"Pretty Little Dutch Girl" is a children's 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:...

, clapping game

Clapping game

A clapping game is a type of usually cooperative game which is generally played by two players and involves clapping as accompaniment to a singing game or reciting of a rhyme...

 and jump-rope rhyme

Jump-rope rhyme

A skipping rhyme , is a rhyme chanted by children while skipping. Such rhymes have been recorded in all cultures where skipping is played. Examples of English-language rhymes have been found going back to at least the 17th 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 12986.

Lyrics

The lyrics of the song vary considerably. British versions of this rhyme differ significantly, perhaps because many of the allusions in the rhyme were unknown to British children at the time. Common versions include:

I am a pretty little Dutch girl,

As pretty as I can be, be, be,

And all the boys in the baseball team

Go crazy over me, me, me.

My boy friend’s name is Fatty,

He comes from the Senoratti,

With turned-up toes and a pimple on his nose,

And this is how the story goes:

Another version

I am a pretty little Dutch girl

As pretty as I can be

And all the boys in the neighborhood

Are crazy over me

My boyfriend's name is Mello

He comes from the land of Jello

With pickles for his toes and a cherry for his nose

And that's the way my story goes

Another version

I am a pretty little Dutch girl,

As pretty as pretty can be,

And all the boys around the block

Go crazy over me.

My boyfriend's name is Billy,

He comes from good ole Philly,

With a cherry on his nose

And ten fat toes,

And that's the way my story goes.

My boyfriend gave me peaches,

My boyfriend gave me pears,

My boyfriend gave me fifty cents

And kissed me on the stairs.

I gave him back his peaches,

I gave him back his pears,

I gave him back his fifty cents

And kicked....him....down.....the.....stairs!

Another Version

I am a pretty little Dutch girl,

As pretty as I can be be be

and all the boys in the neighborhood

come chasing after me me me.

My boyfriend's name is Tony,

he comes from the land of bologna,

with a pickle on his nose and 3 sore toes

and that's the way the story goes!

One day he gave me peaches,

one day he gave me pears,

one day he gave me 50 cents

and took me to the fair!

After the fair was over,

I asked him to take me home,

he ran off with another girl

and left me all alone!

I gave him back his peaches.

I gave him back his pears.

I gave him back his 50 cents,

and kicked him down the stairs!

Different version

I am a pretty little Dutch girl

As pretty as pretty can be.

And all the boys around the block

Go crazy over me.

I hate to do the dishes

I hate to do the chores

But I love to kiss my boyfriend

Behind the kitchen door.

One day while I was walking

I heard my boyfriend talkin

To a pretty little girl

with strawberry curls

and this is what he said:

I L-O-V-E love you

All the T-I-M-E time

And I will K-I-S-S kiss you

In the D-A-R-K dark.

Another Version (Western Canada, 1960s)

I am a pretty little Dutch girl,

As pretty as pretty can be, be, be,

And all the boys on the baseball team

are chasing after me, me, me.

My father came from England,

My mother came from France, France, France.

My boyfriend came from the USA

to teach me how to dance, dance, dance.

My boyfriend gave me apples,

My boyfriend gave me pears, pears, pears.

My boyfriend gave me fifty cents

and kissed me up the stairs, stairs, stairs.

I gave him back his apples,

I gave him back his pears, pears, pears.

I gave him back his fifty cents

and kicked him down the stairs, stairs, stairs.

...with a pickle on his nose and 3 sore toes,

that's the way it goes, goes, goes.

Story told within the song

The rhyme (and at least some of its variants) tells the story of an extremely beautiful girl (of Dutch

Dutch people

The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

 descent, hence the song's title) who is popular with boys (particularly around the neighborhood, block or the whole town) and has a rather unattractive boyfriend; some versions mention that the boyfriend dumps the pretty Dutch girl in favor of an even prettier girl. The Dutch girl is often depicted from illustration to illustration wearing traditional Dutch clothing, complete with ribbon-adorned long braids in her hair, wooden shoes and (occasionally exaggerated) Dutch cap.

Origins and distribution

The origins of the rhyme are obscure. The tune of the song is similar to A Sailor Went to Sea

A Sailor Went to Sea

"A Sailor Went to Sea" is a children's nursery rhyme, clapping game and jump-rope rhyme. It was intially called 'My Father Went to Sea', before becoming more widely known as 'A Sailor Went to Sea'.-Lyrics:...

 and Miss Suzie Had A Steamboat

Miss Susie

Miss Susie is the name of an American schoolyard rhyme and clapping game in which almost each verse leads up to a rude word or profanity which is elided into the next verse as part of an innocuous word or phrase...

(though some notes are removed to account for the double-syllable words "pretty" and "little", and some notes are added in). The earliest record found so far is for New York around 1940. It seems to have spread over the USA by the 1950s and reached Britain in 1959, where it was taken up very quickly across the country to become one of the most popular skipping rhymes among girls.

External links

• Various parody versions and original text