<P> This hint allows the ear to translate the final line as "a kid'll eat ivy, too; wouldn't you?" </P> <P> Drake joined Hoffman and Livingston to come up with a tune for the new version of the rhyme, but for a year no one was willing to publish a "silly song ." Finally, Hoffman pitched it to his friend Al Trace, bandleader of the Silly Symphonists . Trace liked the song and recorded it . It became a huge hit, most notably with the Merry Macs' 1944 recording . </P> <P> Milton Drake, one of the writers, said the song had been based on an English nursery rhyme . According to this story, Drake's four - year - old daughter came home singing, "Cowzy tweet and sowzy tweet and liddle sharksy doisters ." (Cows eat wheat and sows eat wheat and little sharks eat oysters .) </P> <P> The scholars Iona and Peter Opie have noted that the last two lines of the song appear in an old catch which, when said quickly, appears to be in Latin: </P>

Where did the song mares eat oats come from