Alle Leute gehen jetzt nach Haus

This is a song for the end of the day — a Kehraus, the old word for the last dance or last song that clears the room when a gathering breaks up. In kindergartens and children’s groups it does exactly that: everyone is going home now, off to their own little rooms, so we say a warm goodbye — es war so wunderschön, “it was so lovely” — and part until tomorrow.

The middle verse turns the parting into a game of opposites: big people and little people, fat people and thin people, which children act out by stretching tall and crouching small. (The line lassen fünf grade sein, literally “letting five be even”, is a German saying that means not to fuss over small things.) It is an old folk song with no known author, carried down by ear in a gentle waltz time, and it survives because every day, everywhere, eventually has to end — and this is a kind way to end it.