Jack and Jill (nursery rhyme) these stanzas were viewed as quatrains with internal rhymes, this would be an example of ballad form, a common form for nursery rhymes. The melody commonly associated with the rhyme was first recorded by the composer and nursery rhyme collector James William Elliott in his "National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs" (1870). The Roud Folk Song Index, which catalogues folk songs and their variations by number, classifies the song as 10266. The phrase "Jack and Jill" was in use in England as early as the 16th century to indicate a boy and a girl. A comedy with the title "Jack
Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes mentioned that "Machine Gun Blues" would be the album's first single and available for download via iTunes on November 16. Critical reviews of "Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes" were mostly positive. AllMusic's Mark Deming gave the album a rating of three-and-a-half stars out of five and states that it "is clearly the work of a band that still gives a damn about their rock & roll, no matter how familiar the surroundings. While 2004's "Sex, Love and Rock 'N' Roll" saw Ness digging deeper into personal concerns, Hard Times finds him stepping back a few paces; while 'Can't Take It