History
The origin of the squeaky wheel metaphor is unknown, but its current form is attributed to American humorist Josh Billings who is said to have popularized it in his putative poem "The Kicker" (c. 1870).
- I hate to be a kicker,
- I always long for peace,
- But the wheel that does the squeaking,
- Is the one that gets the grease.
However, this poem has been attributed to various authors, anonymous or otherwise, and its provenance has never been verified. The first publication of the poem can be traced only to 1910. For unknown reasons, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations attributed the poem to Billings in 1937.
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