Tune Req: 1234567, All Good Children Go to Heaven

01 Aug 16 - 07:40 PM (#3803103)
Subject: 1-2-3-4-6-7, All Good Children Go to Heaven
From: Jack Horntip

Can you identify this tune?


https://www.dropbox.com/s/pluws5nrpcielkj/1-2-3-4-5-6-7_all_good_children_go_to_heaven.mp3?dl=0


The recording is of a 76 year old man.   He learned this as a child in Saint Louis in the 1940s

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
All good children go to heaven
When they get there they do yell
I would rather be in hell

Any help identifying the tune is appreciated.

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04 Sep 16 - 11:52 PM (#3808403)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: TUNE(?): 123467, All Good Children...
From: Jack Horntip

I find a jump rope rhyme here:

http://mudcat.org/jumprope/jumprope_display.cfm?rhyme_number=209

No indication of a tune.

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05 Sep 16 - 02:01 AM (#3808409)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: TUNE(?): 123467, All Good Children...
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch

When the teacher was listening:

1-2-3-4-5-6-7
All good children go to heaven;
When (he/she) gets there
The angels will say,
Yes, >name< right this way!

Or not:

1-2-3-4-5-6-7
All good children go to heaven;
8-9-10-11-12
All bad children go to hell.


Pretty common at least back to the teens or 1920s. Probably much-much older.

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05 Sep 16 - 03:40 AM (#3808415)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: TUNE(?): 123467, All Good Children...
From: Snuffy

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
All good children go to heaven
When they die
Put 'em in a pie
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

This was a skipping/playground rhyme when I was a kid in NW England in the early 1950s

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05 Sep 16 - 10:01 PM (#3808545)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: TUNE(?): 123467, All Good Children...
From: Rapparee

My great-great Aunt Tillie used to sing it, or rather, the first two lines. This was in the early 1950s, when she would have been 80 or so. I suspect she learned it when she was young; she was born in 1873.

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03 Jan 23 - 09:42 AM (#4161149)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: TUNE(?): 123467, All Good Children...
From: Jack Horntip

This rhyme and variants can be found on page 202 of Games and Songs of American Children by William Wells Newell. Published in 1883.

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26 Jan 25 - 08:46 PM (#4216028)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: TUNE(?): 123467, All Good Children...
From: Jack Horntip

1,2,3,4,5,6,7;
All good children go to heaven;
When they get there, they will yell,
"All the rest can go to hell."

1954. Supplement 4 on Grant County, Indiana Dialect by W.L.McAtee. p.3.

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27 Jan 25 - 12:13 AM (#4216030)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: TUNE(?): 1234567, All Good Children...
From: Joe Offer

Here's how the Beatles sing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lgR20zh7y0

It's from "You Never Give Me Your Money" on the Abbey Road album: https://youtu.be/BpndGZ71yww?t=188

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10 Mar 25 - 12:54 PM (#4218794)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: TUNE(?): 1234567, All Good Children...
From: Jack Horntip

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
All good children go to heaven.
When you get there, God will say
"Where's that book you stole away?"
If you say, "I don't know"
He will send you down below
Where everything is red hot peppers!       (* Calls fast turning *)

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
All good children go to heaven.
When you get there, the angels say
"{schoolname} children, right this way."   (* Name your school *)

Source: Abrahams (1969)

Retrieved from here: https://mudcat.org/jumprope/jumprope_display_all.cfm


The "book you stole away" is part of a "don't steal this book"
admonition sometimes written in the front of a book so that people
will not take it.

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16 Mar 25 - 07:11 AM (#4219207)
Subject: RE: Tune Req: 1234567, All Good Children Go to Heaven
From: The Doctor

I heard the first part, when I was a small child, from my mother, but I don't know if I heard the second part as well, or just made it up. Either way it owes something to Mae West

1-2-3-4-5-6-7 All good children go to heaven
7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Naughty children have more fun

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