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Arrangement: Ian J. Watts / Mike Wilbury · Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks
Lyrics
Simple Simon met a pieman
Going to the fair.
Said Simple Simon to the pieman,
"Let me taste your ware."
The pieman said to Simple Simon,
"Show me first your penny."
Said Simple Simon to the pieman,
"Sir, I have not any!"
Simple Simon went a-fishing
For to catch a whale.
All the water he had got
Was in his mother's pail.
Simple Simon went to look
If plums grew on a thistle;
He pricked his fingers very much,
Which made poor Simon whistle.
He went for water in a sieve,
But soon it all fell through;
And finally poor Simple Simon
Bids you all adieu.
Traditional lyrics — public domain. Arrangement © Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks.
History & Background
History & Origin
"Simple Simon" was first published as a chapbook around 1764, though individual verses are likely older. The full chapbook contained many more verses than the handful that survive in common use today, telling the extended story of Simple Simon's misadventures at and around the fair.
Simon is one of the great figures of the English nursery rhyme tradition: a loveable fool whose problems stem not from malice but from an innocent incomprehension of how the world works. He cannot pay for pie because he has no money. He tries to catch a whale in a bucket of water. He expects plums to grow on thistles. He carries water in a sieve. Each verse adds another layer to a portrait of someone who is entirely sincere but entirely at odds with practical reality.
The pieman is perhaps the greatest single character in nursery rhyme literature — patient, firm, and utterly correct. "Show me first your penny" is a line that has been spoken to hopeful children in various forms since commerce began. Simple Simon's response — "Sir, I have not any" — is delivered with apparent surprise, as if the requirement of payment had genuinely not occurred to him. It is a scene that has never stopped being funny.
