Cock a doodle doo

For the sound a rooster makes, see Rooster.

For the Herman Melville short story, see Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!.

"Cock a doodle doo" Roud #3464
Written by	Traditional
Published	1765
Written	England
Language	English
Form	Nursery rhyme

"Cock a doodle doo" is a popular English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 3464.

Lyrics

The most common modern version is:

Cock a doodle do!
My dame has lost her shoe,
My master's lost his fiddlestick,
And knows not what to do.^[1]

Origins

The first two lines were used in a murder pamphlet in England, 1606, which seems to suggest that children sang those lines, or very similar ones, to mock cockerels (roosters in US) "crow".^[1] The first full version recorded was in Mother Goose's Melody, published in London around 1765.^[1] By the mid-nineteenth century, when it was collected by James Orchard Halliwell, it was very popular and three additional verses, perhaps more recent in origin, had been added:

Cock a doodle do!
What is my dame to do?
Till master's found his fiddlingstick,
She'll dance without her shoe.

Cock a doodle do!
My dame has found her shoe,
And master's found his fiddlingstick,
Sing cock a doodle do!

Cock a doodle do!
My dame will dance with you,
While master fiddles his fiddlingstick,
And knows not what to do.^[1]

In popular culture

• Herman Melville wrote a short story, perhaps a satire on other writers, with the title 'Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!' (1853).^[2]

• Cock-a-Doodle Dandy is a 1949 play by Irish dramatist Seán O'Casey.^[3]

• Cock-A-Doodle Deux Deux was the title of a 1966 short cartoon for The Inspector, in which Inspector Clouseau suspects chickens of stealing a diamond.^[4]

• The title was used for an episode of Sex in the City (2000).^[5]

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d} I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 128.
2. ^ L. J. Budd and E. H. Cady, On Melville: The Best from American Literature (Duke University Press, 1988) p. 116.
3. ^ M. Banham, The Cambridge Guide to Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 808.
4. ^ IMDB, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060245/, retrieved 11/04/09.
5. ^ IMDB, http://us.vdc.imdb.de/title/tt0698624/fullcredits, retrieved 11/04/09.