You know the one. It starts with a fly and ends with a horse, and somewhere in the middle, a woman is consuming a bird to catch a spider that was busy "wriggling and jiggling and tickling" inside her. It's objectively gross. It's weirdly dark. Yet, the i know an old lady who swallowed a fly song remains a staple of childhood, campfire sing-alongs, and elementary school music rooms. Why? Honestly, it’s because humans are suckers for a good cumulative rhyme, even if that rhyme involves a slow-motion biological disaster.
The song isn't just a random bit of nonsense. It has a history that stretches back further than the 1950s recordings most of us grew up with. It’s a piece of folklore, a lesson in logic (or the lack thereof), and a masterclass in how to build tension using nothing but repetitive lyrics and a slightly morbid sense of humor.
Where did this lady come from anyway?
Most people think this is just a generic "old" song, like it fell out of the sky in the Middle Ages. Not really. While the exact origins are a bit fuzzy—as is the case with most folk traditions—the version we recognize today is largely credited to Rose Bonne, who wrote the lyrics, and Alan Mills, a Canadian folk singer who composed the music around 1952.
It wasn't an instant global phenomenon. It took a bit of time to percolate through the folk scene. Burl Ives, the guy who voiced Sam the Snowman in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, eventually recorded it and turned it into a massive hit. His version is the one that really cemented the "Perhaps she'll die" refrain into the collective consciousness of several generations. It’s a blunt line. Kids love it. Adults find it a little jarring if they actually stop to think about the lyrics.
But Rose Bonne and Alan Mills weren't working in a vacuum. The song belongs to a tradition of "cumulative songs." Think of The Twelve Days of Christmas or The Green Grass Grew All Around. These songs work by stacking information. You learn one line, then you repeat it, then you add a new one. It’s a memory game. For a kid, successfully reciting the entire chain of animals from the fly all the way up to the cow is a genuine cognitive win.
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The bizarre logic of the food chain
If you look at the i know an old lady who swallowed a fly song through a scientific lens, it’s a total train wreck. Biologically speaking, swallowing a spider to catch a fly makes a sort of twisted sense in a vacuum, but the escalation is where the "old lady" loses the plot.
- The Fly: Probably a common housefly (Musca domestica). Harmless, mostly.
- The Spider: To catch the fly. This is where the song gets famous for the "wriggled and jiggled" line.
- The Bird: To catch the spider. Usually depicted as a small songbird.
- The Cat: To catch the bird. Now we're in the realm of domestic pets.
- The Dog: To catch the cat. This is where the physical impossibility starts to set in.
- The Goat: To catch the dog. Just... why?
- The Cow: To catch the goat.
- The Horse: The finale.
The absurdity is the point. You're not supposed to think, "Wow, what a clever pest control solution." You're supposed to laugh at the sheer stupidity of the escalation. It’s a cautionary tale about trying to fix a small problem with a larger, more complex problem until the original issue is completely buried under a mountain of new disasters. It’s basically a metaphor for every bad project management decision ever made.
Why we can't stop singing it
Musicologists often point to the rhythm of the song as the reason it sticks in the brain. It has a driving, repetitive beat that mimics the frantic energy of the old lady’s situation. When you sing it, the pace usually quickens as the list of animals gets longer. You're racing against the song itself.
There’s also the "refrain" factor. Every verse ends with "I don't know why she swallowed the fly / Perhaps she'll die." This creates a "hook." In pop music terms, that's the money maker. It provides a sense of resolution before the next verse starts the build-up all over again.
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Different versions for different folks
Because it’s a folk song, the lyrics aren't set in stone. In some versions, she swallows a "tick" instead of a fly. In some British versions, the "dog" is replaced by something else entirely. There are also "moral" versions where she doesn't actually die at the end, though those always feel a bit like a cop-out. The original punchline—"She's dead, of course!"—is what gives the song its bite. It’s the ultimate "I told you so."
Artist Simms Taback won a Caldecott Honor for his 1997 illustrated version of the song. His book used die-cut holes so you could actually see the growing collection of animals inside the lady's stomach. It turned a morbid folk song into a visual feast (pun intended). It’s arguably the most famous visual representation of the song, and it helped introduce the story to a whole new generation of kids who weren't necessarily listening to 1950s folk records.
The psychological appeal of the macabre
We have to talk about the death aspect. Why do we teach kids a song about a woman dying from animal ingestion?
Childhood experts like Vivian Paley have noted that children use stories to process big, scary concepts like death and consequences in a safe environment. The old lady isn't a "real" person. She’s a caricature. By singing about her demise in a silly, rhythmic way, kids get to poke at the concept of mortality without being overwhelmed by it. It’s the same reason Grimm’s Fairy Tales are so violent or why Humpty Dumpty is about a traumatic head injury.
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It’s dark humor for the playground set.
Actionable ways to use the song today
If you're a parent, teacher, or just someone who wants to keep this weird tradition alive, don't just play a YouTube video. The song is meant to be interactive.
- Build a Prop: Use a tissue box or a milk carton as the "Old Lady" and have kids drop toy animals or drawings into her "mouth" as you sing.
- The Logic Game: Ask kids what she should have done. It’s a great way to start a conversation about problem-solving. If you have a fly in the house, do you swallow a spider, or do you just open a window?
- Write a New Verse: The world has changed since the 1950s. What would a modern old lady swallow? A drone to catch a kite? A smartphone to catch a... well, you get the idea.
- Focus on the Adjectives: Use the song to teach descriptive language. The spider "wriggled and jiggled." What does the cat do? What about the goat? Encourage kids to come up with their own alliterative verbs for each animal.
The i know an old lady who swallowed a fly song survives because it’s fun to say, fun to hear, and just the right amount of wrong. It reminds us that sometimes, the "cure" is much worse than the disease—especially if the cure is a horse.
To get the most out of this classic, try singing it as a round or increasing the tempo with each animal until the final "She's dead, of course!" becomes a breathless punchline. Use the song as a memory exercise for young children by letting them fill in the blanks of the sequence, which helps develop narrative recall and auditory processing skills.