Origin Stories: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

Artificial Star Lights

I’m fortunate to live in an area with little light pollution. I’ve stood beneath the night sky for years, trying to make sense of the stars—struggling to identify the constellations and making best guesses at the planets when the media outlets told me I should see them. Maybe it's my inability to understand the stars that has me endlessly fascinated by them, and I know I’m not the only one.

Nursery rhymes frequently have underlying meanings, and as I was pondering stories for this series, I thought of many famous ones, like how Ring Around the Rosie may or may not be linked to the bubonic plague and how Humpty Dumpty is actually England’s King Richard III. All the hidden context in seemingly benign stories made me curious if “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” was really about a star.

Apparently, the origins of the story are more confounded than one might expect; the verse is actually part of a larger poem by sisters Jane Taylor in the early 1800s. Jane frequently collaborated with her sister Ann, and their original work is often confused with each other’s. According to Ann’s autobiography, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” came from Jane, who frequently wrote about nature while Ann wrote about life itself. 

The full poem was titled “The Star” and can be read at poetryfoundation.org. It was first published in 1806 as part of a collection of poems by Jane and Ann Taylor entitled Rhymes for the Nursery. An alternative version can be found in the 1896 collection Song Stories for the Kindergarten by Mildred J. Hill, which is equally as long, but only the first verse remains well-known and unchanged. Many people have speculated on the hidden meaning of the lullaby on various forums, attributing the star to an idea or God, but as far as I can tell, the poem really is just about a star. Although never officially named in the poem, I always attributed it to the North Star for no other reason than it being the most recognizable star in the sky.

As for the melody itself, it comes from the 1761 French tune “Ah! vous dirai-je, maman,” which Mozart and 11 other composers created variations of in a 1785 collection under the same name. The French tune has its own fascinating history, being a parody of another French poem. Today, even people who haven't heard “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” might recognize the melody, as it’s also the melody of other famous children's songs like “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” and the Alphabet song. 

I had no idea that there were more lyrics to “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and I must admit, I like that it’s just about a star. Bewilderment over the night sky is timeless. I can look up and wonder about the stars just as Jane Taylor did over 200 years ago. In 200 more years, someone else will look up at the stars and probably wonder about them too.