The Wheels on the Bus

This modern-sounding favorite is actually about ninety years old. It was written by Verna Hills and first published in a children's magazine in December 1937, under the simpler title “The Bus”--and the original lyric was “the wheels OF the bus,” not “on.” The tune itself was borrowed from the older English nursery rhyme “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.” It's often said Hills wrote it to help keep kids entertained on increasingly long school bus rides, which were becoming more common as motorized buses took over from horse-drawn ones--proof that parents and teachers have always needed a good song to survive a long ride.