I've been meaning to mention Bernard's 27 Sep 09 - 04:02 PM post in which he gave the example of a "last night the night before" rhyme that featured "three tom cats".

Iremember singing a jump rope rhyme that was similar to that:

Last night the night before
twenty five robbers at my door.
I got up to let them in.
and this is what they said to me
Lady bird, lady bird
turn all around around around
Lady bird, lady bird
touch the ground the ground, the ground
Lady bird, lady bird
say your prayers, your prayers, your prayers
Lady bird, lady bird
step right OUT!
-Azizi, New Jersey, 1950s

-snip-

Notice that I don't remember saying the word knocking.The number of robbers that I remember probably is a result of folk etymology, since most of the versions that mention robbers number them as 24.


-snip-

For whatever reasons, versions of this rhyme feature lots of different characters besides 3 tom cats and 25 robbers knocking on somebody's door. Here are a list of characters that are mentioned in Mudcat's thread on Not Last Night But The Night Before (also known as "Last Night,[and] The Night Before") rhymes:

24 robbers
3 old tomcats
2 tomcats
3 witches
3 wee witches
3 black cats
3 wee monkeys
3 little pigs
2 jackasses
a lemon and a pickle   

[My apologies if I overlooked some examples.]


-snip-

There's also a version of the rhyme that is mentioned in that thread which features 3 little n****r boys. The person who shared that example indicated in a subsequent post to that thread that "I wouldn't dream of performing it at all nowadays nor of teaching it to kids, but when we were kids it was just a rhyme and meant as little to us as all the other versions."

I think that it's appropriate to document such rhymes & songs for the folkloric record, but I'm glad that we are moving beyond the use of such referents.

**

A summary of Stephen King's book Tommyknockers that is found at http://listing-index.ebay.com/movies/The_Tommyknockers.html includes the informational tidbit that the book's title comes from an old children's rhyme:

"Late last night and the night before, Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers knocking at my door, :I want to go out, don't know if I can, :'Cause I'm so afraid of the Tommyknocker man!"...

-snip-

http://finalgravity.blogspot.com/2007/12/mash-tommyknocker-brewery.html provides this information on "tommyknockers": "The Tommyknocker name comes from the knocking on the mine walls that happens just before cave-ins - actually the creaking of earth and timbers before giving way. To some of the miners, the knockers were malevolent spirits and the knocking was the sound of them hammerings at walls and supports to cause the cave-in. To others, who saw them as essentially well-meaning practical jokers, the knocking was their way of warning the miners that a life-threatning collapse was imminent".