Solomon Grundy
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For other uses, see Solomon Grundy (disambiguation).
| "Solomon Grundy" Roud #19299 |
|
| Written by | Traditional |
|---|---|
| Published | 1842 |
| Written | England |
| Language | English |
| Form | Nursery rhyme |
"Solomon Grundy" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19299.
Contents |
[edit] Lyrics
The rhyme has varied very little since it was first collected by James Orchard Halliwell and published in 1842 with the lyrics:
- Solomon Grundy,
- Born on a Monday,
- Christened on Tuesday,
- Married on Wednesday,
- Took ill on Thursday,
- Grew worse on Friday,
- Died on Saturday,
- Buried on Sunday.
- That was the end,
- Of Solomon Grundy.[1]
[edit] In popular culture
- The DC Comics character Solomon Grundy, a large, strong zombie supervillain, invented as an adversary for the Green Lantern in 1944, and also a foe of Batman, was named after this nursery rhyme.[2] In the 2011 video game Batman: Arkham City, the character recites several lines of the poem before his battle with Batman.
- Comic artist and writer Kaori Yuki wrote a short story centered around the poem using characters from her series God Child, which was published at the end of book five.[3]
- The poet Philippe Soupault adapted this rhyme and called it "The Life of Philippe Soupault".[4]
- Director David FincherDavid Fincher has a film adaptation of "Solomon Grundy" planned, but delayed it due to similarities between its story and the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.[5]
- The name and structure of Ian McDonald's science fiction novella "The Days of Solomon Gursky" (Asimov's Science Fiction June 1998, reprinted in Mike Ashley's 2006 anthology The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction)[6] is based on the nursery rhyme. The title character (his name coincides with Mordecai Richler's 1989 novel Solomon Gursky Was Here) invents a way to resurrect the dead using nanotechnology, developed in McDonald's 1994 novel Necroville. The spin-off novella consists of seven episodical chapters (titled after the days of the week) showing in increasing intervals Gursky's life from the early 21st century through the posthuman future in space to the end of the universe when he constructs a Tipler machine to be reborn.
- The Bluetones song "Solomon Bites the Worm" (1998) was based on this nursery rhyme.
- The premiere of Sesame Street (air date November 10, 1969) features a Solomon Grundy cartoon in which he washes only one part of the left half of his body each day. At the end of the week Solomon is still "half dirty."[7]
- The Pogues song "Billy's Bones" from the 1985 album Rum Sodomy & the Lash includes a rendition of this nursery rhyme.[8]
- The Skavoovie and the Epitones song "Solomon Gundy" uses this rhyme as its lyrics.
- Detroit rapper Blaze Ya Dead Homie borrowed the name Grundy for his alias "Colton Grundy" and released the CD Colton Grundy: The Undying where he mentions Solomon Grundy on the track "Timeline."
- Cedric Bixler-Zavala, vocalist for The Mars Volta, listed this rhyme amongst the influences for the band's sixth album Noctourniquet. He did also incorporated its rendition into some of the live performances.
- The first charted hit for Crash Test Dummies, Superman's Song, includes the refrain, "Superman never made any money / for saving the world from Solomon Grundy." However, the band's lead singer, Brad Roberts, has made clear[9] that he was referring to the comic-book character of the same name, not the nursery rhyme.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 394-5.
- ^ M. Conroy, 500 Comicbook Villains (Collins & Brown, 2004), p. 262.
- ^ Kaori Yuki, Godchild, vol 5 (VIZ Media LLC, 2007).
- ^ Stewart, Susan, Nonsense: Aspects of Intertextuality in Folklore and Literature, Johns Hopkins, 1979, p. 191. ISBN 0-8018-2258-0.
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421715/trivia
- ^ The Days of Solomon Gursky publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- ^ http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_0001
- ^ http://www.poguetry.com/rsl.htm
- ^ "Crash Test Dummies FAQ". Crashtestdummies.com. 1999-03-23. http://www.crashtestdummies.com/faq/index.html#grundy. Retrieved 2010-12-30.
