"Five Little Monkeys" is an English-language nursery rhyme, children's song, folk song and fingerplay of American origin. It is usually accompanied by a sequence of gestures that mimic the words of the song. Each successive verse sequentially counts down from the starting number.[1] [2] [3]
The most common version of the song has a similar tune to the Austrian folk song “ Wie Böhmen noch bei Öst'rreich war” and the American folk song Hush, Little Baby. Alternate versions have similar tunes to the first verse of the 1890s folk song "Shortnin' Bread."
One version of the lyrics, published in the 2015 collection No More Monkeys, runs:[4]
Alternate versions of the song change the last monkey's reference to "she" or "one". An additional verse on the last verse following the last monkey going down include lines such as:
The song can be performed with to accompany to each verse are, such as:[5]
Eileen Christelow has written a series of books titled "Five Little Monkeys ..". She acknowledges that she did not write the original lyrics, she heard it from her daughter.[6] Four of these books would later be adapted into a stage play by Ernie Nolan.[7]
In 2021, Filipino TikToker Amor Carias, also known by her stage name "Miss Catering", performed a cover of "Five Little Monkeys", this time with lyrics mashed up from "Humpty Dumpty", "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and possibly "Three Little Kittens", along with Tagalog-language "Tagu-taguan maliwanag ang buwan", "I wanna be a tutubi" and "Pen Pen de Sarapen", as well as non-children song "Upuan" by Gloc-9 and Zelle vocalist Jeazell Grutas.[8] [9] [10]