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Little Boxes

Posted by: Ian Finch | 21 May 2007

For this entire weekend and even today I've had the following song lines going round and round and round in my head:

'little boxes, on the hillside
Little boxes, made of ticky tacky
Little boxes, on the hill side
Little boxes all the same'

My understanding is that it is the first few lines from a protest song written in the 50's about all the new build housing estates that were going up all over the place.

The thing is I don't know how I know this or where I first heard the song. Has any one else heard of it?

..actually, I've just googled the first line - turns out there's almost 900 links to content surrounding the song so clearly it's known by a lot of people. It seems there is quite a story behind it! -  check the lyrics - at least knowing some more words might help give my brain a rest from the permanent loop of the first verse!...

...I started singing it on saturday and by sunday my wife was giving me that 'seriously, I may have to kill you' look that I receive from time to time - heaven help me if it's still going round in my head tonight! 

Does anyone else suffer from this-song-is-in-my-head-and-I-can't-get-it-out-itis???  Comment below with your tune-related tales of woe>>

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  • On 22/05/2007 13:50:52 JJ wrote: I knew I had seen something on Lyrics somewhere recently.. and its Yahoo... with Yahoo Music, they have a lyrics search :) http://music.yahoo.com/lyrics
  • On 13/06/2007 14:03:08 Matt S wrote: Try listening to 'Apache' by the Sugarhill Gang and not humming the chorus for days after! Apparently Mervina Reynolds, the lady who wrote 'Little Boxes', wrote a song every day before breakfast for 17 years. I've only heard it sung by Pete Seeger.
  • On 12/07/2007 17:02:08 Joel Hammond-Turner wrote: Unfortunately, those of us with toddlers suffer this constantly with kiddies TV programme theme tunes. I need but mention Igglepiggle's theme from "In The Night Garden" and any parent reading this will inevitably swear at me for the tune they'll have running around their head for the next hour or more! And the superb lyrics that cause so much pain? "Yes - my name is Igglepiggle, Igglepiggle, niggle, wiggle, diggle! Yes - my name is Igglepiggle, Igglepiggle, wiggle, niggle, woo!"
  • On 15/07/2007 21:27:19 Joanne wrote: This song is permanently on loop in my head because I actually live in one of those "little boxes" - the song was written about the town I grew up in. At least once on the way to school or on the way home every day I'll look out the window, see all those little boxes (on the hillside!) and start singing that song...
  • On 14/09/2007 20:38:29 terrywhitelaw wrote: Hi, my dad used to sing me this to get me to sleep as a kid, now having two kids of my own i sung my son it first (to be honest just the first verse properly) when he was trying to get to sleep now singing it to my daughter to get her to sleep but needed to know more of the words because she isn't so easy to put to sleep thank goodness at last i have found somewhere i can learn it properly it works well ttfn
  • On 16/01/2008 00:39:29 AliT wrote: Coming from the Little Boxes era, I often wonder why I can remember all the words to, for example, Dusty Springfield's 'I only wanna be with you' but where did I leave the car keys?? I wish I could defrag my brain sometimes and make more room for the really useful stuff...

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