I'm a Little Teapot

"I'm a Little Teapot"
sheet music cover
Song by George Harry Sanders and Clarence Kelley
Released	1939
Format	Sheet music
Genre	Children's music
Label	Kelman Music Corporation

"I'm a Little Teapot", is an American song describing the heating and pouring of a teapot or a whistling tea kettle, which also has a spout but would be used to pour hot water onto tea bags or a tea ball filled with loose tea leaves. The song was originally written by George Harold Sanders and Clarence Z. Kelley and published in 1939.^[1]

Creation

Clarence Kelley and his wife ran a dance school for children, which taught the "Waltz Clog", a popular and easy-to-learn tap dance routine. This routine, however, proved too difficult for the younger students to master. To solve this problem, George Sanders wrote The Teapot Song, which required minimal skill and encouraged natural pantomime. Both the song and its accompanying dance, the "Teapot Tip", became enormously popular in America and overseas.^[2]

See also

• American tea culture
• Tea for Two (song), an earlier North American song referring to tea, from 1925

References

Nursery rhymes (list)
"A-Tisket, A-Tasket" "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" "Did You Ever See a Lassie?" "Hey Diddle Diddle" "Hickory Dickory Dock" "Hot Cross Buns" "Humpty Dumpty" "I'm a Little Teapot" "It's Raining, It's Pouring" "Jack and Jill" "Little Bo Peep" "Little Boy Blue" "Little Miss Muffet" "Mary Had a Little Lamb" "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" "Old King Cole" "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" "Old Mother Hubbard" "Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" "Peter Piper" "Polly Put the Kettle On" "Poor Mary" "Pop Goes the Weasel" "Pussy Cat Pussy Cat" "Rain Rain Go Away" "Roses Are Red" "Rub-a-dub-dub" "Simple Simon" "Sticks and Stones" "The Grand Old Duke of York" "The Queen of Hearts" "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" "Two Little Dickie Birds"
Clapping	"A Sailor Went to Sea" "Down Down Baby" "Mary Mack" "Miss Susie" "Miss Lucy" "Pat-a-cake" "Pretty Little Dutch Girl" "Pease Porridge Hot"
Counting	"Duck, duck, goose" "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" "One, Two, Three, Four, Five" "This Old Man" "Tinker, Tailor"
Finger- plays	"Five Little Monkeys" "Itsy Bitsy Spider" "Little Robin Redbreast" "Round and round the garden" "This Little Piggy"
Games	"London Bridge" "The Muffin Man" "Mulberry Bush" "Oranges and Lemons" "Ring a Ring o' Roses" "The Farmer in the Dell"
Riddle	"As I was going to St Ives"
Lullabies	"Hush, Little Baby" "Rock-a-bye Baby"
Rounds	"Ding Dong Bell" "Frère Jacques" "Kookaburra" "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" "Scotland's Burning" "Three Blind Mice"