In a previous post, I surveyed the history of the American song, “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” and the British song, “Ten Green Bottles Hanging on the Wall.” Both songs were apparently based on an earlier, American song, “Forty-Nine Blue Bottles Hanging on the Wall,” which sometimes started at “ninety-nine” and was sometimes about “green” bottles.
The songs do not, on their face, explain the significance of “Blue Bottles” (or “green” bottles), or why or how bottles might be “hanging on the wall.” And when I published the post, I had not found any other “smoking gun” explaining the significance.
Nevertheless, based on references to “blue bottles” from the time period in which the song first appeared in print, I speculated that the song may have originally referred to either “blue-bottle” flies or blue (or green) glass, hand grenade fire extinguishers.
See my earlier post, “Blue Bottles, Green Bottles and Flies - a History of ‘Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall,’” https://esnpc.blogspot.com/2022/10/blue-bottles-green-bottles-and-flies.html.
No. 41. BLUE BOTTLE
The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology, London, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1836, Plate 18 and page 106.
“Blue-bottle” flies are flying insects, similar to common house flies but slightly larger. Like most insects, the flies can hang on walls. During that period, there were even references to playing a game of shooting blue-bottle flies off the wall.
Manual of the Panorama of the Battle of Shiloh, Michigan Avenue, between Madison and Monroe Streets, Chicago, A. T. Andreas, 1885.
“Hand grenade” fire extinguishers were “blue,” “green” or “bluish green” bottles, filled with fire-suppressing chemicals, which were supposed to extinguish the flames when thrown into a fire.
They were frequently hung on walls, to be at the ready for use in an emergency, or where they might break in the heat, automatically releasing their chemicals into a fire.
The Graphic (London), December 12, 1885, page 26.
I have since become aware of references suggesting that at least some people singing the song specifically believed they were singing about the fire extinguishers hanging on a wall. And further digging uncovered a predecessor song, more obviously about blue-bottle flies. So both speculations were correct, depending on the time, place and version of the song.
Blue-Bottle Fire Extinguishers
Shortly after posting the piece, an alert reader, Garson O’Toole (the “Quote Investigator” (quoteinvestigator.com) and author of “Hemingway Didn’t Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations) unearthed a citation from 1924, referring back to an incident in 1903, suggesting that at least some people at the time believed they were singing about blue-bottle hand grenades.
In July, 1903, I attended the Ohio State Association Convention, held at Toledo [Ohio].
. . . The Toledo Convention began with the Blue Bottle song, which lasted for several years and was never concluded. It started on an evening trolley ride with “Ninety-nine blue bottles hanging on the wall . . . . They were the fire extinguisher bottles so commonly used in those days. . . . .
“The Glazing Globe,” The Painters’ Magazine and Paint and Wall Paper Dealer, November 1924, page 39.
This is the single reference I have found making an explicit connection between blue bottle hand grenades and the song. However, as discussed in my earlier post, the timing of the first appearances of the song, the colors of the bottles (blue or green) and the detail of “hanging on the wall” are all consistent with blue or green, glass bottle hand grenade fire extinguishers being the title bottles hanging on the wall in the American version of the song from 1884.
Blue-Bottle Flies
Borrowing new search terms (“blue bottle song”) suggested by the new reference unearthed by Garson O’Toole, and following new leads suggested by results of that and subsequent searches, I eventually ran across references to an earlier, similar song about “blue-bottle” flies. It’s not the same song, but it appears to be the immediate predecessor of the “blue bottle” song that appeared in the United States in 1884.
The song begins at a low number, generally three, and counts down and then up. The “blue bottles” do not hang on a wall, but rather “sat on a mile-stone.” And they are not “taken away,” they “fly away” - almost certainly a reference to the insect, not a glass bottle.
Two blue-bottles, two blue-bottles,
Two blue-bottles sat on a mile-stone -
One flew away, and then
One blue-bottle, one blue-bottle,
One blue-bottle sat on a mile-stone -
Two more came, and then,
Three blue-bottles, three blue-bottles,
Three blue-bottles sat on a mile-stone, &c &c.
Adeline; or, Mysteries, Romance, and Realities of Jewish Life, Volume II, London, Partridge, Oakey, & Co, 1854, page 194.
The song appears to have been at least a few years older. A singer named Mr. Balster sang the song in 1849, at a dinner celebrating a “ploughing match” of the Sherborne Agricultural Society in Dorset County, England.
Sung by Mr. Balster - Three Blue Bottles upon the mile stone.
The Western Flying Post, Sherborne and Yeovil Mercury, February 24, 1849, page 3.
Mr. Napier Kelly sang the song at the “Penny Readings” in Great Chesterford, Essex in 1868.
The Cambridge Chronicle and University Journal, Isle of Ely Herald, and Huntingdonshire Gazette, December 19, 1868, page 6.
The song appeared in print in North America in 1869, in a book by a native Nova Scotian named James De Mille. The book was published in Boston, but the action of the book takes place in Blomidon, Nova Scotia.
James De Mille, The “B. O. W. C.” A Book For Boys, Boston, Lee and Shepard, 1869, pages 59 and 60.
In 1894, Dorothy Drew, the four year-old granddaughter of the former Prime Minister Gladstone, sang the song in 1894. She was singing to a reporter on the occasion of Margaret Tennant’s marriage to the Home Secretary (and future Prime Minister), H. H. Asquith.
“Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone and grandchild, Dorothy Drew, Hawarden” (Wikimedia).
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:W_E_Gladstone_and_Dorothy_Drew.jpg
“Shall I sing you one of grandad’s songs?” asked Miss Dorothy. “Please do.” Then came in high notes -
This accompanied by a clap of hands and a merry laugh which set the pretty flaxen curls all shaking.
Westminster Budget (London), May 25, 1894, page 27 .
Someone sang what may have been the same song at a concert in Newington, Kent, England in 1903.
NEWINGTON.
The Recent Concert. - The name of Mrs. A. S. Webb was unfortunately omitted from the list of the artistes who took part in the concert at Newington on the 27th ultimo, as given in our report last week. Mrs. Webb sang very effectively “Under the Deodar” and “Three Blue Bottles,” each song being encored.
The East Kent Gazette (Sittingbourne, Kent, England), May 9, 1903, page 8.
Characters in the novel sang a version of the song in 1909.
Jock said that some newly-laid stones on the path hurt her feet, and she requested permission to walk in the middle of the road. From this isolated position she began the following dirge-like song in a deep bass voice: “Two blue-bottles, two blue-bottles, two blue-bottles sitting on a milestone.” This went on until Miss Billing said: “Jock, I forbid you to sing that.” So Jock altered the figure and sang “one blue-bottle, four blue-bottles,” etc.
S. MacNaughtan, Us Four, London, J. Murray, 1909, page 89.
In one of the few references to the “Three Blue Bottles” song published in the United States, a teachers’ magazine included the song in a section on counting exercises in 1911. In this version the blue bottles “sat on a wall,” not on a “milestone,” and “jumped off” instead of flying off, but it is still more consistent with flies than a glass bottle.
Teacher’s Magazine, Volume 34, Number 2, September 1911, page 18.
An American reference to the song from 1893 is more ambiguous. It merges elements of “Ninety-Nine Blue Bottles Hanging on a Wall” with the older, three-bottle song. It starts with “Three Blue Bottles,” but has them “hanging on the wall” and “taken down,” as opposed to having them flying away or jumping off, as a fly might. Styled a “Cramppain Song,” the cryptic lyrics appear to be political satire of some sort, counting down to an election in November. The words were written at a time when “Ninety-nine Blue Bottles” was already widespread in the United States, so the amalgam of features from the early, British, “Three Blue-Bottles” version and American version may suggest the writer was familiar with both songs.
A Cramppain Song.
September.
There are three blue bottles handing on the wall.
There are three blue bottles hanging on the wall.
Take one blue bottle down from the wall,
There are two blue bottles hanging on the wall.
October.
There are two blue bottles . . .
November.
There is one blue bottle . . .
Alexandria Gazette (Virginia), September 27, 1893, page 2.
In any case, the few examples of “Three Blue-Bottles” printed in the United States suggests the song was not unknown, and the small number of such references suggests it was not very well known.
Separate Evolution
So what happened? It seems reasonable to conclude that the British, “Three Blue Bottles” version was the primary influence on the American “Ninety-Nine Blue Bottles song. But the songs were different; something had changed.
In the British version, the “blue-bottles” (presumably flies) were sitting on a roadside “milestone” and “flew away” under their own power. In the American “Ninety-nine Blue Bottles” version, the “blue bottles hanging on the wall” were “taken” away, by some outside influence.
Given the timing of the earliest examples of the American song in print (1884), on the heels of the widespread introduction and aggressive marketing of the blue bottle fire extinguishers (1883-1884), it is possible that someone repurposed the old, insect song to reflect the newly ubiquitous blue bottles hanging on walls. Such a change would explain the switch from milestone to wall, sitting to hanging, and flying away to being taken away.
I am reminded of the country man who was strolling through the Taylor works the other day. He caught sight of the glass hand grenades which hang against the wall, so as to be in readiness in case of fire.
Public Weekly Opinion (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania), July 24, 1885, page 3.
There are still some thousands of these blue bottles hanging on the walls of buildings, but good time will very often be wasted in attempting to do anything with them.
“Modern Fire-Extinguishing Appliances,” G. W. Melvin, The Surveyor (London), Volume 3, Number 67, April 27, 1893, page 266.
When the time came for him to open his store, hanging on the ceiling and on the walls were about two hundred [fire extinguisher] hand-grenades.
Goodwin’s Weekly: A Thinking Paper for Thinking People (Salt Lake City, Utah), February 7, 1914, page 11.
It is impossible to get inside the head of singers from more than a century ago, but it seems plausible that many people who sang the song in 1884 and shortly thereafter thought of themselves as singing about glass fire extinguishers. Others may have made no sense of it one way or the other. A reference to the song from an American novel published in 1903, for example, described the words as an “old, old nonsense rhyme.”
In time, some singers would imagine the bottles as bottles of beer. An early example appeared in print in 1895.
Herald-Palladium (Benton Harbor, Michigan), August 29, 1895.
The eventual switch to beer bottles may be related to the song’s popularity among college students. The song appeared in several collections of college glee club song, and references to the song in a number of school yearbooks.
“Beer bottles would not become standard in the United States until after a new version of the song appeared in the mid-1940s, with bottles “on the wall,” as opposed to “hanging” from it.
We heard the Greenfield pep squad again singing the “Bottles of Beer on the Wall” song on the bus Friday night, and this time they left “no bottles of beer on the wall.” It all goes to show something or other.
The Greenfield Vidette (Greenfield, Missouri), February 22, 1945, page 2.
The transition in England took a different tack. A long-form version, with ninety-nine bottles like the American version, appeared in a collection of British soldiers’ marching songs during World War I. The bottles do not have a specific color, yet are still described as “hanging on the wall.” The question posed in each verse is “what would happen if one were to fall,” suggesting that the bottles are glass bottles, not flies.
Tommy’s Tunes, London, Erskine MacDonald, Ltd., 1917, page 89.
The earliest, now-standard “green bottles hanging on the wall” appeared in England in 1929, but with the number starting at “three,” suggesting influence from the earlier, British “Three Blue-Bottles” version of the song.
Acton Gazette and Express (Ealing, London, England), December 6, 1929, page 9.
The earliest example of the now-familiar “Ten Green Bottles Hanging on the Wall” appeared four years later, described as a traditional Yorkshire folk-song. All signs of the blue-bottle flies, the number three, milestones and flying away had completely vanished.
. . .
The Manchester Guardian, March 14, 1933, page 10.
It is impossible to tell whether and to what extent the American version had in the evolution of the British versions, but it seems likely that it could have influenced the change in color from blue to green and the change from living fly to inanimate glass bottle.
Earlier Influences
Everything is influenced by something. The song, “Three Blue Bottles,” is no exception. Although distinct from its predecessors, it appears to have been a close variant of an earlier, perhaps better known nursery rhyme or song, in which, instead of blue-bottles sitting on a milestone, birds sit on a stone. The number usually starts and stops with two, counting down and then up.
The verse dates back to at least 1796.
The Monthly Mirror (London), Volume 2, August 1796, page 250.
The rhyme appeared in an article critical of a style of popular singing, the “London way” (and its fans), in which singers give their listeners “sound without sense, that if one ventures to applaud a song, the air of which pleases the ear, it is ten to one but it proves, when afterwards seen in print, such a compound of loose ideas and indelicate wit, as ought to make all modest women hide their faces.”
To test the limits of the audience’s taste, a friend of the writer prevailed, “by means of a crown-bowl of punch to the performers,” to convince one of the singers to substitute some “nonsense” in place of a popular song which had been hailed as “exceeding fine,” the promise of which drew a large audience to the theater that night. The writer informs us that her friend had previously set the nonsense “to music in no elegant strains,” but does not specifically credit him with the words, so it is unclear whether the words were traditional or not.
The actress appeared, she sung, she laid her hands upon her breast, and expressively lifted up her eyes; no one doubted but it was the air they had heard spoken of as fine; one cried “delightful!” another “charming!” some “sweet!” some “heavenly!” and some were absolutely softened into tears; sentiment filled their hearts; sensibility crept along their veins; and feeling dripped off their very finger ends; all agreed to encore it - again was the nonsense rehearsed, and plaudits and raptures ensued as before: - the curtain dropped, and my friend could no longer conceal his triumph - he claimed the attention of the audience till the song he had prevented their hearing before was sung, and it is to be hoped the mortification which many pretenders to taste felt on the occasion, will be a means of improving their taste in future.
The Monthly Mirror (London), Volume 2, August 1796, page 250.
Those basic lyrics (with increasing complications) would remain a staple of collections of nursery rhymes and other children’s books for more than a century.
A decade and a half later, essentially the same lyrics in an early collection of nursery rhymes, with the addition of some “fa la las.”
Grammer Gurton’s Garland: or, the Nursery Parnassus, a Choice Collection of Pretty Songs and Verses, London, R. Triphook, 1810, page 11.
An expanded version of the lyrics, counting down and then counting up, appeared in print in the United States by 1833.
The Only True Mother Goose Melodies, Boston, J. S. Locke, 1833, page 19.
Ten Little Indians
Although the simpler versions of the “two birds” song continued to appear regularly in print, one writer raised the number of birds to ten, changed them to blackbirds, and created more elaborate methods of having them leave. This variant of the song, published in 1857, is almost certainly one of two major influences on Septimus Winner’s “Ten Little Injuns” and Frank Green’s “Ten Little N[-words],” both published in 1868.
Ten little blackbirds sitting on a vine,
One flew away, and then there were nine.
Nine little blackbirds sitting on a gate,
One flew away, and then there were eight.
Eight little blackbirds flying up to heaven,
One flew away, and then there were seven.
Seven little blackbirds sitting on some sticks,
One flew away, and then there were six.
Six little blackbirds sitting on a hive,
One flew away, and then there were five.
Five little blackbirds sitting on a door,
One flew away, and then there were four.
Four little blackbirds sitting on a tree,
One flew away, and then there were three.
Three little blackbirds sitting on a shoe,
One flew away, and then there were two.
Two little blackbirds sitting on a stone,
One flew away, and then there was one.
One little blackbird sitting all alone,
He flew away, and then there was none.
Children’s Holidays: A Story Book for the Whole Year, New York, D. Appleton & Company, 1858, pages 23-25.
Five of the verses have exact parallels with the songs written a decade later. Winners “Ten Little Injuns” similarly rhymes gate with eight, heaven with seven, and door with four; Green’s “Ten Little N[-words] rhymes sticks with six, hive with five.
Henry De Marsan’s New Comic and Sentimental Singer’s Journal, New York, Number 1 [1868], page 6; Henry De Marsan’s New Comic and Sentimental Singer’s Journal, New York, Number 20, page 126 [1868 or 1869].
Another, earlier influence on Septimus Winner’s song is a traditional English nursery rhyme, “Tom Brown’s Two Little Indian Boys,” attested as early as 1810.
Grammer Gurton’s Garland: Or, the Nursery Parnassus, London, Harding and Wright, 1810, page 37.
The Gibson family singers elaborated on the traditional rhyme in 1849. They increased the number to ten and changed the name to “Old John Brown.” The Gibson’s version is identical to the familiar form of the song, “Ten Little Indians,” learned by generations of children in the United States. Septimus Winner’s and Frank Green’s later, problematic versions were based on this early version, not the other way around.
“Old John Brown,” Solo and Chorus, Arranged by J. Gibson.
Old John Brown had a little Ingin,
Old John Brown had a little Ingin,
Old John Brown had a little Ingin,
One little Ingin boy.
One little two little three little Ingins,
four little five little six little Ingins,
seven little eight little nine little Ingins,
ten little Ingin boys.
Ten little nine little eight little Ingins,
seven little six little five little Ingins,
four little three little two little Ingins,
One little Ingin boy.
“Old John Brown,” Boston, Oliver Ditson, 1849 (Sheet music viewable at Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries).
Septimus Winner borrowed from the Gibsons, but changed the melody, rhythm and lyrics of the chorus. He borrowed from the “Blackbird” song, changing “Blackbirds” to “Injuns” and adding ten verses with ten disappearances, while retaining three rhyming word pairs from the earlier song. Frank Green borrowed Winner’s melody, changed “Injuns” to “N[-words]” and changed the means of disappearance, while retaining two rhyming word pairs from the “Blackbird” song.
The backwards counting songs, “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” and “Ten Little Indians,” appear to share at least part of the same family tree. Both appear to have been influenced by the traditional nursery rhyme, “Two Birds Sitting on a Stone.”
It is also interesting to note parallels between “Two Birds” and “Tom Brown’s Two Little Indian Boys,” the traditional nursery rhyme which was the other early influence on “Ten Little Indians.” In one, two birds fly away; in the other, one boy runs away and the other won’t stay. Coincidence?
There is more to be said about the history and origins of “Ten Little Indians” and the like. See my post, One Little, Two Little, Three Little Songs - Counting Down the History of "Ten Little Indians."
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