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"If You're Happy and You Know It" is a popular children's song, or nursery rhyme, credited to songwriter Alfred B. Smith c. 1916. It has, like many familiar childhood cantations, been altered in various ways over the years for various uses, particularly as political rags.The original song as it is known to Americans begins:-
- If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands.
- If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands.
- If you're happy and you know it,
- Then your face will surely show it,
- If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands.
In Britain, the fourth line is more usually rendered as "And you really want to show it".
Numerous variations of this have been created as entertainment. For example, there is an example relating to the proposed attack on Iraq, written by John Robbins, which begins as follows[1]:-
"If You're Happy And You Know It, Bomb Iraq"
- If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
- If the markets are a drama, bomb Iraq.
- If the terrorists are Saudi,
- And your alibi is shoddy,
- And your tastes remain quite gaudy,
- Bomb Iraq.
If You're Happy and you Know it! is also a forthcoming picture book for children, to be published in March 2003 by Oxford University Press.
