Teacher reveals the dark meaning behind ‘It’s raining, it’s pouring’ nursery rhyme

Most of us learned nursery rhymes growing up, as kids many would often sing "It's raining, it's pouring," if it started chucking it down.

It sounds like a pretty endearing song but there is a darker meaning behind this childhood classic.

In a video, a teacher and TikToker Stupid Little Genius (@stupidlittlegenius) shared that despite the song mentioning rain throughout, this is actually about alcohol.

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Here is a reminder (and throwback) of how the nursery rhyme goes: “It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring. He went to bed, and bumped his head, and couldn’t get up in the morning.”

"Although it doesn't describe any specific person, it does tell us a cautionary tale," she said.

“Surprisingly, this rhyme has nothing to do with the weather at all. In actual fact, the old man liked a good drink," the teacher revealed, with 'It's raining, it's pouring' being a reference to "alcoholic drinks being poured very liberally."

Therefore it means the old man in the nursery rhyme was "very drunk" and as a result "couldn't stay awake."

“But by this point, he was so inebriated he probably couldn’t even walk in a straight line. So, when he went to bed he stumbled, fell or otherwise drunkenly bumped his head.

She added how it "must have been some bump" as he couldn't get up in the morning because "well... he was dead."

“Most experts agree that the old man never got up again because he suffered from a major head trauma," and concluded by questioning what exactly the guy bumped his head on.

She also noted how it was a warning not to drink so much that you bump your head and end up dead.

Since sharing this theory, it has received 1m views as people shared their thoughts on this additional context.

One person said: "'I'm traumatised by this."

"Every nursery rhyme has a hidden meaning and we sing these to our children," another person wrote.

Someone else added how "most nursery rhymes have dark pasts," and referenced 'Ring of Roses' being about the Great Plague.

"I always assumed it was about not going to sleep with a concussion cuz he slipped in the rain, bumped his head, and went to sleep and couldn’t get up," a fourth person commented.

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