There is a song which goes something like, "Playmate, come out and
play with me, We'll climb my apple tree..."etc. I believe it ends with
something like, "and we'll be best of friends, forever more." I need
to know the name of the song and all the lyrics.

Dear tibet,

Boy, did that give me a sense of deja vu. I think my sister had that
on a 45 rpm record, back (in the stone age) when I was a kid.

Perhaps not surprisingly, as with many children's songs, there are a
number of versions of this song. The original song was entitled "I
don't want to play in your yard", and was written by Philip Wingate
and H.W. Petrie in 1894.


I. The version of the song to which you refer was written in the
1940's and is usually titled "Playmate". Other titles include "See see
my playmate", "Say say my playmate", and "Oh jolly playmate".

Please excuse my not posting a version of the lyrics here, but as they
appear to remain under copyright I am restricted to providing them
through links.

The most common presentation of the lyrics can be found in the
"Digital Tradition Folk Music Database" under the title "Playmate":
http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/pages/tiPLAYMATE.html

The following page from Bridget Spitznagel, a graduate student at
Carnegie Mellon University, titles the song, "See see ol' playmate",
and provides slighly different lyrics, with instructions on a
playground game associated with the song. It also presents a short
playground parody:
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/sprite/www/jmp.html#playmate

This page from Grandfolkies presents the lyrics under the alternative
title, "Oh Miss Mary (Playmate)", about a quarter of the way down the
page, and again under the title "Playmate" about three quarters of the
way down:
http://www.grandfolkies.com/qsandas.htm

CNI Media presents a one verse version of the song, which they entitle
"See see ol' playmate", at:
http://www.cni-media.com/saveourchildrenfirst/lyrics2.html


II. If you are interested in the song's history, the following page
from a German site, "The Leader in Lieder", contains the lyrics to the
original version, "I Don't Want To Play In Your Yard". In addition, it
offers MIDI versions of the piano melody for the song for your
listening pleasure.
http://ingeb.org/songs/idontwan.html


Search Strategy:

Google search for: "come out and play with me" "for ever more"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22come+out+and+play+with+me%22+%22for+ever+more%22

Google search for: "I don't want to play in your yard"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22i+don%27t+want+to+play+in+your+yard%22


I hope you find this helpful, and thanks for the walk down memory
lane,

- expertlaw

I got more information than I ever would have believed possible! It
was worth every penny.It was a walk
 down memory lane for me too, and I thank you for sharing it. I never
knew google had this service;
I just happened to stumble upon it, and I'm so glad I did!