There Was a Jolly Miller Lyrics
A miller on the river Dee works and sings from morning till night, merrier than a lark, and his song says he cares for nobody because nobody cares for him. It is a nine-line song with a nonsense line near the end.
There Was a Jolly Miller
There was a jolly miller
Lived on the river Dee:
He worked and sung from morn till night,
No lark so blithe as he,
And this the burden of his song
For ever used to be -
I jump mejerrime jee!
I care for nobody - no! not I,
Since nobody cares for me.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/there-was-a-jolly-miller/
- Type
- Mother Goose
- Tune
- Sung with a swinging, working rhythm, then a quick shout at the nonsense line
- Best for ages
- 3 to 9 years
What Does There Was a Jolly Miller Mean?
The first two lines set the scene: a jolly miller (a man who grinds grain into flour at a mill) lived on the river Dee. The rest of the song says he worked and sang from morning to night, and "no lark so blithe as he". Blithe means cheerful and carefree, and the skylark is the bird everyone knows for singing as it flies. The comparison is saying he was the happiest singer around.
Then comes the burden of the song. In an old song, the burden is the refrain that comes round again and again. The miller's burden begins with a nonsense phrase, "I jump mejerrime jee", which the old collection does not explain, and then it ends: "I care for nobody, no! not I, since nobody cares for me." Said cheerfully, this is a shrug rather than a sad line: he is happy to go his own way.
There are several rivers called Dee, in Scotland, Wales and England, so the song could belong to any of them.
History and Origin
James Orchard Halliwell printed these nine lines in his collection of English nursery rhymes. Robert Ford's Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories (1904) describes a ring game of the same name, with different words: the players walk round in couples, the miller stands in the middle, and when the singers reach the word "grab" everyone must change partners while the miller tries to seize one of them.
Learning Activities
- Mill wheel: turn your arms in big circles, like the wheel of a mill, to the beat of the first lines.
- Lark and miller: half of the group sings like a lark, high and quick, and half works like the miller with slow, heavy hands.
- Flour play: let the children rub a spoonful of flour between their fingers and say what a mill makes from grain.
- Shout the nonsense: everyone says 'mejerrime jee' together in as many different voices as they can.