Liar, Liar Pants on Fire! | Teen Ink

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire!

August 25, 2011
By Anonymous

When I was young, I used to join my friends calling other people what a liar they were and to top it off, we used the phrase, "LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE!"It never occured to me how that popular phrase started. We were just kids and we wanted to copy what the other OLDER kids were saying. A few weeks ago, I was just surfing the net on yahoo until I came across a news article that was entitled,"What was the origin of liar liar pants on fire?". What made it interesting was this photo of some pants on fire. I was thankful I read it because now I got the answer where the "phrase" came from. "Liar liar pant on fire, hanging on a telephone wire" was originated from the 1810 poem "The Liar" by William Blake. 1810? That long? Yeah I couldn't believe it either because I thought it was originated from some stranger who lied during the 1990s or 2000s.

"The Liar"

Deceiver, dissembler
Your trousers are alight
From what pole or gallows
Shall they dangle in the night?

When I asked of your career
Why did you have to kick my rear
With that stinking lie of thine
Proclaiming that you owned a mine?

When you asked to borrow my stallion
To visit a nearby-moored galleon
How could I ever know that you
Intended only to turn him into glue?

What red devil of mendacity
Grips your soul with such tenacity?
Will one you cruelly shower with lies
Put a pistol ball between your eyes?

What infernal serpent
Has lent you his forked tongue?
From what pit of foul deceit
Are all these whoppers sprung?

Deceiver, dissembler
Your trousers are alight
From what pole or gallows
Do they dangle in the night?

Now reading this poem made sense. So remember if someone called you "LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE!"

REPLY TO THEM:

"I DON'T CARE, I DON'T CARE! I CAN BUY ANOTHER PAIR!"

Obviously.

LOL!

The author's comments:
I wrote this piece 2 years ago when I read an article about it. I thought of sharing it.

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Memory said...
on Feb. 14 2015 at 11:26 am
William Blake did NOT write that poem "the Liar". The poem is a bit of a parody of William Blake's poem "the Tiger". Which goes:" Tiger tiger burning bright in the forests of the night", or something to that effect.