and melody were first published together by A. H. Rosewig in (Illustrated National) Nursery Songs and Games, published in Philadelphia in 1879.<ref>J. J. Fuld, The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk (Courier Dover Publications, 5th ed., 2000), Template:ISBN, pp. 593–594.</ref>
Template:Listen The text was translated to Swedish by August Strindberg for "Barnen i skogen" (1872), a Swedish edition of "Babes in the Wood". To this Swedish text, a melody was written by Alice Tegnér for publication in the songbook Sjung med oss, Mamma! (1892). "Bä, bä, vita lamm", in which the black sheep is replaced with a white lamb, has become one of the most popular Swedish children's songs.<ref>"Bä, bä, vita lamm", p. 10, in Alice Tegnér, Sjung med oss, Mamma! (1892), via Project Runeberg.</ref>
Origin and meaning
The rhyme was first printed in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book of about 1744, with words very similar to the modern version:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />
|}}{{#if:|
— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries
}}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}
In the next surviving printing, in Mother Goose's Melody (circa 1765), the text remained the same, except the last lines, which were given as, "But none for the little boy who cries in the lane".<ref name="opie1997" />
As with many nursery rhymes, attempts have been made to find origins and meanings for the rhyme, most of which have no corroborating evidence.<ref name="opie1997" /> Katherine Elwes Thomas in The Real Personages of Mother Goose (1930) suggested the rhyme referred to resentment at the heavy taxation on wool.<ref name="C. Baring Gould 1962 p. 35">William S. Baring-Gould and Ceil Baring-Gould, The Annotated Mother Goose (Bramhall House, 1962), Template:ISBN, p. 35.</ref> This has been taken to refer to the medieval English "Great" or "Old Custom" wool tax of 1275, which survived until the 15th century.<ref name="opie1997" /> More recently, the rhyme has been alleged to have a connection to the slave trade, particularly in the Southern United States.<ref name="NewScientist1986">"Ariadne", New Scientist, 13 March 1986.</ref> This explanation was advanced during debates over political correctness and the use and reform of nursery rhymes in the 1980s, but has no supporting historical evidence.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Rather than being negative, the wool of black sheep may have been prized, as it could be made into dark cloth without dyeing.<ref name="NewScientist1986" />
Modern controversies
Template:Further In 1986, the British popular press reported a controversy over the rhyme's language, suggesting that "black" was being treated as a racial term. This was based on a rewriting of the rhyme in one private nursery as an exercise for the children there.<ref name=Curran2005>Template:Cite book</ref> A similar controversy emerged in 1999, when reservations about the rhyme were submitted to Birmingham City Council by a working group on racism in children's resources.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Two private nurseries in Oxfordshire in 2006 altered the song to "Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep", with "black" being replaced with a variety of other adjectives such as "happy", "sad", "hopping", and "pink".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Commentators have asserted that these controversies have been exaggerated or distorted by some elements of the press as part of a general campaign against political correctness.<ref name=Curran2005/>
In 2014, a reportedly similar controversy arose in the Australian state of Victoria.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Notable cultural references
The phrase "yes sir, yes sir, three bags full, sir" has been used in reference to an obsequious or craven subordinate. It is attested from 1910, and originally was common in the British Royal Navy.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The rhyme has often appeared in literature and popular culture. Rudyard Kipling used it as the title of an 1888 semiautobiographical short story.<ref name="C. Baring Gould 1962 p. 35"/> The name Black Sheep Squadron was used for the Marine Attack Squadron 214 of the United States Marine Corps from 1942 and the title Baa Baa Black Sheep was used for a book by its leader, Colonel Gregory "Pappy" Boyington and for a TV series (later syndicated as Black Sheep Squadron) that aired on NBC from 1976 until 1978.<ref>Frank E. Walton, Once They Were Eagles: The Men of the Black Sheep Squadron (University Press of Kentucky, 1996), Template:ISBN, p. 189.</ref> In 1951, together with "In the Mood" and "God Save the King", "Baa Baa Black Sheep" was the first song ever to be digitally saved and played on a computer.<ref>J. Fildes, "Oldest computer music unveiled", BBC News, retrieved 15 August 2012.</ref><ref>"First Recorded Computer Music", dshoup0, retrieved 11 April 2025.</ref>