Is 'Frère Jacques' about a lazy monk who won't get out of bed?
So goes the popular belief: that the French nursery rhyme 'Frère Jacques' is about a friar who has overslept and forgotten to ring the bells for the matins. The song dates, probably, to around 1780. Here are the lyrics to 'Frère Jacques'.
Frère Jacques English lyrics
Are you sleeping
Are you sleeping?
Brother John
Brother John?
Morning bells are ringing
Morning bells are ringing
Ding ding dong
Ding ding dong
Frère Jacques French lyrics
Frère Jacques
Frère Jacques
Dormez vous?
Dormez vous?
Sonnez les matines
Sonnez les matines
Ding ding dong
Ding ding dong
What is 'Frère Jacques' about?
The nursery rhyme tells a simple but charming story: a frère (friar) who has overslept, missing his duty to rise and ring the bells for les matines — the early morning prayers. In the original French, Jacques is scolded: “Sonnez les matines!” (Ring the bells!). But in the familiar English version, the bells are already ringing, and Jacques just needs to get out of bed. Why the shift? Purely for the flow — the English words fit the melody more smoothly this way, even if Jacques gets off the hook a little more easily!
Which classical work features the melody from 'Frère Jacques'?
Did you know that the Austrian composer Gustav Gustav Mahler's based the march in the third movement of his First Symphony on the 'Frère Jacques' melody? The idea was to depict a procession of animals attending a hunter’s funeral.
Picture this: the third movement of Mahler’s First Symphony begins not with grandeur, but with a ghostly nursery tune. It’s Frère Jacques — but utterly transformed. No longer the sunny children’s round, Mahler shifts it into a minor key, and suddenly we’re not in a playground, but at a funeral march. He imagines a strange, dreamlike procession of animals following a hunter’s coffin, their steps plodding to this warped lullaby.
Was this twist Mahler’s invention? Maybe not. In 19th-century Austria, the song was often sung in minor, under the name Bruder Martin. Either way, Mahler takes a melody every child knew and turns it inside out — playful and eerie, innocent and grotesque — the perfect expression of his peculiar sense of humour and melancholy.
Five more brilliant uses of 'Frère Jacques' in music
1. Dmitri Shostakovich Symphony No. 15 (1971)
Shostakovich slyly quotes Frère Jacques on the celesta, weaving it into a web of musical references that feels both playful and unsettling.
2. Charles Ives Symphony No. 2 (1901)
America’s great musical collagist Charles Ives slips fragments of Frère Jacques into his Second Symphony, a dense patchwork of hymns, marches, and folk tunes.
- We named Charles Ives among America's greatest composers
3. Joseph Haydn Symphony No. 94, 'Surprise'
While not a direct lift, Haydn reworks melodic contours reminiscent of Frère Jacques in the slow movement of his hugely popular 'Surprise' Symphony — a wink to folk familiarity.
4. Modern jazz arrangements
Jazz musicians from Kenny Clarke to Bud Shank have re-harmonised Frère Jacques, turning it into swinging, bebop-inflected improvisation material.
5. Popular culture
Animators and composers alike have used the tune as comic shorthand for “childlike” or “innocent,” smuggling it into soundtracks and background scores.
There are a couple of great Disney examples. For example, while not in the final film, outtakes and demo reels reveal animators and musicians riffing on Frère Jacques while developing comic interludes for The Lion King's Timon and Pumbaa. Elsewhere, in 2003's The Jungle Book 2, Baloo hums a playful variation of Frère Jacques in one scene, giving the lullaby a warm, comic spin.
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