"Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son" is a popular English language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 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:...

. 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 19621.

Lyrics

Modern versions of the rhyme include:

Tom, Tom, the piper's son,

Stole a pig, and away did run;

The pig was eat

And Tom was beat,

And Tom went crying [or "roaring", or "howling", in some versions]

Down the street.

The 'pig' mentioned in the song is almost certainly not a live animal but rather a kind of pastry, often made with an apple filling, smaller than a pie.

This rhyme is often conflated with a separate and longer rhyme:

Tom, Tom, he was a piper's son,

He learned to play when he was young.

And all the tune that he could play

Was over the hills and far away;

Over the hills is a great way off.

The wind shall blow my top-knot off.

Tom with his pipe made such a noise,

That he pleased both the girls and boys,

And they all stopped to hear him play,

'Over the hills and far away'.

Tom with his pipe did play with such skill

That those who heard him could never keep still;

As soon as he played they began for to dance,

Even the pigs on their hind legs would after him dance.

As Dolly was milking her cow one day,

Tom took his pipe and began to play;

So Dolly and the cow danced 'The Cheshire Round',

Till the pail was broken and the milk ran on the ground.

He met old Dame Trot with a basket of eggs,

He used his pipe and she used her legs;

She danced about till the eggs were all broke,

She began for to fret, but he laughed at the joke.

Tom saw a cross fellow was beating an ass,

Heavy laden with pots, pans, dishes, and glass;

He took out his pipe and he played them a tune,

And the poor donkey's load was lightened full soon.

Origins and meaning

Both rhymes were first printed separately in a Tom the Piper's Son, a chapbook

Chapbook

A chapbook is a pocket-sized booklet. The term chap-book was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera , popular or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales,...

 produced around 1795 in London. The origins of the shorter and better known rhyme are unknown. The second longer rhyme was an adaptation of an existing verse which was current in England around the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries. The following verse, known as "The distracted Jockey's Lamentations" may have been written (but not included) in Thomas D'Urfey

Thomas d'Urfey

Thomas D'Urfey was an English writer and wit. He composed plays, songs, and poetry, in addition to writing jokes. He was an important innovator and contributor in the evolution of the Ballad opera....

's play The Campaigners (1698):

Jockey was a Piper's Son,

And fell in love when he was young;

But all the Tunes that he could play,

Was, o'er the Hills, and far away,

And 'Tis o'er the Hills, and far away,

'Tis o'er the Hills, and far away,

'Tis o'er the Hills, and far away,

The Wind has blown my Plad

Kilt

The kilt is a knee-length garment with pleats at the rear, originating in the traditional dress of men and boys in the Scottish Highlands of the 16th century. Since the 19th century it has become associated with the wider culture of Scotland in general, or with Celtic heritage even more broadly...

 away.

This verse seems to have been adapted for a recruiting song designed to gain volunteers for the Duke of Marlborough

Duke of Marlborough

Duke of Marlborough , is a hereditary title in the Peerage of England. The first holder of the title was John Churchill , the noted English general, and indeed an unqualified reference to the Duke of Marlborough in a historical text will almost certainly refer to him.-History:The dukedom was...

's campaigns about 1705, with the title "The Recruiting Officer; or The Merry Volunteers", better today known as "Over the Hills and Far Away

Over the Hills and Far Away (traditional)

"Over the Hills and Far Away" is a traditional English song, dating back to at least the late 17th century. One version was published in Thomas D'Urfey's Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy; a very different one appeared in George Farquhar's 1706 play The Recruiting Officer...

", in which the hero is called Tom.

Cultural references

• Tom Tom is a main character in the 1934 Laurel and Hardy
  Laurel and Hardy
  Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...
  
   film Babes in Toyland
  Babes in Toyland (1934 film)
  Babes in Toyland is a Laurel and Hardy musical film released in November 1934. The film is also known by its alternate titles Laurel and Hardy in Toyland, Revenge Is Sweet , March of the Wooden Soldiers and Wooden Soldiers .Based on Victor Herbert's popular 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland, the film...
  
  .

• The rhyme is featured in Benjamin Britten
  Benjamin Britten
  Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
  
  's 1954 opera, The Turn of The Screw
  The Turn of the Screw (opera)
  The Turn of the Screw is a 20th century English chamber opera composed by Benjamin Britten with a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, "wife of the artist John Piper, who had been a friend of the composer since 1935 and had provided designs for several of the operas". The libretto is based on the novella...
  
  . The two children, Miles and Flora, sing it in Act I, scene 5, at the window.

• A segment of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
  The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
  The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show is an American animated television series that originally aired from November 19, 1959 to June 28, 1964 on the ABC and NBC television networks...
  
   (1959-4) provided a mock legal review of the case of Tom stealing the pig.

• The 1969 experimental film, "Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son", by Ken Jacobs
  Ken Jacobs
  Ken Jacobs is an American experimental filmmaker. He is the director of Tom, Tom, The Piper's Son , which was admitted to the National Film Registry in 2007, and Star Spangled to Death , a nearly seven hour film consisting largely of found footage.He coined the term paracinema in the early 1970s,...
  
  , consists of retouched footage of a 1905 film of the same name. It was placed on the Library of Congress National Film Registry
  National Film Registry
  The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
  
   in 2007.

• Led Zeppelin
  Led Zeppelin
  Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
  
   has a song in their album Houses of the Holy
  Houses of the Holy
  Houses of the Holy is the fifth studio album by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, released by Atlantic Records on 28 March 1973. The album title is a dedication by the band to their fans who appeared at venues they dubbed "Houses of the Holy". It was the second Led Zeppelin album to not...
  
  (1973) entitled "Over the Hills and Far Away
  Over the Hills and Far Away (Led Zeppelin song)
  "Over the Hills and Far Away" is the third track from English rock band Led Zeppelin's 1973 album Houses of the Holy.-Overview:Jimmy Page and Robert Plant originally constructed the song in 1970 at Bron-Yr-Aur, a small cottage in Wales where they stayed after completing a gruelling North American...
  
  ".

• The beginning of the Dr. Alimantado song, "I Shot the Barber" contains paraphrased elements of the rhyme.

• In the manga Kuroshitsuji
  Kuroshitsuji
  is a manga written and illustrated by Yana Toboso. Since its debut on September 16, 2006, it has been serialized in Square Enix's shōnen manga magazine Monthly GFantasy....
  
   the character Joker sings the first segment from the longer version of this nursery rhyme.

• Tom Tom is mentioned in the chorus of John Holt's
  John Holt (singer)
  John Holt is a reggae singer and songwriter.-Biography:Holt was born in Kingston in 1947. By the age of 12, he was a regular entrant in talent contests run at Jamaican theatres by Vere Johns...
  
  reggae/ska hit "Ali Baba".

• Tom is the main character in Melina Marchetta's The Pipers Son.

External links

• Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son (1969) at IMDb.com