Ella Fitzgerald - "A Tisket A Tasket" (1938)

A Tisket A Tasket is a nursery rhyme first recorded in America in the late nineteenth century. It was used as the basis for a very successful and highly regarded 1938 recording by Ella Fitzgerald. The words Tisket and Tasket do not appear in standard dictionaries, so were probably fabricated to suit the rhyme and metre.


The rhyme was first noted in the United States in 1879 as a children's rhyming game. It was sung while children danced in a circle. One of the number ran on the outside of the circle and dropped a handkerchief. The nearest child would then pick it up and chase the dropper. If caught the dropper was either kissed, joined the circle, or had to tell the name of their sweetheart. An early noted version had the lyrics:


A-tisket a-tasket
A green and yellow basket
I wrote a letter to my love
And on the way I dropped it,
I dropped it,
I dropped it,
And on the way I dropped it.
A little boy he picked it up and put it in his pocket.


Ella Fitzgerald, in conjunction with Al Feldman, extended and embellished the rhyme into a jazz piece which was her breakthrough hit with the Chick Webb Orchestra in 1938. It has since become a jazz standard. A followup song written by Fitzgerald and Webb entitled I Found My Yellow Basket (1938) was less successful.