Frère Jacques
- Language
- French (Français)
- Country
- France
- Region
- Île-de-France
- Composer
- Traditional
- Lyricist
- Traditional
- Dates
- Published 1811
- Difficulty
- beginner
About this song
A well-known French nursery round, often used to teach French pronunciation and call-and-response singing.
Historical and cultural context
Widely attested in 19th-century French songbooks. English adaptations include "Are You Sleeping" / "Brother John".
French children's round; melody related to 18th-century French sources. Exact authorship unknown.
Rights summary
Editorial determinations based on available sources. Not legal advice and not a guarantee of copyright status.
- No rights records published for this song yet.
- Composition rights have not been determined.
- Lyrics rights have not been determined.
- Lyrics are withheld: display requires a determined, permissive lyrics status of its own. A public-domain composition does not release the words set to it.
- Translation rights have not been determined, so translations are not shown.
- This YouTube recording may only be played through the official embedded player when embeddable.
- Audio download and redistribution of the YouTube recording are not permitted. Lyric timings are derived by aligning the public-domain lyrics against the recording and may be stored.
- Recording rights status: copyright protected. Embeddability is not a copyright license.
- Machine translation is withheld: producing a translation creates a derivative work, which needs verified public-domain or creator-authorized lyrics.
- Commercial use is restricted based on the current rights determinations.
- Some capabilities are withheld because they are not clear in every serving territory (AU, BR, CA, CN, DE, ES, FR, GB, ID, IN, IT, JP, KR, MX, MY, PH, SG, TH, US, VN). SKB ships one globally safe corpus rather than varying by the viewer's location.
- SKB documents research and licensing information for educational use. This is not legal advice.
Lyrics
Lyrics are not displayed for this song based on the current rights determination.
Translations
Translations are not displayed based on the current rights determination.
Recordings
Multiple recordings may document the same underlying song. Each has its own provider and rights status.
Playing via the official YouTube embed. Embeddability is not a copyright license.
Frère Jacques — French nursery rhyme (YouTube)
Preferred recording- Provider
- YouTube
- Performer
- APPUSERIES
- Duration
- 1:24
- Rights
- copyright protected
Official YouTube embed when permitted
Embeddability is not a copyright license. Download and redistribution are not permitted via SKB.
- Provider
- Wikimedia Commons
- Performer
- CambridgeBayWeather
- Duration
- 0:16
- Rights
- creative commons
In-page audio / external stream
Frère Jacques — Wikimedia Commons tune
Frère Jacques.ogg by CambridgeBayWeather, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).
- Provider
- Wikimedia Commons
- Performer
- Commons contributors
- Duration
- 0:20
- Rights
- creative commons
In-page audio / external stream
Frère Jacques — subject line (Commons, slow learning)
Frere Jacques - sujet.ogg via Wikimedia Commons. Used as a slow-learning reference recording.
Sources and citations
No sources published for this entry yet.
Suggest a correction
Found an error in metadata, sources, or rights notes? Editors review all suggestions.