“A little mouse with clogs on”

The little ditty I tend to recite occasionally (I’m trying to work out what prompts it) turns out to be the chorus of “A Windmill In Old Amsterdam”, discovered by googling “A little mouse with clogs on“, which brings up 4 pages of results….

Poppyfields.net was the first one I got to with all the words though:

A Windmill In Old Amsterdam
A mouse lived in a windmill in old Amsterdam
A windmill with a mouse in and he wasn’t grousin’
He sang every morning, “How lucky I am,
Living in a windmill in old Amsterdam!”

Chorus:
I saw a mouse!
Where?
There on the stair!
Where on the stair?
Right there!
A little mouse with clogs on
Well I declare!
Going clip-clippety-clop on the stair
Oh yeah

This mouse he got lonesome, he took him a wife
A windmill with mice in, it’s hardly surprisin’
She sang every morning, “How lucky I am,
Living in a windmill in old Amsterdam!”

Chorus

First they had triplets and then they had quins
A windmill with quins in, and triplets and twins in
They sang every morning, “How lucky we are
Living in a windmill in Amsterdam, ya!”

Chorus

The daughters got married and so did the sons
The windmill had christ’nin’s when no one was list’nin’
They all sang in chorus, “How lucky we am
Living in a windmill in old Amsterdam!”

Chorus

A mouse lived in a windmill, so snug and so nice
There’s nobody there now but a whole lot of mice.

and the Poppyfields’ credit seems to point to Dicks & Rudge.

51 thoughts on ““A little mouse with clogs on””

  1. I listened to this song on a record over & over again when I was a child. Wish I knew where I could by the LP. I lived in England at the time.

  2. Ruth or any one else…………….does any one know where to get a record/tape with ‘A mouse lived in a wind mill’
    On another website it says that Des O’Conner did his rendition of it………!
    Any ideas?
    Thanks
    Wendy

  3. im trying to find the song ‘a mouse lived in a windmill’ on audio to download . need it for a dance we are doing… can anyone help me find it please?

  4. They recently sung this song on the BBC CBeebies Tikkabilla.
    It brings back fond childhood memories for me and my daughter loved it, hence me trying to locate the words for her as I only know the chorous and funnily enough the tune comes into my head at the strangest times!
    It may be worth while contacting the BBC for info on obtaining audio download and LPs etc.

  5. Hi Claire,
    I too am doing a dance or trying to do a dance with that song and cant find the Kazaa site, do you have the exact details of the site so i can download it please

    Thanks

    Niki
    x

  6. Paul, I did a google search for: sheet.music.publishers UK

    which brought up a whole list of online retailers, including Sheet Music UK, where I searched for:
    windmill amsterdam

    which threw up a list of sheet music compilations which feature the song, including:
    101 Hits For Buskers Book 10
    Price

  7. i love this song, my dad just to sing it to me when i was small, im looking for the guitar chords to it does anyone know them.

  8. Yes, I too would like the guitar chords for A Windmill in Old Amsterdam. Can anyone help,please?

  9. I have been driving my kids mad with this for years – they think I’ve made it up
    NB There is a collection of 5 CD’s of children’s favourites for sale – but this one is not on it!!
    But The Runaway Train is & Nellie The Elephant & many more

  10. Little mouse with clogs on is my favourite song ever! I sing it all day, everyday! my friend has the C.D. We are all obsessed! I am the mouse.

  11. I must be sooo lucky – I have the original 45!! BIt’s propping the table up at the minute, oooerrr best rescue it quickly!!!!!! clip clippity clop…………..

  12. I have been going mad trying to find the name of this song – it’s unbelievable what the net will bring up – I just typed in “mouse with clogs on” into search on yahoo and………..hey presto a mine of information – now I have the name of the singer I am actually in the process of downloading this jewel from Kazaa – great BIG SMILE
    Susan – 13/10/04

  13. Well Jackie, I had a little look and found Windmill In Old Amsterdam at number 589 in ‘Tom’s Top 1000 Songs Of All Time’ (1) which indicates that the original recording was by Ronnie Hilton (2) and dates from 1965.

    I’m glad about this, as one (3) of the results in my Google search (4) mentioned Rainbow’s Rod, Jane and Freddy (5)….

    === Links ===
    (1) http://www.ukmix.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=333383
    (2) http://www.45-rpm.org.uk/dirr/ronnieh.htm
    (3) http://chat.dailymail.co.uk/dailymail/threadInd.jsp?forum=196&message=9493748&thread=9493432&start=0&msRange=15
    (4) http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22little+mouse+with+clogs+on%22+sung
    (5) http://www.rodjanefreddysongs.com

  14. Hi Mary,
    I was just singing that song thismorningin bed and my partner who’s Canadian was aking me what the hellt hat was and I could only rememebr the first chorus. Looking it up I found your site and got a giggle from hearing it’s your all time favourite song.
    I think my nan used to sing it to me or something. Mice with clogs on defintely the way forward.
    Love, John.

  15. It’s heartening to discover a fan base for the mouse clog song. I would like to get it on vinyl and mix it into some happy tunes to spread the joyous strains to the masses.
    This is one of those songs that brings you with lightning speed back to the exact time when your mam, sister, granny or whoever sang it to you. The mouse was brown and friendly with a waistcoat, wooly scarf and danced on winding stone steps surrounded by whitewash walls. In his house (the mill) and, of course, in his clogs.

  16. Its great to hear other people remember this song. I now live in Australia and sing it to my girlfriend, but she has never heard it. She thinks I made it up! “Clipity Clop” 🙂
    Still cant find it on Kazaa etc but will keep trying.

  17. Believe it or not, Steve, my boyfriend Phil *still* thinks I’m making it up. I often show him the comments on this page to reassure him that I’m not alone in my ‘madness’!

  18. Was just trying to sing the song to my girlfriend and her mother who did’nt beleive there was more than one verse, then i thought behold the internet will have the answer and it did.The world is a better place for this song. God bless the mouse and his many descendants !!!

  19. I have loved this song for years. I wanted to teach it to my students at school (Preps) as I thought they would love it. But I couldn’t remember all the words, just the chorus. So thanks heaps. Now I can teach them all of it.

  20. I have the song! My girlfriend Mary who’s Canadian (weird, huh?) read about this song in the book The Beach. We managed to download it last night from Soulseek (the Ronnie Hilton version).

    Where did the idea come from? I remember sitting on the stairs as a child with my sister singing the song but rewording it as “a mouse with no clothes on”. Ah, how we laughed…

  21. I love this song & have sung it for years would love to get a recording of it. I thought it was English singer Max Bygraves but cannot find it on any of his recordings.

  22. I have the Max Bygraves version as MP3. iTunes has a couple of versions for sale: Freddy & the Dreamers and Jessi Colter.

  23. If you still need the correct chords to this, post back and i will supply.

  24. Hi Steven, I’m sure people who make it to this page would love to see the chords for the tune here too.

  25. I have just come back from 4 days in Amsterdam and I was singing this song, well just the chorus, and asking if anyone knew it. No luck, but amazed to find this blog. Wow it’s not just me who has been singing it wondering where it came from.

  26. Chords for “A Windmill In Old Amsterdam” as promised. These are correct
    A mouse (A)lived in a (D) windmill in (G) old Amster (C) dam
    A (F) windmill with a( Bb) mouse in and (E7) he wasn’t grousin’ (A) He sang
    every (D) morning, “How (G) lucky I (C) am, (F) living in a (Bb) windmill in
    (E7)old Amster (A) dam!” (A7)I saw a (D) mouse! Where? (A) There on the stair!
    (E7)Where on the stair? Right (A) there! (A7) A little mouse with (D) clogs on
    (A) Well I declare! Going (B7) clip-clippety-(E7) clop on the (A) stair Oh yeah
    (Chord sequence is repeated throughout allverses and chorus)
    This mouse he got lonesome, he took him a wife
    A windmill with mice in, it’s hardly surprisin’
    She sang every morning, “How lucky I am,
    Living in a windmill in old Amsterdam!”
    First they had triplets and then they had quins
    A windmill with quins in, and triplets and twins in
    They sang every morning, “How lucky we are
    Living in a windmill in Amsterdam, ya!”
    The daughters got married and so did the sons
    The windmill had christ’nin’s when no one was list’nin’
    They all sang in chorus, “How lucky we am
    Living in a windmill in old Amsterdam!”

    A mouse lived in a windmill, so snug and so nice
    There’s nobody there now but a whole lot of mice.

  27. i wold like to know who sang it , i thought it was max bygraves? if not who was it?yours martin wild

  28. As a kid growing up in Colorado in the USA i the 1960s, I used to hear this song on “Radio Nedarland” the Dutch World Broadcasting system on my shortwave radio. There was a show hosted by a couple named Jerry and Dodie Carn, or something. They played the song all the time. I am going to Amsterdam for the first time in a few weeks, and thus was reminded of the song. Glad to have the words.

  29. I do have a cd of Ronnie Hilton singing Windmill in Old Amsterdam. If anyone is desperate to hear it again then let me know and I will rip it off the cd and put it up on my website where it can be downloaded.

  30. Thank god i am not the only one who loves this little song.
    I loved it when I was a child, along with two little boys by Rolf Harris.
    I sang it one night to my daughter and now it is has become a bed time ritual. I was glad to find the words as we had started making up our own verses!
    It will passed down from generation to generation I hope as such a sweet little ditty should not be lost
    To all those who still sing it,
    cheers and good luck

  31. Cool,we used to sing this at school. My son likes me to sing it at bedtimes but i couldn’t remember it all,Thanks for words

  32. we where 4 men working at kings cross station trying to remember the lyrics to this song as one of us saw a mouse, Where, there on the tracks. thanks to this site have have now put the other 3 out of there misery from just singing the chorus lol. we are 38,40,42,43 years old. can u imagine 4 grown men singing i saw a mouse at peak time at kings cross.

  33. So…. when and exactly where at Kings Cross should I come along to hear you singing it again??!

  34. Lee, you are a star!
    Everyone else – it’s the song and an Amsterdam themed video – hurrah!

  35. Thanx Lee, I’ve bookmarked the youtube to show my kids. Like many of the other posts, I’ve been singing the chorus for years and when my husband caught me watching the video he just said … WHY?!! I had a children’s album with this on and a song about a runaway meatball. It was given away when I was ‘too old’ for it. I wish I’d still got it to play to my two!

  36. That little mouse with clogs on has got me through many a rough time, my mum used to sing it to me when I was around 4 years old,when I was afraid of lightening / the dark / sirens or whatever, it is so heartening to realise that my mum’s little childhood mouse in clogs song has such fond memories amongst so many others, I had no idea, my mums english, my dad’s irish and somehow she sang that song to me in Ireland when we had nothing to our names in 1973. It was a great comfort to me and to her to sing it.Its 2009, I turned 40 years young on friday and it came straight back into my memory, like a bolt, 36 years later, all the words, all of it, I cant remember anything else of any importance but that chorus is crystal clear! Go figure!! Good to hear im not the only one! Feel better now, will be practising the guitar chords, thanks to this forum..well I declare, going clip clippity clop on the stair!! We didnt make it up, it really happened!!!

  37. so lovely to read all the wonderful memories this sparked off – i know its an old post – but just wanted to say that my children are Ronnies grandchildren – its such a thrill for them to read how thier grandad was part of so many children growing up and the lovely memories they have of the song .. so glad i found this …
    I have a photo in which there are handcrafted mice inspired by the song , they were sent to ronnie as a gift from a fan who loved the song –

    maddy hill

  38. I am 44 now and lost Mum 5 yrs ago. It was one of her fav songs so of course we were taught, just for fun. It is so nice to pass it down to my cousins daughter (5) who asked her parents, all weekend, could they tell her the clogs song! Just looked it up and am sure she will be thrilled coz no one else could remember. Thanks to you guys and Mum X

  39. there was a kids tv programme in the mid 70,s,where a woman with long straight hair playing a guitar sang the song “there was a mouse”,can anyone remember the name of programme?

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