Solomon Grundy A Whole Life in One Week, With Lyrics and a Free Printable

🎵 Solomon Grundy Lyrics

The complete rhyme — all seven days, Monday to Sunday, in one short verse.

Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
That was the end of Solomon Grundy.

📅 About This Rhyme

This little poem does something remarkable: it squeezes a whole human life — being born, growing up, marrying, growing old and ill, and coming to the end — into a single week, one line for each day. For children, that makes it two things at once: a gentle first story about the shape of a life, and the handiest days-of-the-week rhyme in the language, because the days arrive in perfect order, carried along by the story.

The wording has barely changed since the rhyme was collected in print in 1842. That earliest text says “Worse on Friday” and ends “This is the end of Solomon Grundy”; the version on this page — “Grew worse on Friday” and “That was the end of Solomon Grundy” — is the form most often sung today. Nobody knows whether a real Solomon Grundy ever existed, and any story claiming otherwise is a guess.

🖨️ How to Use This Rhyme

1. Sing it through, one day at a time. Pause on each day and hold up a finger for it — seven lines, seven fingers, and the week is counted.
2. Find today in the rhyme. Ask your child which day it is today, then sing up to that line and stop. Tomorrow, the rhyme goes one line further.
3. Print the lyrics sheet. Pin it near a calendar or in the kitchen, where the days of the week come up every morning.
4. Let your child “read” it back. The days are printed in order on the sheet, so a child can point to each day as they say it — a real first step into reading words they already know by heart.