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Arrangement: Ian J. Watts / Mike Wilbury · Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks
Lyrics
Two and two are four,
Four and four are eight,
Eight and eight are sixteen,
Sixteen and sixteen are thirty-two.
Inchworm, inchworm,
Measuring the marigolds,
You and your arithmetic,
You'll probably go far.
Inchworm, inchworm,
Measuring the marigolds,
Seems to me you'd stop and see
How beautiful they are.
Traditional lyrics — public domain. Arrangement © Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks.
History & Background
History & Origin
"Inchworm" was written by Frank Loesser for the 1952 film Hans Christian Andersen, in which it was sung by Danny Kaye. It is one of the more unusual songs in the children's repertoire: on the surface a simple counting song, it carries a quietly melancholy message about the relationship between measurement and appreciation.
The song weaves together two musical strands. The children's chorus chants the multiplication table — two and two are four, four and four are eight — with mechanical precision. Against this, the narrator addresses the inchworm, marvelling that it can spend its life measuring flowers without once stopping to notice how beautiful they are.
The tension between knowing and appreciating, between quantification and wonder, gives the song a philosophical weight unusual in children's music. The narrator's wistful observation — "seems to me you'd stop and see how beautiful they are" — is addressed to the inchworm, but it speaks to a universal human tendency to measure and analyse at the expense of simply experiencing.
The counting chorus makes the song genuinely useful as a multiplication teaching aid, while the inchworm verses provide a moment of reflection that lifts it well above the purely educational. Danny Kaye's original recording remains definitive, but our version brings its own charm to this exceptional song.
