Perhaps one of the easiest songs to remember from childhood, and one of the easiest to sing and play (it's only three different notes to perform a simplified version of the classic children's song). Written by Sarah Josepha Hale in 1830, the rhyme was quickly put to music later in the decade by Lowell Mason who added repetition.
The original is a simple tale of co-dependency and a deep-seeded introverted child who is doomed to run a motel under the lingering presence of her deranged father:
Mary had a little lamb, whose fleece was white as snow.
And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.
It followed her to school one day, which was against the rules.
It made the children laugh and play, to see a lamb at school.
And so the teacher turned it out, but still it lingered near,
And waited patiently about, till Mary did appear.
"Why does the lamb love Mary so?" the eager children cry.
"Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know," the teacher did reply.
Regardless of theme and the faux "tradition" of calling it a lilting children's rhyme, musicians have taken to the lyrics like nobody's business... except maybe yours... check them out.