'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' Guitar Chords

Father and daughter playing guitar

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If you want to learn how to play the popular English lullaby "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," we've outlined the chords below. It's an easy song to learn, requiring just a simple strum and three chords. If you're looking for advice on strumming the chords, consider a simple 4-strum per bar approach, using only downstrokes.

'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' Chords

Although "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" is usually sung unaccompanied by parents to their children, it is also a great teaching song for beginning guitarists. Follow along several times, and soon you'll be playing this by heart.

Chords Used: C (x32010) | F (xx3211) | G (320003)

C                F      C
Twinkle, twinkle little star.
F     C      G        C
How I wonder what you are.
C   F        C        G
Up above the world so high,
C      F       C      G
Like a diamond in the sky.
C                F      C
Twinkle, twinkle little star.
F     C      G        C
How I wonder what you are.

Additional Verses

The song can be expanded to include the following verses:

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!

Then the traveler in the dark
Thanks you for your tiny spark;
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!

In the dark blue sky you keep,
While you thro' my window peep,
And you never shut your eye,
Till the sun is in the sky,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!

Song Origin

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" has its origins in a poem called "The Star," written by the 19th-century English poet and novelist Jane Taylor. It is written in couplet form and was first published in 1806 in the anthology Rhymes for the Nursery, which Taylor had written with her sister, Ann. The poem was eventually set to music, specifically the popular 1761 French song "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman." 

The Taylor sisters came from a family steeped in literary tradition. Their mother, Ann, published seven works touching on religious and moral themes, and their father, Isaac, was an engraver. Jane and Ann Taylor published two other anthologies of poems, Original Poems for Infant Minds and Hymns for Infant Minds.

In Popular Culture

One of the most popular of all nursery rhymes, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" was parodied by the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carrol's "Alice in Wonderland" as "Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat." In 1967, Leonard Nimoy, Charles Randolph Grean, and Fred Hertz adapted the song for Nimoy's first album, "Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock's Music From Outer Space." The result is a spoken-word essay recited by Nimoy, in character as Spock, called "Twinkle Twinkle Little Earth." In it, Spock asks listeners if they think the people who live on stars wish upon the Earth. "For example," he asks, "'Earth light, earth bright, first earth I see tonight', or 'Twinkle, twinkle, little Earth, how I wonder what you're worth?'"