Star Light, Star Bright

= Star Light, Star Bright =

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"Star Light, Star Bright" is an English languagenursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Indexnumber of 16339.

'''Lyrics '''

The lyrics usually conform to the following:
 * Star light, star bright,
 * The first star I see tonight;
 * I wish I may, I wish I might,
 * Have the wish I wish tonight.[1]

'''Origins '''The superstition of hoping for wishes granted when seeing a shooting or falling star may date back to the ancient world.[2] Wishing on the first star seen may also predate this rhyme, which first began to be recorded in late nineteenth-century America. [3] The song and tradition seem to have reached Britain by the early twentieth century and have since spread worldwide.[2]'''In popular culture '''"Star Light, Star Bright" is found in Madonna's 1983 single Lucky Star.

The lines "Wish I may, wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight" are also found in Metallica's song "King Nothing".

The character Norma recites this poem in Steinbeck's 1947 Novel, "The Wayward Bus"'''Notes '''
 * 1) R. Gerlings, Hey, Diddle, Diddle and Other Best-Loved Rhymes (Windmill Books, 2009), p. 32.
 * 2) I. Opie and M. Tatem, A Dictionary of Superstitions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 175-6.
 * 3) R. Webster, The Encyclopedia of Superstitions (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2008), p. 245.