An updated version of the toy (which is completely made of plastic and with other activities like a clicking plastic mouse on the side) has been manufactured by Fisher-Price since 1994. The Big 3 recorded the song in their album Live at the Recording Studio in 1964Ī popular clock toy, marketed by Fisher-Price from 1962 to 1968, had a dial on it that, when turned, caused the music box mechanism in the toy to play the song along with clock-like ticking and moving hands on the face of the clock. The song was the inspiration for the 1963 Twilight Zone episode " Ninety Years Without Slumbering". In March 1961, on his album Swing Low, Sam Cooke did a rendition of the song.īing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs (1961).
Other versions became popular in other countries it is well known to many generations in Japan, with a cover by singer Ken Hirai becoming massively popular in 2002. Also in 1959, it was included on The Four Lads' album, Swing Along. Johnny Cash covered the song on his 1959 album Songs of Our Soil, as did Tennessee Ernie Ford on Gather 'Round the same year. Evelyn Knight recorded the song for Decca Records in 1945. In the United States, a version, without the last stanza of lyrics, was on an extended-play 45 rpm record on the Peter Pan label (the other song on that side was " The Syncopated Clock", and the flip side had " The Arkansas Traveler" and " Red River Valley"). "My Grandfather's Clock" was often played in Britain on Children's Favourites and during that period was recorded by the Radio Revellers. Please relocate any relevant information into other sections or articles. This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. For example, in the Czech version, sung by the country band Taxmeni, the song continues with an additional, joyful strophe, narrating further events in the grandson's life: the birth of his son and the purchase of a new clock on the same day, to maintain the family tradition. The song was covered and translated many times, versions in other languages may vary. However, the sequel never reached the popularity of the original. In the grandfather's house, the clock was replaced by a wall clock, which the grandson disdains (referring to it as "that vain, stuck-up thing on the wall"). The grandson laments the fate of the no-longer-functioning grandfather clock – it was sold to a junk dealer, who sold its parts for scrap and its case for kindling. Work published a sequel to the song two years after, and again the grandson acts as the narrator. After the grandfather dies, the clock suddenly stops, and never works again. Yet the clock seems to eerily know the good and bad events in the grandfather's life – as it rings 24 chimes when the grandfather brings his bride into his house, and near his death it rings an eerie alarm, which the family recognizes to mean that the grandfather is near death and gathers by his bed. The clock is purchased on the morning of the grandfather's birth and works perfectly for 90 years, requiring only that it be wound at the end of each week.
The song, told from a grandchild's point of view, is about their grandfather's clock. It was in this Piercebridge hotel that the author encountered a remarkable clock that inspired the song.