Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago

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This Old Man Came Rolling Home (Roud No. 3550) - Sung by Effie Carmack of Atascadero, California, USA. She learned it from an old man, David Birch, who came from England. He sang it while rocking Mrs. Carmack's little daughter on his foot. Recorded by Austin E. Fife on July 8, 1949.

Note by Kevin W.:
I found this while browsing the D. K. (Donald Knight) Wilgus Field Recordings Collection: https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz00094qfq

It's interesting to me because it's the children's song Lieutenant Columbo (Peter Falk) often whistled in the popular 1970s crime detective TV series which was also filmed in California.

Song transcription:

This old man, he played one,
He played nick-nack had a lot of fun
Nick-nack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone.
This old man came rolling home.

This old man, he played two,
He played nick-nack on my shoe
Nick-nack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone.
This old man came rolling home.

This old man, he played three,
He played nick-nack under my tree
Nick-nack paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone.
This old man came rolling home.

Spoken: You can go on indefinitely, you know, if you don't know the words you can make them.