Song of the Simple Past

Sometimes in life, you need to describe

Something that happened and it's been a while

You use it about something that is done and dusted

It's easy to remember, it's the simple past

And everyone knows with regular verbs

You just put 'ED' at the end of the word

But irregular verbs can be very hard

The only chance you have is to learn them by heart

So, I found, you sought

I threw, you caught

I sold, you bought

And you paid

I ate, you drank

I grew, you shrank

You swam, while I sank

You forgave me when I rang

I thought that we could

So, we began

The past of 'be' is 'I, he, she, it was'

The others take 'were', but you knew that, of course

When you need to make a question, you use 'did' at the start

Like 'Did you like this song about the simple past?'

It's used when something happened at a certain time

Or for a longer period that stopped after a while

It often goes with expressions like 'yesterday' or 'ago'

The Brits say 'learnt' and 'dreamt', but Americans don't

So, you slept, I woke

You heard, I spoke

I leant, it bent

And it broke

I wrote, you drew

I rolled, you flew

You stood, while I ran

You forgave me when I rang

I thought that we could

So, we began

So, we began

So, we began