When I asked M. T. Anderson about his earliest bedtime memories, he smiled and said, “My father used to sing ‘Anne Boleyn’ at bedtime.”

Then he sang it himself, and sang it well. Here’s a recording of Stanley Holloway singing almost as well.

In the Tower of London, large as life,
The ghost of Anne Boleyn walks, they declare.
For Anne Boleyn was once King Henry’s wife,
Until he had the headsman bob her hair.
Oh, yes, he did her wrong long years ago,
And she comes back at night to tell him so.

With her ‘ead tucked underneath her arm,
She walks the bloody Tower,
With her head tucked underneath her arm,
At the midnight hour.

She comes to haunt King Henry, she means giving him what-for
Gadzooks, she’s going to tell him off, for spilling of her gore.
And just in case the headsman wants to give her encore,
She has her head tucked underneath her arm.

With her ‘ead tucked underneath her arm,
She walks the bloody Tower,
With her head tucked underneath her arm,
At the midnight hour.

She walks the endless corridors, for miles and miles she goes,
She often catches cold, poor dear, it’s drafty when it blows,
And it’s awfully, awfully awkward for the queen to blow her nose,
With her head tucked underneath her arm.

With her ‘ead tucked underneath her arm,
She walks the bloody Tower,
With her head tucked underneath her arm,
At the midnight hour.