Soft Kitty
Sheldon's sick-day lullaby, a Polish folk tune that ended up in a copyright suit.
Soft Kitty is the children's song that Sheldon Cooper's mother sang to him when he was ill, made famous by The Big Bang Theory, where Sheldon, Penny, Leonard, Mary Cooper and Amy all sing it, Amy in English, German and Mandarin.
Quick Facts
- Origin
- Polish lullaby "Wlazł kotek na płotek"
- Lawsuit
- Filed December 2015, dismissed March 27, 2017
Facts from the source article.
Background
On the show the words run "Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur / Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr purr purr", and a Young Sheldon episode broadcast on February 1, 2018 shows Mary singing it to a flu-stricken Sheldon. Elsewhere the song is known as "Warm Kitty".
It goes back to a Polish lullaby, "Wlazł kotek na płotek" ("The kitten climbed the fence"): the folklorist Oskar Kolberg noted the words in 1837, Stanisław Moniuszko first published the tune in 1849, and a version appeared in the 1857 collection Pieśni ludu polskiego. Tom Glazer's 1972 album Music For 1's & 2's has it as "Nice", Patsy Biscoe recorded it, and the ABC programme Play School released a reversed-lyric version in 1993 that its presenters still perform.
In December 2015 the heirs of Edith Newlin sued the companies behind the show, claiming the words and music came from her poem in the 1937 book Songs for the Nursery School; Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald dismissed the case on March 27, 2017 because the plaintiffs could not show a valid claim.
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