Children’s song, U.K.
“Ring a Ring o’ Roses” (known in the U.S.A. as “Ring Around the Rosie”) is a nursery rhyme and singing game. The first known record is from Kate Greenaway’s “Old Nursery Rhymes” (Mother Goose) in 1881.
Concerning the meaning of the lyrics and the game, folklorists believe they are of pagan origins, while more recent readings, which appeared in the mid-twentieth century, associate the meaning with the Great Plague which happened in England in 1665, or with earlier outbreaks of the Black Death in England.
“Ring Around the Rosie” (American Version) Karaoke Video
“Ring a Ring o’ Roses (British version)” Karaoke Video
Lyrics
British version
Ring-a-ring-o’ roses
A pocket full of posies
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down
American version
Ring-around the rosie,
A pocket full of posies,
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down.
Click on the button to watch a karaoke video and download a PDF file with lyrics to this song for free.
Free karaoke MP3 download (American Version)
To download your free instrumental mp3 of this song, click or tap on the following button, then choose “Save Link as…” :
“Ring Around the Rosie (American version)” free mp3 download (instrumental, 0:54 – 2/4 – 142 bpm)
Free karaoke MP3 download (British Version)
To download your free instrumental mp3 of this song, click or tap on the following button, then choose “Save Link as…” :
“Ring a ring o’roses” (British version) free mp3 download (instrumental, 0:56 – 2/4 – 142 bpm)
This track is also featured in our New Album with 50 Instrumental Nursery Rhymes for karaoke, OUT NOW!
Sheet music with chords
To save this free music sheet of “Ring a Ring o’ Roses (Ring Around the Rosie)” to your computer, right click (or tap and hold, on mobile devices) and choose “Save Image As…”.
Free Printable PDF with Lyrics and Sheet Music
To download a ready-to-print PDF of this song for music activities with a music sheet, lyrics and a drawing for kids to paint, right click (or tap and hold) on the following link, then choose “Save link as…”.
“Ring a Ring o’ Roses (Ring Around the Rosie)” free PDF download – Singing Bell
Teaching idea & activities
The singing game follows the next movements: make a circle while singing and dance altogether at the same direction. At the end (“we all fall down”) everyone falls to the ground (give specific directions to children to bend their knees first).
Another version, in order to learn a “curtsy”, is to ask a child to be the “rose” in the centre of the circle and at the end the other children take a bow around him/her, like a curtsy.
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