“Sing a Song of Sixpence”

Cultural  

1. A nursery rhyme. It begins:

   Sing a song of sixpence,

   A pocketful of rye,

   Four-and-twenty blackbirds

   Baked in a pie.

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Example Sentences

While you've likely heard the nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence," with its "four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie," it would probably surprise you to find a bird's head peeking out of your fresh-from-the-oven dessert, whether or not it "began to sing" upon being sliced.

From Salon

“I shoot back, ‘We have resorted to eating our horses/Local merchants deny us equipment, assistance/They only take British money, so sing a song of sixpence.”

From Washington Times

Puns abound with the exuberant energy of a word-drunk writer: “Local merchants deny us equipment, assistance / They only take British money, so sing a song of sixpence.”

From The Guardian

The week prior, inscrutable paper leaflets had been stamped and shipped to some fans, embossed with the band’s toothy-bear logo and the words “Sing a song of sixpence that goes / Burn the Witch / We know where you live.”

From The New Yorker

Pitchfork reports that Radiohead fans in the UK received cryptic postcards on Friday, bearing an abstract image and the text “Sing a song of sixpence that goes/Burn the Witch,” followed by the even more menacing tagline “We know Where You Live.”

From Time