| abstract | - A Nursery Rhyme used to convey an underlying sadness and/or creepiness, sometimes made into a theme tune that sounds like a music box that's slightly off key. It's mainly used to indicate someone with a Squicky past, a child molester or other psychosis. Ironically, due to this trope, it's very uncommon for anyone to use nursery music to indicate anything positive anymore, making it a common theme of Grimmification. Occasionally the writers want to be more poetic with it, and a character will sing the lyrics to some bedtime song. This is sometimes handwaved as being learned from a nanny or grandmother, since they tend to be rhymes no one has used in the last century. "Ring Around the Rosey" (or "Ring-a-Ring-of-Roses" as it's known in some parts of the world) is especially prone to this, due to the popular belief that a cute little children's song was written about The Black Plague. There's no evidence that this is true, and much evidence that it isn't, but the belief has well and truly cemented itself in popular culture. Oldtime songs like the works of Frank Sinatra are quickly becoming part of this trope. If you enter an ancient dilapidated mansion and a song whose original listeners are either senile or dead from old age plays over and over and over, you're in trouble. Also the famous "Hush Little Baby" (also called "Mockingbird") lullaby seems to be the top icon of this trope, it's simple enough for parents (or some creepy unseen killer) to ad-lib further verses as required. Overlaps with the Ominous Music Box Tune. Often goes with the Creepy Child and Ambiguous Innocence. See also Soundtrack Dissonance. The opposite, where the music box is used positively, is Nostalgic Music Box. Compare and contrast Fractured Fairy Tale. Compare Creepy Circus Music. Compare and contrast Creepy Children Singing, where creepy songs and nursery rhymes are played in the background to add tension and fear to a scene. Examples of Ironic Nursery Tune include:
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