"Rain, Rain, Go Away" is a popular

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to t ...

nursery rhyme A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes. From ...

. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19096.

Lyrics

There are few versions and variations of this rhyming couplet. The most common modern version is: :Rain, rain, go away, :Come again another day.I. Opie and P. Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 360.

Origins

Similar rhymes can be found in many societies, including

ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

and

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. The modern English language rhyme can be dated to at least to the 17th century when James Howell in his collection of proverbs noted: :Rain rain go to Spain: fair weather come again. A version very similar to the modern version was noted by

John Aubrey John Aubrey (12 March 1626 – 7 June 1697) was an English antiquarian, antiquary, Natural philosophy, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the ''Brief Lives'', his collection of short biographical pieces. ...

in 1687 as used by "little children" to "charm away the Rain...": :Rain Rain go away, :Come again on Saturday. A wide variety of alternatives have been recorded including: "Midsummer day", "washing day", "Christmas Day" and "Martha's wedding day". In the mid-19th century

James Orchard Halliwell James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (born James Orchard Halliwell; 21 June 1820 – 3 January 1889) was an English Shakespearean scholar, antiquarian, and a collector of English nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Life The son of Thomas Halliwell ...

collected and published the version: :Rain, rain, go away :Come again another day :Little Arthur wants to play. In a book from the late 19th century, the lyrics are as follows: :Rain, Rain, :Go away; :Come again, :April day; :Little Johnny wants to play. A. Beljame, "First English Reader" (Paris, France: Librairie Hachhete, 1882), p.109.

Notes

{{Reflist Songs about weather English children's songs English nursery rhymes English folk songs Traditional children's songs