Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing;1
[Wasn't]2 that a dainty dish,
To set before the king?
The king was in his counting house,3
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlour,
Eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes;
When down came a blackbird
And [snapped]4 off her nose. 

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Here Malotte adds: "Caw! Caw!"
² Malotte: "was not"
³ Malotte adds: "one, two, three, four, (ha, ha, ha, ha!)"
⁴ Malotte: "pecked"

Text Authorship:

• from Volkslieder (Folksongs)  [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Albert Hay Malotte (1895 - 1964), "Sing a song of sixpence", published 1938 [ voice and piano ], New York: G. Schirmer [sung text checked 1 time]
• by John Milford Rutter, CBE (b. 1945), "Sing a song of sixpence", published 1974 [ SATB chorus a cappella ], from Five Childhood Lyrics, no. 5 [sung text checked 1 time]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , "Singt das Lied vom Sixpence", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Bertram Kottmann , Garrett Medlock [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2015-01-26
Line count: 16
Word count: 83

Singt das Lied vom Sixpence,
´nen Roggensack stellt hin.
Vierundzwanzig Amseln
war’n im Kuchen drin. 
Als man diesen aufschnitt,
da sang es überall;
war dies nicht ´ne leck´re Speis
für des Königs Mahl?
Der König war im Schatzhaus,
zählte dort sein Geld;
die Königin war im Salon
aufs Naschen eingestellt.
Die Dienstmagd mit der Wäsche
ins Freie sich begab;
da flog `ne Amsel auf sie zu,
zwickt’ ihr die Nase ab.