It was Just Something that the Kids Say to Keep the Boogeyman Away.

1,2 Freddy’s coming for you:
In this line we have established the ever-present threat of Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). It is the perfect thing that kids would use to frighten other kids, although none of the original Elm St. kids seem to have any clue who Freddy is, so does this rhyme only exist in dreams? Where did it come from?

3,4 Better lock your door:
I guess this would work against a living Freddy Krueger but it doesn’t seem like it would do a whole lot for the dream-killer edition.

5,6 Grab your crucifix:
Does this actually help Tina (Amanda Wyss) in the first Elm Street movie? Freddy bulges out of her wall and menaces her, but doesn’t bother her after she grabs her crucifix off the wall to hold while she sleeps. Although the Nightmare series is awash in mentions of hell and souls, religious items don’t seem to do a whole lot to Freddy. Holy water makes his animated skeleton unhappy, but he seems to mock the notion later. His mom is a ghost nun and seems to have some control over him, but whether that is because she is a)his mom, b)a ghost or c) a nun is unknown.

7,8 Gonna stay up late:
This line and the next hint that Freddy can kill you in your dreams. So, if this was a popular schoolyard rhyme before Freddy started his postmortem murder spree, it is very prescient. Perhaps the rhyme originated in dreams as a warning, a sort of psychic alarm that something terrible was about to fall upon Springwood. One day kids all over town started singing this song out of nowhere.

9,10 Never sleep again: 
This was always the core appeal of Freddy as a monster to me. You can avoid Jason by never going into the woods, stay the hell out Haddonfield, Illinois and Michael isn’t an issue. Even if Freddy has to work to extend his reach beyond the children of the parents who killed him, he keeps trying. Everyone has to sleep.