"Oranges and Lemons" is a traditional English nursery rhyme and singing game which refers to the bells of several churches, all within or close to the City of London. It is listed in the Roud Folk Song Index as No 13190.
Video Oranges and Lemons
Lyrics
Maps Oranges and Lemons
Earlier version
As a game
The song is used in a children's singing game with the same name, in which the players file, in pairs, through an arch made by two of the players (made by having the players face each other, raise their arms over their head, and clasp their partners' hands). The challenge comes during the final lines:
- Here comes a candle to light you to bed.
- Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.
- (Chip chop, chip chop, the last man's dead.)
On the last word, the children forming the arch drop their arms to catch the pair of children currently passing through, who are then "out" and must form another arch next to the existing one. In this way, the series of arches becomes a steadily lengthening tunnel through which each set of two players have to run faster and faster to escape in time.
Alternative versions of the game include: children caught "out" by the last rhyme may stand on a pressure plate behind one of the children forming the original arch, instead of forming additional arches; and, children forming "arches" may bring their hands down for each word of the last line, while the children passing through the arches run as fast as they can to avoid being caught on the last word. It was often the case, in Scottish playgrounds, that children would pair into boy and girl and the ones "caught" would have to kiss.
Origins and meaning
Various theories have been advanced to account for the rhyme, including: that it deals with child sacrifice; that it describes public executions; that it describes Henry VIII's marital difficulties. Problematically for these theories the last two lines, with their different metre, do not appear in the earlier recorded versions of the rhyme, including the first printed in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book (c. 1744), where the lyrics are:
There is considerable variation in the churches and lines attached to them in versions printed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which makes any overall meaning difficult to establish. The final two lines of the modern version were first collected by James Orchard Halliwell in the 1840s.
Oranges and Lemons was the name of a square-four-eight-dance, published in Playford's, Dancing Master in 1665, but it is not clear if this relates to this rhyme. Similar rhymes naming churches and giving rhymes to their names can be found in other parts of England, including Shropshire and Derby, where they were sung on festival days, on which bells would also have been rung.
The identity of the churches is not always clear, but the following have been suggested, along with some factors that may have influenced the accompanying statements:
- St. Clement's may be St Clement Danes or St Clement Eastcheap both of which are near the wharves where merchantmen landed citrus fruits.
- St. Martin's may be St Martin Orgar in the city, or St. Martin-in-the-Fields near Trafalgar Square.
- St Sepulchre-without-Newgate (opposite the Old Bailey) is near the Fleet Prison where debtors were held.
- St Leonard's, Shoreditch is just outside the old city walls.
- St Dunstan's, Stepney is also outside the city walls
- Bow is St Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside.
- St. Helen's, in the longer version of the song, is St Helen's Bishopsgate, in the city.
Melody
The tune is reminiscent of change ringing, and the intonation of each line is said to correspond with the distinct sounds of each church's bells. Today, the bells of St. Clement Danes ring out the tune of the rhyme.
Cultural references
The song is one of the nursery rhymes most commonly referred to in popular culture. These include George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), where it is used as a snippet of nursery rhyme which embodies the forgotten past that protagonist Winston Smith yearns for. Various characters contribute snippets of the rhyme as the book goes on, and the last lines figure symbolically into the closing events of the second section. A setting of the full Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book version for choir was written by Bob Chilcott. Entitled "London Bells", it is the third movement of "Songs and Cries of London Town". Benjamin Till composed music based upon the nursery rhyme and it was performed in 2009 at St Mary Le Bow Church, London to honour 150 years of the great bell, Big Ben. In the dystopian future of the video game Half-Life 2 (2004), oranges and lemons can be seen in graffiti on walls as symbols of the Resistance. This is a reference to the poem as it was used in Nineteen Eighty-Four. In Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book (2008), two lesser villains recite the rhyme to summon the man Jack. In the 1963 horror-comedy The Old Dark House, part of the rhyme is heard in a tape recording played backwards while trying to discover the identity of the secret killer. In the film It (2017), it is used as background music throughout the film, when the shape shifting antagonist is near.
The rhyme was also altered for the song "Clash City Rockers" by The Clash:
You owe me a move say the bells of St. Groove
Come on and show me say the bells of Old Bowie
When I am fitter say the bells of Gary Glitter
No one but you and I say the bells of Prince Far-I
No one but you and I say the bells of Prince Far-I
Throughout the 2015 horror series The Frankenstein Chronicles, the rhyme recurs several times, as the central character (played by Sean Bean) suffers mercury-induced hallucinations relating to a missing girl.
In Doctor Who, revival series 6, episode 11 "The God Complex" (Air date: September 17, 2011), the character called Joe "quotes the finale of old English nursery rhyme 'Oranges and Lemons,' singing 'Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head!,' which echoes a moment in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, where Winston Smith uses a snatch of the same rhyme to remind him of a forgotten and innocent past."
In Ellen Raskin's Book, The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues, the protagonist, Dickory Dock, has a pocket watch that plays this nursery rhyme, and the song forms a major part of the storyline.
The first two strophes were used in the opening song of the film IT (2017 film), directed by Andy Muschietti). The song, composed by Benjamin Wallfisch, is entitled "Every 27 years".
See also
- Dong, Dong, Dongdaemun, Korean nursery rhyme for playing a similar game to Oranges and Lemons
- London Bridge Is Falling Down, another English nursery rhyme for playing a similar game to Oranges and Lemons
References
External links
- BBC School Radio online - Nursery Songs. "Oranges and Lemons" (with animation and lyrics)
- The British Library Sound and Moving Images Catalogue - List Recording 1CD0323981 on Audio CD : Oranges & lemons. Tunes from the collection 'The Dancing Master' (includes notes by Annegret Fischer, and song texts)
- Map of the likely church locations
Source of article : Wikipedia
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