"Lavender Blue," also called "Lavender's Blue," is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 folk song and nursery rhyme

Nursery rhyme

The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" poems for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the 19th century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...

 dating to the seventeenth century, which has been recorded in various forms since the twentieth century. It has a Roud Folk Song Index

Roud Folk Song Index

The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 300,000 references to over 21,600 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world...

 number of 3483. Burl Ives

Burl Ives

Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American actor, writer and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives's work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives's voice .....

's version was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song

Academy Award for Best Original Song

The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...

.

Lyrics

Although there are as many as thirty verses to the song, and many variations of each verse, most modern versions take this form:

Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green,

When I am king, dilly, dilly, you shall be queen.

Who told you so, dilly, dilly, who told you so?

'Twas my own heart, dilly, dilly, that told me so.

Call up your men, dilly, dilly, set them to work

Some to the plow, dilly, dilly, some to the fork,

Some to make hay, dilly, dilly, some to cut corn,

While you and I, dilly, dilly, keep ourselves warm.

Lavender's green, dilly, dilly, Lavender's blue,

If you love me, dilly, dilly, I will love you.

Let the birds sing, dilly, dilly, And the lambs play;

We shall be safe, dilly, dilly, out of harm's way.

I love to dance, dilly, dilly, I love to sing;

When I am queen, dilly, dilly, You'll be my king.

Who told me so, dilly, dilly, Who told me so?

I told myself, dilly, dilly, I told me so.

Origins

The earliest surviving version of the song is in a broadside

Broadside (music)

A broadside is a single sheet of cheap paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations...

 printed in England between 1672 and 1685, under the name Diddle Diddle, Or The Kind Country Lovers. The broadside indicates it is to be sung to the tune "Lavenders Green", implying that a tune by that name was already in existence. The lyrics printed in the broadside are fairly bawdy, celebrating sex and drinking. According to the Traditional Ballad Index, "The singer tells his lady that she must love him because he loves her. He tells of a vale where young man and maid have lain together, and suggests that they might do the same, and that she might love him (and also his dog)." Here is the first of ten verses:

Lavenders green, Diddle, diddle,

Lavenders blue

You must love me, diddle, diddle,

cause I love you,

I heard one say, diddle, diddle,

since I came hither,

That your and I, diddle, diddle,

must lie together.

It emerged as a children's song in Songs for the Nursery in 1805 in the form:

Lavender blue and Rosemary green,

When I am king you shall be queen;

Call up my maids at four o'clock,

Some to the wheel

Spinning wheel

A spinning wheel is a device for spinning thread or yarn from natural or synthetic fibers. Spinning wheels appeared in Asia, probably in the 11th century, and very gradually replaced hand spinning with spindle and distaff...

 and some to the rock

Distaff

As a noun, a distaff is a tool used in spinning. It is designed to hold the unspun fibers, keeping them untangled and thus easing the spinning process. It is most commonly used to hold flax, and sometimes wool, but can be used for any type of fiber. Fiber is wrapped around the distaff, and tied in...

;

Some to make hay and some to shear corn

Cereal

Cereals are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their grain , composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran...

,

And you and I will keep the bed warm.

Similar versions appeared in collections of rhymes throughout the nineteenth century.

Recordings

A hit

Hit record

A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...

 version of the song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

, sung

Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

 by Burl Ives, was featured in the Walt Disney

Walt Disney

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 movie

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

, So Dear to My Heart

So Dear to My Heart

So Dear to My Heart is a 1948 feature film produced by Walt Disney, released in Chicago on November 29, 1948 and nationwide on January 19, 1949 by RKO Radio Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution. Like 1946's Song of the South, the film combines animation and live action...

(1949) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. It was Ives' first hit song and renewed the song's popularity in the twentieth century. Other hit versions of the song were recorded

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 by Sammy Kaye

Sammy Kaye

Sammy Kaye , born Samuel Zarnocay, Jr., was an American bandleader and songwriter, whose tag line, "Swing and sway with Sammy Kaye", became one of the most famous of the Big Band Era.-Biography:...

 and Dinah Shore

Dinah Shore

Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality...

.

This song became popular again during the 1950s rock and roll

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

 era when it was sung by Solomon Burke

Solomon Burke

Solomon Burke was an American singer-songwriter, entrepreneur, mortician, and an archbishop of the United House of Prayer For All People. Burke was known as "King Solomon", the "King of Rock 'n' Soul", and as the "Bishop of Soul", and described as "the Muhammad Ali of soul", and as "the most...

. While he did change some of the words, the lyrics are generally the same. Sammy Turner

Sammy Turner

Sammy Turner is an American singer, who was popular at the end of the 1950s.-Career:...

 released it in 1959 and it hit number 14 on the U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 R&B

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States.The chart, initiated in 1942, is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues. Dominated over the years at various times by jazz, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, soul,...

 chart

Record chart

A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....

 and number 3 on the Pop

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 chart. There was also a British single by gravel-voiced singer Tommy Bruce

Tommy Bruce

Tommy Bruce was an English rock 'n' roll singer who had most success in the early 1960s.-Life and career:He was born Thomas Charles Bruce, in Stepney, London...

 in 1963 which was not a hit. The Fleetwoods

The Fleetwoods

The Fleetwoods were a singing trio from Olympia, Washington, United States; formed in the late 1950s. They were responsible for eleven hit songs, beginning with "Come Softly to Me"...

 also recorded a version of the song.

David Bowie

David Bowie

David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

 sings a couplet from the song as an introduction to his song "Heroes" in the live recording of his 'Serious Moonlight Tour

Serious Moonlight Tour

The David Bowie Serious Moonlight Tour was thus far Bowie's longest, largest and most successful concert tour. The tour opened at the Vorst Forest Nationaal - Brussels on 18 May 1983 and ended in the Hong Kong Coliseum on 8 December 1983; 16 countries visited, 96 performances, 2,601,196 tickets...

' in 1983.

On their 1985 album Misplaced Childhood

Misplaced Childhood

Misplaced Childhood is the third studio album of the neo-progressive rock band Marillion. It was released in 1985 and has been their most commercially successful album, reaching number one in the and spending a total of 41 weeks on the chart, the longest chart residency of a Marillion album...

, the British progressive rock

Progressive rock

Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...

 band

Musical ensemble

A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...

 Marillion

Marillion

Marillion are a British rock band, formed in Aylesbury, England in 1979. Their recorded studio output comprises sixteen albums generally regarded in two distinct eras, delineated by the departure of original vocalist & frontman Fish in late 1988, and the subsequent arrival of replacement Steve...

 recorded a song called "Lavender

Lavender (Marillion song)

"Lavender" is neo-progressive rock band Marillion's second single from their breakthrough album Misplaced Childhood. The follow-up to the big UK number 2 hit "Kayleigh", the song was their second Top 5 UK hit, entering the chart on 7 September 1985, reaching number 5 and staying on the chart for 9...

," which was derived from the folk song and became a number 5 hit on the British singles chart.

The Wiggles

The Wiggles

The Wiggles are a children's group formed in Sydney, Australia in 1991. Their original members were Anthony Field, Phillip Wilcher, Murray Cook, Greg Page, and Jeff Fatt. Wilcher left the group after their first album...

 recorded this song on their albums "The Wiggles

The Wiggles (album)

-Members:Murray Cook - guitar, bass, vocals, water bubble sounds, Dorothy's voiceJeff Fatt - accordion, Emax, sequencing, "Mischief's" voice, KazooAnthony Field - tin whistle, didgeridoo, vocals, chief Kabasa playerGreg Page - vocals, guitar, hand claps...

" and "Pop Go the Wiggles." There are two versions of this song. One is sung by Greg Page and the other is sung by Sam Moran

Sam Moran

Sam Moran is an Australian entertainer best known for being a member of the children's band The Wiggles. He was born in Sydney and raised in Wagga Wagga.-Career:...

.