Ms. Rachel recently appeared on the wildly popular podcast Subway Takes with Kareem Rahma, and she had no problem taking a bold stance. Ms. Rachel, whose full name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, is a popular YouTube star best known for creating the children’s series Songs for Littles.
On Subway Takes, Rahma asks his guests, “What’s your take?” and they share a deeply held opinion no matter how ridiculous or controversial it may be. Accurso came armed with five piping-hot takes, including a list of five nursery rhymes that should be “retired.”
What are the 5 nursery rhymes that Ms. Rachel wants retired?
The cat and her kittens
They put on their mittens,
To eat a Christmas pie.
The poor little kittens
They lost their mittens,
And then they began to cry.
“O mother dear, we sadly fear
We cannot go to-day,
For we have lost our mittens.”
“If it be so, ye shall not go,
For ye are naughty kittens.”
“Like, I feel like the three little kittens should not be denied the pie,” Accurso admits. “Three little kittens. They lost their mittens, and they began to cry, and then the mom’s like, ‘You naughty kittens, you can’t have any pie.’ And I feel like she can give them some strategies for not losing the mittens all the time. Like, I need strategies for not losing things all the time. And she could—they could retrace their steps together.”
“Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater”
Had a wife but couldn’t keep her;
He put her in a pumpkin shell,
And there he kept her very well.
“Okay. ‘Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater,’ I’m so against,” Accurso continues. “‘Had a wife but couldn’t keep her.’ So he kept her very well, like in a pumpkin shell. Like, he makes his wife; he keeps her in a pumpkin shell, and she, like, can’t get out. It’s not okay.”
Accurso then called out three more nursery rhymes for having racist roots.
Ms. Rachel called out 3 nursery rhymes for having racist roots
“Jimmy Crack Corn” was originally about an enslaved man named Jimmy, celebrating the death of his master after a Blue Tail Fly bit his horse and he was thrown to his death. The song was originally made popular after being performed in blackface minstrel shows and included the N-word in its lyrics.
Here’s an excerpt in which the singer, an enslaved person, sings about serving his master.
When I was young I us’d to wait
On Massa and hand him de plate;
Pass down de bottle when he git dry,
And bresh away de blue tail fly.
Jim crack corn I don’t care,
Ole Massa gone away.
This song, which helps teach counting, has appeared in many cultures with countless nonsensical phrases. The N-word was inserted into the song in the U.S. and Australia. Later, it was replaced by the word “tiger.”
Stephen Foster wrote it in 1848, and minstrel shows soon adopted it, translating the lyrics into a “Black” dialect. The song originally had racist lyrics that people no longer sing.
Ms. Rachel ends her take by reassuring people that if we retire these five nursery rhymes, children and parents will still have fun phrases to recite. “People are like, ‘What will we do?’ And I’m like, ‘You know how many wonderful nursery rhymes and kid songs exist, and there wasn’t a time when they were made, and that time’s over,’” she said. “We can make new ones. Like, it’s okay.”
