- published: 23 Nov 2015
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"Row, Row, Row Your Boat" is an English language nursery rhyme, and a popular children's song, often sung as a round. Play (help·info) It can also be an 'action' nursery rhyme where singers sit opposite one another and 'row' forwards and backwards with joined hands. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19236.
The most common modern version is:
It has been suggested that the song may have originally arisen out of American minstrelsy. The earliest printing of the song is from 1852, when the lyrics were published with similar lyrics to those used today, but with a very different tune. It was reprinted again two years later with the same lyrics and another tune. The modern tune was first recorded with the lyrics in 1881, mentioning Eliphalet Oram Lyte in The Franklin Square Song Collection but not making it clear whether he was the composer or adapter.
The lyrics have often been used as a metaphor for life's difficult choices, and many see the boat as referring to one's self or a group with which one identifies.Rowing is a skillful, if tedious, practice that takes perfection but also directs the vessel. When sung as a group, the act of rowing becomes a unifier, as oars should be in sync for the progression of a rowboat. The idea that human beings travel along a certain stream [time] and suggests boundaries in the path of choices and in free will. The third line recommends that challenges should be greeted in stride while open to joy with a smile. Some have questioned the song's implied necessity to row one's boat downstream. This may in fact be a commentary on the paradoxical nature of time's arrow with respect to man's free will in a universe of materialistic causality.
Love is in the air
Blinding me with smoke
You are the air I breathe
When I choke
Butterflies in the jar
Butterflies in the jar
Butterflies in the jar
So breathless
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Captured my heart
Goodies in the basket
Do-do-don't let me go away
I love you, honey
Insects in your kiss
Insects in your kiss
Insects in your kiss
You are my sunshine
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out, get out, get out
Get out, get out, get out, get out
Get out, get out, get out of my
Get out, get out, get out, get out
Get out, get out, get out of my
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out of my row boat
Get out, get out, get out
Get out of my
Get out, get out, get out
Get out of my
Get out, get out, get out
Get out of my