Brenda wrote to me from Australia…
Dear Mama Lisa,
I am trying to find the words of a song our mother sang to us, and then to my children and I would like to sing to my grandsons about “A little Brown Baby Round and Wee”. It is a song about an acorn who fell down thru’ the treetops right to the ground but he wasn’t hurt at all. I can only remember bits and pieces of this song, I am not sure of its origin possibly English because of it being an acorn from the Oak Tree?
Hope one of your readers can help?
Brenda Taylor
Australia
If anyone is familiar with this song, please let us know about it in the comments below.
Thanks in advance!
Mama Lisa
This article was posted on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 11:39 am and is filed under Australia, Australian Kids Songs, British Children's Songs, Children's Songs, Countries & Cultures, England, English, English Children's Songs, Languages, Questions, Readers Questions, United Kingdom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
April 13th, 2011 at 1:24 pm
I’m looking for this song, too! My mom was from Australia and used to sing it to her children.
July 11th, 2011 at 10:23 pm
I am 64, and like you, my mother used to say this poem to her children. Before she died she wrote a book on her family history and including the poems she said to us as children.
THE ACORN
A little brown baby, round and wee
With kind winds to rock him, slept up in a tree
And he grew and he grew’til I’m sorry to say
He fell right down from his cradle one day
Down from the treetops a very bad fall
But that dear little fellow was not hurt at all
And there he lies asleep in the grass
And there you will find him whenever you pass.
Another poem she used to say to us, which you may enjoy was “Tommy Sparrow”.
Tommy Sparrow was a rogue, always coming late
Eating worms in lesson time. talking to his mate
One fine morning Tommy said “Here’s a field of wheat
Let us stop and have some fun, It is nice and sweet”
Mrs Magpie at her desk had to wait and wait
‘Till just at ten the truants came, sixty minutes late
Mrs Magpie frowned at them, then she sternly said
“Not a bird shall leave this school until it’s time for bed”
Perhaps you saw them in the sky in the fading light
Flying very very fast home from school that night.
November 8th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Jewels wrote:
Im a little acorn brown
lying on the cocoa ground.
Everybody steps on me.
That is why im cracked you see.
I call myself on the telephone
just to hear my golden tone.
I ask myself how bout a date,
meet me at the corner half-past-eight.
Met myself at the picture show.
I put my arms around my waist,
I got so fresh I slapped my face!
Thanks Jewels… that’s cute!
November 8th, 2011 at 5:04 pm
Julia wrote:
I’m a little acorn brown lying on the cocoa ground everybody steps on me. That is why im cracked you see, “im a nut, im a nut”. call myself on the telephone just to hear my golden tone ask myself how about a date, meet me at the corner half past 8. I’m a nut…im a nut!!! set myself at the picture show sat myself in the very first row, I put my hands around my waist I – got so fresh I slapped my face I’m a nut!..im a nut!….
January 23rd, 2012 at 6:14 pm
That’s the one, Pamela. Thank you all :)
February 27th, 2012 at 9:03 am
Brenda,
I sang this song, “The Acorn” at a concert For the Sisters of Charity concert at Sacred Heart Darlinghurst Sydney, Australia when I was 8 or maybe even 7 in circa 1949. I had forgotten about it until, pleasantly, I came across your enquiry.
Regards,
John Arendse.
August 28th, 2013 at 1:24 pm
I was just sitting here with my grandson and a part of this song popped in my head out of the blue. My mom used to sing this song to me, she passed away 25 years ago. I couldn’t believe it when I googled 1 line of the song and it brought me to this website. How funny others have the same fond memory of their moms singing it…And thank you Lisa for posting the words!
May 14th, 2017 at 6:44 pm
Thank you for filling in the gaps to this nursery rhyme.
My Mom’s grandmother from New Orleans, sang it to her when she was little.
She remembers it being about a pecan.
they may have adapted to the south.
August 10th, 2017 at 8:01 pm
I remember singing The Acorn Song (I’m a little nut of brown etc.) at Girl Scout Camp. Your other Australian tune is unfamiliar. What I’d like to find is where the Acorn tune came from. It’s played by a street organ grinder in a Popeye cartoon! And also danced by Shirley Temple and Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson in the 1935 film THE LITTLEST REBEL. Probably folk origin.
(The lines about going to the movies resemble another pop song, “I Love Me.”)