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"Solomon Grundy" is an English nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19299.^[1]

Lyrics

The rhyme has varied very little since it was first collected by James Orchard Halliwell and published in 1842 with the lyrics:

Short version

Solomon Grundy,

Born on a Monday,

Christened on Tuesday,

Married on Wednesday,

Took ill on Thursday,

Grew worse on Friday,

Died on Saturday,

Buried on Sunday,

That was the end,

Of Solomon Grundy.^[2][3]

Long version

Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday,

Christened on a stark and stormy Tuesday,

Married on a grey and grisly Wednesday,

Took ill on a mild and mellow Thursday,

Grew worse on a bright and breezy Friday,

Died on a grey and glorious Saturday,

Buried on a baking, blistering Sunday.

That was the end of Solomon Grundy.^[4]

In popular culture

• The nursery rhyme is the inspiration for the DC Comics character Cyrus Gold/Solomon Grundy, a large, strong zombie supervillain created in 1944 as an adversary for the Green Lantern, though later a common foe of Batman and Superman.^[5]
  


• In 1964, Jamaican singer Eric "Monty" Morris released the ska song "Solomon Gundie" whose lyrics were based on the nursery rhyme. It was covered in 1980 by French singer Amanda Lear to a chart success.


• The premiere episode of Sesame Street (air date November 10, 1969) features a Solomon Grundy cartoon in which he washes only one part of the left half of his body each day. At the end of the week Solomon is still "half dirty".


• Jamaican deejay Big Youth recorded the song "Solomon a Gunday" on his 1972 album Screaming Target, which was loosely based on the story of Solomon Grundy.^[6]
  


• "Hippopotamus" by Nokoinoko, a Japanese song, was based on the poem. It was aired on "Hirake Ponkikki", a TV show for kids, and became popular in 1970s. The strange lyrics made it a cult song and it was used in The Lost Village anime in 2016.


• In a 1979 episode of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, "Solomon / Grundy Binding" is referenced on the box of ACME Jet-Propelled Skis.


• The poet Philippe Soupault adapted this rhyme and called it "The Life of Philippe Soupault".^[7]
  


• The outro to The Pogues' song "Billy's Bones" is based on Solomon Grundy.


• The comic book version of Solomon Grundy is mentioned in the song "Superman's Song" by the Crash Test Dummies.


• The 1992 song "Mars Ultras, You'll Never Make the Station" by the band Half Man Half Biscuit refers to the song in the lines: "Surrogate Grundy, sold on a Monday, to Richard and Judy".


• Comic artist and writer Kaori Yuki wrote a short story concerning the poem using characters from her series Godchild, which was published at the end of book five.^[8]
  


• The name and structure of Ian McDonald's science fiction novella "The Days of Solomon Gursky" (Asimov's Science Fiction June 1998, reprinted in Mike Ashley's 2006 anthology The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction)^[9] are based on the nursery rhyme. The title character (his name coincides with Mordecai Richler's 1989 novel Solomon Gursky Was Here) invents a way to resurrect the dead using nanotechnology, developed in McDonald's 1994 novel Necroville. The spin-off novella consists of seven episodical chapters (titled after the days of the week) showing in increasing intervals Gursky's life from the early 21st century through the posthuman future in space to the end of the universe when he constructs a Tipler machine to be reborn.


• 
  The Bluetones song "Solomon Bites the Worm" (1998) was based on this nursery rhyme.


• 
  Brian Dewan set the poem to music in an eponymous song on his 2001 album The Operating Theater.


• Jamaican deejay Tapper Zukie released the song "Solomon a Gunday" on the 2003 re-release of his 1973 album Man ah Warrior.^[10]
  


• Solomon Grundy appears as a character (and suspect) in Jasper Fforde's novel The Big Over Easy: "'I'll be dead tired on Saturday,' he quipped to waiting journalists, 'but will bury myself in work again on Sunday.'"^[11]
  


• "Solomon Grundy" is the title of the ninth track of Mic Tyson, the third studio album of American rapper Sean Price.


• 
  Solomon Grundy, a feature film based on the poem and its structure, was released in 2012. Grundy is portrayed as a child's imaginary friend, and each of the poem's days is represented as a stage in the development of their relationship.^[12]
  


• The 2013 track "Kingston Be Wise" by Protoje from his album The 8 Year Affair, references Solomon Grundy in the second verse: "Then where the gun deh? Dead pon Saturday; Buried Sunday like Solomon Grundy."


• In the TV series Salem, it is often said by the Dark Lord (Samael).


• In the 2016 movie The Accountant, Ben Affleck's autistic character recites the rhyme "Solomon Grundy" to calm himself down.


• 
  Drew Powell portrays the character on the Fox Network television series Gotham.^[13]
  


• The Manga, “Black Butler VIII”, mentions Solomon Grundy in the story and reprints the complete lyrics in the Reference Section


• In 2018, the jamaican dancehall artist Real Mckoy released a single called "Solomon Grundy"

See also

• "Monday's Child", a traditional English rhyme mentioning the days of the week


• "Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron", a traditional English folk song written in the 19th century about a housewife carrying out one part of her linen chores each day of the week

References