Bye, baby Bunting

"Bye, baby Bunting"
Roud #11018
Song
Written	England
Published	1784
Form	Nursery rhyme
Writer(s)	Traditional
Language	English

'Bye, baby Bunting' is a popular English-language nursery rhyme and lullaby.  Play  It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 11018.

Lyrics

The most common modern version is:

Bye, baby Bunting,

Daddy’s gone a-hunting,

Gone to get a rabbit skin

To wrap the baby Bunting in.^[1]

Origins

The term bunting is a term of endearment that may also imply 'plump'.^[1] The earliest published version was published in Gammer Gurton's Garland or The Nursery Parnassus in England in 1784.^[1] A version in Songs for the Nursery 1805 had the longer lyrics:

Bye, baby Bunting,

Father's gone a-hunting,

Mother's gone a-milking,

Sister's gone a-silking,

Brother's gone to buy a skin

To wrap the baby Bunting in.^[1]

In popular culture

• The rhyme was illustrated by the British artist, Randolph Caldecott (1846–86).
• The dystopian novel Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley contains the adapted reference 'Bye baby Banting, soon you'll need decanting'.
• In "Further Tales of the City" (1982) by Armistead Maupin, Jim Jones sings 'Bye, Baby Bunting' to DeDe's half-Chinese twins, Edgar and Anna. The song is a major leitmotif in both the book and the tv adaptation of 2001.
• A mysterious man summoned during an incantation gone awry in the urban fantasy novel The Magicians (2009) by Lev Grossman recites the rhyme shortly before vanishing again.
• "Each Peach, Pear, Plum" by Janet & Allan Ahlberg includes Baby Bunting as one of the characters "I spy".
• In "The Good, The Bad and the Queen" project, Damon Albarn sings "Bye, baby bunting" in "The Bunting Song".
• A variation of the song appeared frequently in the Dark Tower books by Stephen King.
• It was featured on The Walking Dead. The song was arranged by Bear McCreary and performed by Raya Yarbrough.^[2]
• It was featured in the book "Daddy's Gone A-Hunting" by Mary Higgins Clark.
• It was featured in the title of the 1925 film Daddy's Gone A-Hunting
• It was featured in the title of the 1969 film Daddy's Gone A-Hunting
• It was featured in Phantom 2040 in the episode "Ghost in the machine".
• It is also featured in the independent Canadian horror classic Black Christmas (1974), as sung by the killer living in the attic of an all-girl sorority house.
• In Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre episode Rumpelstiltskin the queen played by Duvall is singing the song while rocking her child.

Notes

1. I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 63.
2. http://www.bearmccreary.com/#blog/the-walking-dead/the-walking-dead-made-to-suffer/