Why Would You Try to Tell a Star What to Do?

Oh folks, you’d just never believe how much I want to say about “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”! I will try to rein myself in, but it’s hard.

Let’s start with this whole idea of talking to or about stars in poetry or song lyrics. I’ll mention two famous ones here: First, John Keats’ poem “Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast As Thou Art” and, second, the song “Catch A Falling Star and Put It In Your Pocket.” (I was reminded of the gift that the Lady Galadriel gives to Frodo, the light of a literal star to put in his pocket: “In this phial,’ she said, ‘is caught the light of Eärendil’s star, set amid the waters of my fountain.” Later, the light from that star glass helps Sam and Frodo in their flight from and fight with the horrible Shelob: “Slowly his hand went to his bosom, and slowly he held aloft the Phial of Galadriel. For a moment it glimmered, faint as a rising star struggling in heavy earthward mists, and then as its power waxed, and hope grew in Frodo’s mind, it began to burn, and kindled to a silver flame.”)

There’s also a tradition of wishing upon a star, particularly the first star to come out in the evening. So, we have “When You Wish Upon a Star” from Disney’s Pinocchio and “Good Night, My Someone” from The Music Man, in which Amaryllis says that you have to say “good night” to your sweetheart on the evening star, but you have to say it as soon as you see it or it doesn’t count. I have no idea where this idea came from, and, once again, I need to restrain myself from a massive Google dive with the terms “star wish upon” or some such. Perhaps there are some mysteries that don’t need to be solved. (I think we all know that the “evening star” isn’t a star at all, but a planet: usually Venus but sometimes Mercury.)

Where does “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” fit into this galaxy of ideas? First, the star is addressed: “Go ahead and twinkle, star!” Sort of in the same league as “Shine on, harvest moon.” Nothing like telling a heavenly body what to do, I always say. (At least, this reading of “twinkle, twinkle” as being an imperative command is the way I’m interpreting this line. None of the commentaries I consulted addressed this issue. I guess the line could also read, “You’re a real twinkler,”) In this poem the star twinkles in order to give light, particularly to travelers. The poet doesn’t deal with why stars twinkle in the first place, probably didn’t know the reason, and probably wouldn’t have cared if she had known. But the star is mysterious: “How much I wonder what you actually are! You’re so far above the world, shining like a diamond.”

I was surprised to find out that these words are not some anonymous folk material but written by someone named Jane Taylor, who wrote a book of poetry called Rhymes for the Nursery, published in 1806. In 1838 the poem was first published with the tune in The Singing Master: First-Class Tune Book.

But what about that tune? It’s French and apparently anonymous, originally used for a poem titled “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman,” or “La Confidence,” in which a young woman confides in her maman about an incident in the woods when she meets up with a young man whom she’s been sighing over. He takes advantage of her weakness, saying, “If you wait too long, you will regret it.” And so, she “fell into his arms.” Nothing at all graphic here, but the story wasn’t considered fitting for children to sing, so a new version was written for the tune in which a child tells her mother that candy is better than logical reasoning. At that point the tune became associated with nursery rhymes and not with love poetry, so it was used for several others besides “Twinkle, Twinkle,” including the “Alphabet song” and “Baa-Baa Black Sheep.” For those of us who have struggled at one time or another with playing the piano, our clearest memories of this tune may come from the set of twelve fiendishly-difficult variations that Mozart wrote. I don’t think I ever got past the first five or six, as they get progressively more fiendish. Alas!

I can’t, of course, neglect to quote from the Lewis Carroll version of the poem. (You’re always safe quoting Lewis Carroll!) The Mad Hatter sings:

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.

(Why is the Hatter mad? Ah, that’s a whole other story, one which you will have to look up for yourself.)

And since we’re in Wonderland, perhaps you’ll indulge my including the parody of another song about stars, “Soup of the Evening,” sung by the Mock Turtle. The original is “Star of the Evening,” by someone named James M. Sayles, and I have a feeling that Carroll didn’t like him and/or his verse. Here’s the first stanza from Sayles:

Beautiful star in heav’n so bright ,
Softly falls thy silv’ry light,
As thou movest from earth afar,
Star of the evening, beautiful star,
Star of the evening, beautiful star.

But the Mock Turtle sings:

Beautiful soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen.
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful soup,
Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!

I have to include the last verse because of the funny rhyme:

Beautiful soup, Who cares for fish,
Game or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for twoP
ennyworth only of Beautiful Soup?

I originally sang an arrangement of this song in a concert back in the fall of 2017 with my beloved choir, the Cherry Creek Chorale, in a most unusually-themed program, “Starry, Starry Night.” No, it had nothing to do with Christmas–we did another concert in December. The arranger of our piece was Daniel Elder, a very young man, born in 1986, who has been writing compositions and winning awards since 2009. His version is gorgeous–and difficult. It’s a cappella, and we struggled mightily to stay on pitch. In the end it was very rewarding, though. And since I revised this article in October 2020 and so many in-person concerts had been cancelled (including ours), I’m using as the performance video a virtual choir version from a high school choir that does, as far as I can tell, stay on pitch: