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Arrangement: Ian J. Watts / Mike Wilbury · Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks
Lyrics
Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.
Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
And if you see a crocodile,
Don't forget to scream!
Traditional lyrics — public domain. Arrangement © Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks.
History & Background
History & Origin
"Row, Row, Row Your Boat" was first published in America in 1852 and has since become one of the most widely known nursery songs in the English-speaking world. It is a round — a song in which different groups begin singing at different points, creating interlocking harmonies — and its simple, repetitive structure makes it ideal for children's choirs and classrooms.
The original verse, with its philosophical final line "Life is but a dream", carries a gentle Buddhist or Transcendentalist quality — the boat moving gently, the merriment of the journey, the world as dream. For a nursery song, it is remarkably serene.
The second verse — "if you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream!" — is a popular addition that appears in various forms and is not part of the original text. It provides the comic release that many children expect from nursery songs: the calm of the boat followed by the sudden threat of the crocodile, and the permission to scream about it. Children invariably love this verse more than the philosophical first, which says something true about both children and crocodiles.
Our arrangement captures both the serenity and the sudden alarm.
