Home › Tools › Piano Sheet Music for Kids › Pop Goes the Weasel
Piano sheet music for kids · Nursery rhyme · Level 3: Notes below middle C
Pop Goes the Weasel
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 6/8, 8 bars and a pickup. Press Play to hear it on a real piano, slow it down, or hear one hand at a time; click any note to start from there; print it for the music stand.
About this arrangement
The old dance tune in 6/8, with the American words from the 1850s. It begins with a pickup: the thumb plays the G below middle C before the first bar line, then lands on C. After that the right hand stays in C position and every phrase is built from C D E with a leap up to G or A: “Pop!” in bar 7 is the A, the top of the hand. Several long notes are held while the words wait, marked with an underline in the lyrics. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord on each big beat, with F and G7 under “Pop! goes the”.
Practice tip: Say “ALL a-round the COB-bler’s bench” and feel the two beats. The pickup G is a thumb note, so the thumb then simply moves up one key to C.
The words
All around the cobbler's bench the monkey chased the weasel. The monkey thought 'twas all in fun. Pop! goes the weasel.
A short history
Pop Goes the Weasel began as a dance. It was published in London in 1853 as a country dance tune and was the fashionable dance of that season, said to have been performed at court. The Roud Folk Song Index lists the song as number 5249.
Words followed quickly on both sides of the Atlantic. The British version, “Up and down the City Road, in and out the Eagle”, names a tavern in London, and “Half a pound of tuppenny rice” came later. The American version used here, in which a monkey chases a weasel around a cobbler’s bench, was in print by the late 1850s.
What “pop goes the weasel” means has never been settled. One common explanation is that to “pop” was to pawn and a “weasel” was a coat or a tailor’s iron, so the line is about pawning your things to pay for the pub; it is a plausible guess, not a proven fact.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (English dance tune, 1850s)
- Words
- Traditional (American, 1850s)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 6/8
- Length
- 8 bars and a pickup
- Tempo
- Lively, dotted crotchet = 66
- Difficulty
- Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 87 of 201)
- Type
- Nursery rhyme
- Hands
- Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left
- Copyright
- Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use
Questions and answers
What key is Pop Goes the Weasel in?
How long is it?
Is Pop Goes the Weasel out of copyright?
What is the hardest part?
Can I print it?
← More nursery rhymes · All 201 pieces: piano sheet music for kids
🔒 Runs entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded and no account is needed. Once loaded, the page and the piano keep working offline.