"'''Baa, Baa, Black Sheep'''", also sometimes known as '''"Baa, Baa, Rainbow Sheep"''', is an English nursery rhyme, the earliest surviving version of which dates from 1731. The words have changed little in two and a half centuries. It tells the simple story of a sheep that provides wool for a set of 3 residents in what is usually depicted as a quaint British village.

: Baa, baa, black sheep,
:Have you any wool?
:Yes, sir, yes, sir,
:Three bags full;
: One for the master,
:And one for the dame,
: And one for the little boy
:Who lives down the lane.

:Bah, Bah a black Sheep,
:Have you any Wool?
:Yes merry have I,
:Three Bags full,
:One for my master,
:One for my Dame,
:One for My little Boy
: That lives down in the lane

*1765: "But none for the little boy who cries in the lane"
*1820: "And one for the little boy that lives in the lane"
*1860: "But none for the little girl That cries in the lane"
*1880: "And one for the little boy That lives in our lane"
*1895: "But none for the naughty boy Who cries in the lane"
*1900: "But none for the little boy that lives down the lane!"
*1918: "But none for the naughty boy that cries in the lane"

*Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book (1744)
*Mother Goose's Melody (circa 1765)
*Gammer Gurton's garland of nursery songs and Toby Tickle's collection of riddles (c. 1820)
*Nursery Rhymes (1860)
*The Alphabet of Old Friends (1874)
*Baa Baa Black Sheep (1880)
*Nursery Rhymes (c. 1880)
*A Book of Nursery Songs and Rhymes (1895)
*The Baby's Opera (1900)
*The Nursery Rhymes of Mother Goose (1913)
*The Real Mother Goose (1916)
*The Child's Own Music Book (1918)

*Mother Goose in Prose (1897)

*Jolly Jingles #12

* Uncorroborated theories have been advanced to explain the meaning of the rhyme. These include that it is a complaint against Medieval English taxes on wool and that it is about the slave trade.
* In the late twentieth century, the rhyme was a subject of controversies in debates about supposed "political correctness" with the most infamous allegation being that nurseries were renaming the song to "Baa, Baa Rainbow Sheep", though most of these instances of "censorship" were either exaggerated or fabricated, with the two nurseries targeted by right-wing tabloids factually known to have sung the rainbow variant noting it to be part of a line of silly variants they would make, such as "Bouncing Sheep"; "Sad Sheep"; and "Pink Sheep", which were being used in rotation with black version.
* The song has been used in literature and popular culture as a metaphor and allusion.

*Wikipedia

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