Where did the song "Ashes to ashes we all fall down" originate from?

Question

Some history would be nice

Answer 1

It was the black plague.  Also called the Black Death.  Ring around the rosie, the rash that encircled the body, pocket full of posies, they carried flowers to ward off the stench of death.

The black death was an illness where your body started decomposing while you were still alive.  Can you imagine living in a dead body?

When the bodies got to a certain degree of decomp, it started turning to ashes, you fall down dead.

Answer 2

Hello,,it is the circle of life, the good and the bad, and falling to death in the end.

Answer 3

Snopes.com makes a couple of very good points about the claim that this song is from the bubonic plague (it's not).

(1) Though there were collections of nursery rhymes made during the many outbreaks of the bubonic plague, "Ring Around the Rosie," the rhyme wasn't published until 1881.  If it'd really been around since the middle ages, when the plague was around, we would have Middle English versions of the rhyme.  We don't.

(2) There are many, many verious of "Ring Around the Rosie," all from about the same time, and a lot of them don't have the supposed plague references (no pockets full of posies, no ashes).  If the "plague" one was the original, why were all these others around at the same time?

(3) People who claim it's about the plague can't seem to agree on why there were pockets full of posies.

(4) If the plague theory was true, then the rhyme had been around for six hundred years before anyone had any idea that it was from the plague--the first time anyone put forth the plague theory was in 1961.  

Snopes quotes a folklorist who suggests that it maybe had something to do with a religious ban on dancing and "play-parties" that people had to get around that ban.  Check out the site for more detail.

Answer 4

I have seen on the history channel that it came form England and the song was about the black plague

Answer 5

i just realized just now the meaning of that nursery rhymes. how sad : (

Answer 6

This always was creepy when I was a kid it just hit men that the song was talking about death and I thought it was wrong for kids to be singing it. 20 some odd years later I still think of the song the same way and I don't let my children sing it.

Answer 7

I think it was from the black plague.

Answer 8

i dont think it was ashes to ashes, it was a-tish-oo or something lol but i might be wrong.

it was from the black plague, ring a ring a rosie (the boils etc. you got over your body) a pocket full of posie (tissues) a-tish-oo a-tish-oo we all fall down (death)

it's pretty sad, considering its a childrens nursery rhyme

Answer 9

Black Plague

Answer 10

Everyone's correct.  "Ring around the rosey" was an English verse that described the skin condition you got in the early stages of the plague.   It is described as a ring shaped red rash on the afflicted person's body.   Supposedly if you showed this rash,  you were pretty much toast,  because there were no antibiotics for the plague.   "A pocket full of posies" were the flowers for your grave.  "Ashes to ashes we all fall down" meant that as you got sicker,  you were bedridden because you didn't have the strength to walk (all fall down),   then you died (ashes to ashes).