Girls and Boys Come Out to Play

About this arrangement

A skipping 6/8 tune that opens on G and falls through C position: G, E, F, D, then G, E, C. The first four bars are played twice, once for “Girls and boys” and once for “Leave your supper”, with the two sets of words printed under the notes, and a repeat sign on both staves. Then the tune climbs: bars 6 and 10 stretch the little finger up to A and B, and bars 7 and 11 start on the C above middle C and run all the way back down to E. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord on each big beat, C most of the time, with G7 at the ends of lines and F under “come with a call”.

Practice tip: Play bars 1 to 4 until they are easy, then sing the second verse to them before you go on. For bar 7 put the little finger on the high C first and let the other fingers fall down the scale.

The words

Girls and boys come out to play, The moon doth shine as bright as day. Leave your supper and leave your sleep, And join your playfellows down the street. Come with a whoop and come with a call, And come with a goodwill or not at all. Up the ladder and down the wall, A halfpenny loaf will serve us all.

A short history

The first two lines were already quoted in dance books and satires between 1708 and 1728, and the full rhyme appeared in Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book around 1744, the earliest surviving collection of English nursery rhymes. It calls children out to play by moonlight after supper, which tells you something about bedtimes in the eighteenth century.

The tune is old too. Fiddlers’ manuscripts from Lincolnshire (1798) and Cumbria (about 1815) write it out as a country-dance jig called the Royal Quickstep, and note that it is the Girls and Boys tune.

This arrangement follows the version Alfred Moffat printed in Our Old Nursery Rhymes (1911), which also carries the less familiar third and fourth verses about coming with a whoop and a call, and a halfpenny loaf to share.

Quick facts

Tune

Traditional (English, 18th century)

Key

C major

Time signature

6/8

Length

12 bars (the first four played twice)

Tempo

Skipping, dotted crotchet = 66

Difficulty

Level 4: Up to the C above (piece 118 of 201)

Type

Nursery rhyme

Hands

Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left

Copyright

Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use

Questions and answers