Baa Baa Black Sheep: A Song History

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The earliest known printing of "Baa Baa Black Sheep" is in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, a collection dated to about 1744.[1] Princeton's Cotsen Children's Library catalogs a surviving second volume as sold in London by M. Cooper and dates it to about 1744, following the bibliographers Immel and Alderson.[2] The British Library also holds a copy, likewise presented as dating from around 1744.[3] The rhyme is number 4439 in the Roud Folk Song Index.[1]

Etching of two sheep resting on a hillside with a flock and buildings in the distance

Marcus de Bye, Sheep, from a set of 16 plates, etching, 1664. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). White sheep rather than black, shown for the subject.

Today it is sung to a version of the French air "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman," which first appeared in print in 1761.[4] Mozart built a set of keyboard variations on that air, K. 265, though sources differ on when: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra gives 1785, while All Classical Portland says only the early 1780s.[4][5] The same melody also carries "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and the alphabet song.[5] The words are older than any known printing of the tune, and the Ballad Index, citing Fuld's Book of World-Famous Music, reports that text and melody were not paired until 1879.[1]

The Ballad Index notes that the Opies mention the English wool-trade taxes begun in 1275, and that other writers tie the rhyme to Edward I's wool tax of that year; the idea remains speculation, and the index's editor calls it a stretch, since the rhyme first turns up in print long after the tax mattered most.[1] According to Classic FM, in the 1980s and 1990s some parents linked the rhyme to race and the slave trade, and some institutions altered the colour word, a change some defended and others dismissed as political correctness.[6] Classic FM concludes that "it's difficult to find any historical evidence of a racial link."[6]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Ballad Index: "Baa Baa Black Sheep".
  2. Princeton University Library Catalog: "Tommy Thumb's pretty song book. Voll, II.".
  3. MyLearning: "Page from Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, c.1744".
  4. Chicago Symphony Orchestra: "Mozart wished upon a star, and it sounds just like that 'Twinkle' song".
  5. All Classical Portland: "12 Variations on 'Ah, vous dirai-je maman,' K. 265".
  6. Classic FM: "What are the lyrics to 'Baa Baa Black Sheep', and what is its history?".