There Was an Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket
An old woman flies to the moon on a broom to sweep the cobwebs from the sky
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Arrangement: Ian J. Watts / Mike Wilbury · Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks
Lyrics
There was an old woman tossed up in a basket,
Seventeen times as high as the moon,
Where she was going, I could not but ask it,
For in her hands she carried a broom.
"Old woman, old woman, old woman," quoth I,
"O whither, O whither, O whither so high?"
"To sweep the cobwebs from the sky,
But I'll be with thee by-and-by."
There was an old woman tossed up in a basket,
Seventeen times as high as the moon,
Where she was going, I just had to ask it,
For in her hands she carried a broom.
"Old woman, old woman, old woman," said I,
"Please tell me, please tell me why you're up so high?"
"To sweep the cobwebs down from the sky,
And I'll be with thee by-and-by."
By-and-by, by-and-by, by-and-by, by-and-by...
Traditional lyrics — public domain. Arrangement © Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks.
History & Background
History & Origin
"There Was an Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket" is one of the older English nursery rhymes, with versions appearing in print as early as the late seventeenth century. The image at its heart is wonderfully strange: an old woman, seventeen times as high as the moon, carrying a broom — not to fly on in the manner of a witch, but simply to sweep the cobwebs from the sky, as one might clear a ceiling.
The rhyme has the structure of a brief exchange: the narrator calls up to ask where she is going, and she explains her mission in two matter-of-fact lines before promising to return. There is something charming about her practicality — the sky evidently needs sweeping, and she is the one to do it.
The phrase "by-and-by," which ends the song, is an old English expression meaning in due time or soon. It gives the rhyme a gentle, open-ended quality: she will be back, eventually, once the cobwebs are done. This recording makes the most of that lingering quality, letting the final refrain fade into something almost dreamlike.
