Star Light, Star Bright

"Star Light, Star Bright" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 16339.

For the science fiction story collection by Alfred Bester, see Star Light, Star Bright (book) and Star Light, Star Bright (short story).
"Star Light, Star Bright"
Nursery rhyme
PublishedLate 19th century

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]

The Angel in "The Bishop's Wife" (film, 1947, with Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven and Monty Woolley) quotes the first line and tells the Bishop's Wife that she should make a wish.

The character Norma recites this poem in Steinbeck's 1947 Novel, "The Wayward Bus".

"Star Light, Star Bright" is found in Madonna's 1983 single Lucky Star, as well as in Star by Earth, Wind & Fire and This Flight Tonight by Joni Mitchell.

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

This song is played in Disney Parks Fireworks Shows Wishes: A Magical Gathering of Disney Dreams and Remember... Dreams Come True. They also play an exit music for those shows.

“Star Light, Star Bright” is also found in Starset's 2019 single Manifest which appears on the album Divisions.

The emblem “Star Light, Star Bright” is also present in Destiny 2 and could be gained by purchasing an item from the Bungie Store.

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.
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