Pussycat, Pussycat
A royal visit and a very small, very distracted cat
Listen
Arrangement: Ian J. Watts / Mike Wilbury · Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks
Lyrics
Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?
I've been to London to visit the Queen.
Pussycat, pussycat, what did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under her chair.
Traditional lyrics — public domain. Arrangement © Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks.
History & Background
History & Origin
"Pussycat, Pussycat" was first printed around 1791 and has been a staple of the nursery rhyme repertoire ever since. It is a short, satisfying exchange — a question and answer — with a wonderfully bathetic punchline: having been to London and visited the Queen herself, the cat's most notable achievement was frightening a mouse.
The rhyme has sometimes been linked to a real historical incident involving one of Queen Elizabeth I's ladies-in-waiting, whose cat allegedly wandered into the throne room and disturbed a mouse beneath the royal chair. The story is charming but unverifiable. What is clear is that the rhyme captures something true about the nature of cats, who are supremely indifferent to the grandeur of their surroundings and remain focused entirely on small, scurrying things.
The contrast between the vast setting — London, the Queen — and the tiny object of the cat's attention (a mouse, under a chair) gives the rhyme its gentle comedy. It is one of the most economical pieces of comic writing in the nursery canon: four lines, one joke, perfectly timed.
