The Muffin Man

About this arrangement

The Drury Lane song in 4/4, with a new hand position: the thumb sits on the G below middle C, so the five fingers cover G A B C D and the little finger stretches up to E for “know” in bars 2 and 6. Every bar but the last has the same rhythm, two crotchets then a dotted crotchet and a quaver, long-short, which is the skip you hear in London Bridge. Bar 7, “who lives in Dru-ry”, is plain crotchets walking down D C B. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord on beats 1 and 3, swapping between C, G7 and G.

Practice tip: Say “muf-fin MAN” with a quick “fin” and the dotted rhythm looks after itself. Keep the thumb anchored on G; only the little finger stretches.

The words

Do you know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man? Do you know the muffin man who lives in Drury Lane?

A short history

The Muffin Man is an English rhyme first recorded in a manuscript of about 1820 now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It is number 7922 in the Roud Folk Song Index. Drury Lane is a real street in London’s West End, famous for its theatre.

Muffin men were a familiar sight in Victorian cities: they sold English muffins, a flat yeast bread cooked on a griddle, from a tray carried on the head, walking the streets at teatime and ringing a handbell to let households know they were coming.

The rhyme is also a party game. Children sit in a circle, one sings “Do you know the muffin man?” to another, and the two of them then sing “We know the muffin man” together, until the whole circle has joined in.

Quick facts

Tune

Traditional (English, 19th century)

Key

C major

Time signature

4/4

Length

8 bars

Tempo

Brightly, crotchet = 104

Difficulty

Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 44 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