The dark history of nursery rhymes

Many of the songs we sing to our children are hundreds of years old, with their original meanings obscured by history. In this episode, producer Leila Battison takes Dallas on a dark, surprising journey through history’s most famous nursery rhymes and lullabies, and up through the “Baby Sharks” and “Happy Songs” of today. Along the way, they share the songs they’ve made up for their own children, and explore why this music is just as important to parents as it is to kids.

Sign up for Twenty Thousand Hertz+ to get our entire catalog ad-free.
If you know what this week's mystery sound is, tell us at mystery.20k.org.
Follow Dallas on Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn.
Watch our video shorts on YouTube, and join the discussion on Reddit and Facebook.
Find the right doctor, right now at zocdoc.com/20k.
Claim your $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/hertz.
Follow Leila’s channel Science Baby on TikTok, Youtube, Instagram, and Facebook.
Enable episode notifications & automatic downloads on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Five Twenty Thousand Hertz episodes that kids would love:

Space Remix (Apple/Spotify)

Minecraft (Apple/Spotify)

Sound 101 with Bill Nye (Apple/Spotify)

Tyrannosaurus FX (Apple/Spotify)

Songbugs (Apple/Spotify)

Episode transcript, music, and credits can be found here: https://www.20k.org/episodes/nurseryrhymes
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices