American songwriter Henry Clay Work, who had written the Civil War song "Marching Through Georgia", wrote the clock song while traveling in England in 1876. He had stopped at The George Hotel in Piercebridge, County Durham, England. He was very taken by the "long case clock" in the lobby of the hotel.
Asking about the clock, he was told that it had only two owners. After the first owner died, the clock became unreliable, and then, when the second owner died, the clock ceased working altogether. This story was the genisis for the song.
The sheet music for the song sold over 1 million copies and became very popular in the days before recordings. It was sung in bars and parlors all over the world. The earliest known recording of the song was in 1905 by The Edison Quartet on one of those wax cylinders.
After World War Two the song even became popular in Japan, leading to an animation of the lyrics. It also forever changed the term "long case clock" into what we now commonly call "Grandfather Clocks." Such is the power of a good song.
You can find a few versions on The internet, in case you don't recall the melody. I'm not sure I ever heard a record of it. Rather I remember my Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Gerber, at P.S. 197 in Brooklyn, playing the song, which is where I first learned the lyrics. In my mind's eye there is a piano involved, though I'm not really sure there was a piano in the classroom. She used a stick, or pointer, to augment the "tick tock, tick tock" in the song.
"The Grandfather Clock" by Henry Clay Work (1876)
"My grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf,
So it stood ninety years on the floor;
It was taller by half than the old man himself,
Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.
It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born,
And was always his treasure and pride;
But it stopp'd short — never to go again —
When the old man died.
Ninety years without slumbering
(tick, tick, tick, tick), His life seconds numbering,
(tick, tick, tick, tick), It stopp'd short — never to go again —When the old man died.
In watching its pendulum swing to and fro,
Many hours had he spent while a boy.
And in childhood and manhood the clock seemed to know
And to share both his grief and his joy.
For it struck twenty-four when he entered at the door,
With a blooming and beautiful bride;
But it stopp'd short — never to go again —
When the old man died.
Ninety years without slumbering
(tick, tick, tick, tick), His life seconds numbering,
(tick, tick, tick, tick), It stopp'd short — never to go again —When the old man died.
My grandfather said that of those he could hire,
Not a servant so faithful he found;
For it wasted no time, and had but one desire —
At the close of each week to be wound.
And it kept in its place — not a frown upon its face,
And its hands never hung by its side.
But it stopp'd short — never to go again —
When the old man died.
Ninety years without slumbering
(tick, tick, tick, tick), His life seconds numbering,
(tick, tick, tick, tick), It stopp'd short — never to go again —When the old man died.
It rang an alarm in the dead of the night —
An alarm that for years had been dumb;
And we knew that his spirit was pluming for flight —
That his hour of departure had come.
Still the clock kept the time, with a soft and muffled chime,
As we silently stood by his side;
But it stopp'd short — never to go again —
When the old man died.
Ninety years without slumbering
(tick, tick, tick, tick), His life seconds numbering,
(tick, tick, tick, tick), It stopp'd short — never to go again —When the old man died."
