On my way to have my teeth checked yesterday morning I was listening to BBC Radio 4. Woman’s Hour was recounting the forgotten history of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. The best bit was when one of the experts recited the original French words to the tune of the nursery rhyme and reminded us of how big the difference is between us and them.
Here’s the childishly simple English text of the first verse:
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
And here are the subtitles to the grainy black-and-white French existentialist original:
Oh, Mama! I would tell you
The cause of my torment
Papa wants me to reason
Like an adult,
But I say that sweets
Are worth more than reason.
The original is rubbish though! It doesn’t even rhyme!
I actually knew the original was French. I like to bash the ivories every now and then (somehow got to find a Steinway dealership on Sakhalin Island), and once tried to play Mozart’s Variations on Ah! Vous-drai-je, maman, k265, which is the same tune as the one countless primary school kids have screeched out on a violin during their second lesson over the years.