‘Childhood ruined’: The real meaning of iconic nursery rhyme revealed
“It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring,” has been sung to children for generations.
And you might have thought it’s just a wholesome nursery rhyme about weather and a clumsy man, but turns out, you’d be wrong.
Sorry to break it to you, but the real meaning behind the tune is actually kind of unsettling.
The “old man”, in fact, had a nasty hangover that led to his untimely death.
“He couldn’t get up in the morning because he was… dead”
TikTok Jane, from the UK, revealed the true meaning, in a TikTok video that’s now been viewed over 300k times.
“It’s raining, it’s pouring. The old man is snoring. He went to bed and bumped his head. And he couldn’t get up in the morning,” she sings, before explaining the disturbing details.
“Although it doesn’t describe any specific person, it does tell us a cautionary tale. Surprisingly this rhyme has nothing to do with the weather at all,” she says.
“In actual fact, the old man liked a good drink and it’s ‘raining and pouring’ refers to the alcoholic drinks being poured very liberally like it’s raining cocktails and shots.
“That’s right, the old man was drunk, very drunk.”
She then says that after drinking so much, he couldn’t stay awake and was nodding off and snoring, so he tried to “sleep it off.”
But at this point, he was so drunk he probably couldn’t even walk in a straight line, “so when he went to bed, he stumbled, fell, drunkenly bumped his head and it was some bump because he couldn’t get up in the morning because… well, he was dead,” she says.
“That’s it, ruin all my memories”
She continues, “Most major experts agree that he didn’t get up again because he suffered from a major head trauma.”
She ends her video by warning others that when it’s ‘raining and pouring’ – don’t get so drunk that you end up bumping your head and dying.
Many commenters said that they were shocked by the revelation and claimed that their “childhood was now ruined.”
“I’m traumatised by this. I’ve discovered so many stories of nursery rhymes. The muffin man is a pedophile, ring o ring o roses has a dark past and now this!” one top comment read.
Another said, “That’s it, ruin all my memories.”
A third added, “Why can’t anything be pure?”
“I was told it’s to tell you to never sleep with a concussion”
However, a few people said that they had an inkling as kids that this man was not in a good place…
“When I was a kid and questioned this, I was told it’s to tell you to never sleep with a concussion or soon after banging your head,” one commenter wrote.
Someone else said they “thought he slipped on the wet floor from the rain and bumped his head and died.”