A Stock Market Nursery Rhyme

Lyrics[edit]

	London Bridge Is Falling Down MENU 0:00 Tune for London Bridge Is Falling Down
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Illustration from Walter Crane's A Baby's Bouquet (c. 1877).  Play (help·info)

A prospect of Old London Bridge in 1710.

New London Bridge in the late nineteenth century.

The reconstructed New London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

The modern concrete London Bridge.

There is considerable variation in the lyrics of the rhyme. The most frequently used first verse is:

London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down.
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.^[1]

In the version quoted by Iona and Peter Opie in 1951 the full lyrics were:

London Bridge is broken down,
Broken down, broken down.
London Bridge is broken down,
My fair lady.

Build it up with wood and clay,
Wood and clay, wood and clay,
Build it up with wood and clay,
My fair lady.

Wood and clay will wash away,
Wash away, wash away,
Wood and clay will wash away,
My fair lady.

Build it up with bricks and mortar,
Bricks and mortar, bricks and mortar,
Build it up with bricks and mortar,
My fair lady.

Bricks and mortar will not stay,
Will not stay, will not stay,
Bricks and mortar will not stay,
My fair lady.

Build it up with iron and steel,
Iron and steel, iron and steel,
Build it up with iron and steel,
My fair lady.

Iron and steel will bend and bow,
Bend and bow, bend and bow,
Iron and steel will bend and bow,
My fair lady.

Build it up with silver and gold,
Silver and gold, silver and gold,
Build it up with silver and gold,
My fair lady.

Silver and gold will be stolen away,
Stolen away, stolen away,
Silver and gold will be stolen away,
My fair lady.

Set a man to watch all night,
Watch all night, watch all night,
Set a man to watch all night,
My fair lady.

Suppose the man should fall asleep,
Fall asleep, fall asleep,
Suppose the man should fall asleep?
My fair lady.

Give him a pipe to smoke all night,
Smoke all night, smoke all night,
Give him a pipe to smoke all night,
My fair lady.^[2]

The rhyme is constructed of quatrains in trochaic tetrameter catalectic,^[3] (each line made up of four metrical feet of two syllables, with the stress falling on the first syllable in a pair; the last foot in the line missing the unstressed syllable), which is common in nursery rhymes.^[4] In its most common form it relies on a double repetition, rather than a rhyming scheme, which is a frequently employed device in children's rhymes and stories.^[5] The Roud Folk Song Index, which catalogues folk songs and their variations by number, classifies the song as 502.^[6]

Melody[edit]

The melody now most associated with the rhyme.

A melody is recorded for "London Bridge" in an edition of John Playford's The Dancing Master published in 1718, but it differs from the modern tune and no lyrics were given. An issue of Blackwood's Magazine in 1821 noted the rhyme as a being sung to the tune of "Nancy Dawson", now better known as "Nuts in May" and the same tune was given in Richard Thomson's Chronicles of London Bridge (1827).^[2]

Another tune was recorded in Samuel Arnold's Juvenile Amusements in 1797. E. F. Rimbault's Nursery Rhymes (1836) has the same first line, but then a different tune.^[1] The tune now associated with the rhyme was first recorded in 1879 in the US in A. H. Rosewig's Illustrated National Songs and Games.^[7]

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A Stock Market Nursery Rhyme

European Markets are falling again,

falling again, falling again

Although  they'll go up some day

we don't when, don't know when.

Stocks are over sold and under bought

with very little good news to report
news to report.

Gold is surging and oil is down

The optimistic brokers are leaving town,

leaving town.

The rest are getting ever more skittish

ever more skittish

and things are so rotten

they're even speaking  forgotten 

Yiddish,

forgotten Yiddish: 

Oy Veh  Lady

Oy Veh Lady

HzL

2/11/16

Hong Kong’s stock market slumps by almost 4% after the Lunar New Year, and European markets are in retreat again.

• FTSE 100 has hit a new 3.5 year low
• European markets falling again
• Gold is surging, oil is down
• Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index sheds 4%
• “Very little good news” to report