Why is that lullabies have such enormous power to soothe? I have sung lullabies to my children since they were tiny babies and it is such a special time, just before sleep, all warm and quiet and cuddled up. I remember my grandmother singing this one:
Go to sleep my baby
Close your pretty eyes
Angels round about you
Peeping at you from the skies
Great big moon am shining
Stars begin to peep
Time for little picaninnies to go to sleep
Time for little picaninnies to go to sleep
I have never heard this song anywhere else and I wonder if any of you are familiar with it? My grandmother was from Lancashire and her family worked in the cotton mills and we have often wondered whether, with its talk of ‘moon am shining’ and ‘picaninnies’ it might have come across from the West Indies.
However, this is my absolute favourite lullaby of all time and I still sing it to both my boys, despite the fact that Boy the Elder is speeding towards 14. It is sung by Harry Nilsson and is on his astonishingly beautiful album ‘A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night’ which came out in 1973. It is a collection of old ballads given a big smoochy orchestra, generously topped with his sleepy, sensual vocals. Wrap your ears round this:-
Wartime Housewife 
One of my earliest memories are of my mother singing “Tour A Lour A Loura”. Sometimes when I curl up under the bed sucking my thumb I sing it to myself.
Hi Oldfool: the only time I’ve ever heard this song was on that comedy film with Steve MArtin and Goldie Hawne – Housesitter? – where they pretend to be a married couple and she makes him sing it to his boss. Is it Irish?
My mother, a Lancastrian, sang the Go to sleep my baby lullaby to me. and I sang it to my children and now to my grandchildren. There were no picaninnies, though – that line was Now it’s time for baby (name) to go to sleep.
Welcome Maureen. No picaninnies – how interesting. This is the great thing about folk songs, they get altered and varied according to who is singing them and thus become personal. My grandmother was a Victorian so maybe their sensibilities were less honed! Hope you keep reading.
It is Irish. Although my family has been here in the wilderness for hundreds of years now they never forgot from whence they came.
Brought a tear my eye, the’ Go to sleep my baby’ lullaby. I had that sung to me when I was a kid as well, Yorkshire, and the exact same words, picaninnies included. No idea what they are but most older people I know around here know that song. It’s lovely – nice song on the vid as well.
Picaninny is a completely out of fashion word for a small black child. It’s out of fashion because it came to have a derogatory slant.
I watched a 50s travel film a while ago where they showed children, including a little black girl, playing on a beach. The cut-glass English voiceover said something to the effect of “Well at least that little picanninny won’t get burned in the sun!” There was an audible gasp in the auditorium.
Yes you’re right, WH. I just looked it up, never knew that before.
Take a look here http://www.answers.com/topic/pickaninny
Interesting, maybe Spanish or Portuguese according to that – still a nice song though.
Ok, I think I may have found what the song is. According to this it’s called The Wyoming Waltz;
http://www.grainger.de/music/songs/pdlgotosleep_lb.html
Searched around and found a video on uTube, someone playing it on an old Edison cylinder. It takes a while to get going but if you listen to it, 2 minutes into the video, the ‘Go to sleep’ lullaby tune starts to play. Here’s the video;
That’s it, right?
That absolutely is it, G-rider. How brilliant!
Cr*p – the link embedded the video. Sorry, WH. Didn’t think it would do that, you might want to delete it. Whoops – sorry 😀
I was born in the American south and live there now and I have never thought of “pickaninny” as derogatory. My mother used the word with affection. We, SWMBO and I, use the word with affection. It is unfortunate there is not a similar word for white kids but since there is not we attach it to them as well. When I was very young it meant “little black kids”. It did not mean monkeys, niggers or any other mean things people say. It just meant little black kids. The white kids were referred to as those “little white bastards”.
Catalan singer Montserrat Figueras has a wonderful album called Ninna Nanna, which is a selection of lullabies from around the world – both traditional lullabies and others of various places and dates. Hespèrion XXI, the band led by Figueras’ husband Jordi Savall, accompany – they’re basically an early music band so the whole thing has some very interesting sounds. It’s a terrific album, combining rich musical variety with real tenderness.
That sounds fascinating Phil, I shall track that down.
My father used to sing a version of this to me, he was Lincolnshire born and bred so it’s not a Lancashire song. I think it may have been an old music hall song because my Great Uncle also sang it and he was a huge music hall fan. Our version was slightly different, the last lines were ‘time for sleepyheads like you to be fast asleep.’ I doubt that this was because he was PC though- we’re talking 55 years ago here 🙂
Nice to hear from you again Odney. How interesting. So we’ve had Lancs, Yorks + Lincs; any advance on Lincs anyone?
Oh how lovely to hear Harry Nilsson again. I have that album (I think I have all of his) but lack the wherewithal to play it now.
Buy the CD toffeeapple!
Or see if it is available free on Spotify.
Lovely song, WH. I had never heard it before, but I don’t come from a lullaby-singing family! 🙂
Your chaps are probably too old for them now. Is Spotify legal?
No evidence of Piccaninnies in Buckinghamshire when my mother sang me this lullaby.Admittedly the banks of the Grand Union Canal where I was raised is a bit of a stretch from the Mississippi though.
Thank you for the memory ….I’d quite forgotten the song.
My mother sang this to me when we were living where she was raised in the Black Country. But only the first half. This was the late 60’s.
The song too ta loo ra lu ra was sung by Bing Crosby in either Going My Way or the sequel The Bells of St Mary’s.
Used to listen to that album for hours on end back in the early 70s. Thanks.
Aha – gosh you lot are a mine of information.
I too heard this when I was a little one…but no mention of piccaninnies in the version that was sung to me about 45+ years ago.
& by the way…my badge is ‘LOVELY, LOVELY, LOVELY’ thank you so much.
You’re most welcome Glynis.
And another thing………….There was quite a bit of Too Ra Loo Ra Lay-ing going on in the early 50s courtesy of Flanagan and Allen’s Umbrella Man,as I recall………And that’s not all:
Kevin Rowland and Dexey’s Midnight Runners gave it a go whilst encouraging that Eileen to Come On,whatever that might mean.
There does seem to be an Irish undercurrent about all this,though.
Of course BR –
Too ra loo ra too ra loo ra-yay,
Eileen I’ll hum this tune forever
Come on Eileen….. etc
There’s quite a lengthy discussion about what I think must be the same song here – http://www.rainbowsongs.com/mikeblog/2006/11/21/origin-of-the-song-hear-comes-the-sandman/. There seem to be endless variations (though someone does remember a version with picanninies in it about half way down).
The nearest thing I remember to a lullaby from my mother was “Don’t sleep in the subway, darling” by Petula Clark – which I suppose is quite useful advice.
I think this maybe a different song, BW – have a look at g-rider’s comment above in which he has included a clip which features the exact tune. FF to about 2 mins in as he says.
Has you mother’s advice stood you in good stead? Have you remembered not to sleep in subways?
Sometimes needs must…..
I’ve slept in worse places.
I see what you mean about the song. I think the version that people in England remember was one called the Wyoming Lullaby which was written by an English songwriter called Lawrence Wright (born in Leicester!) who wrote American-style songs under the name Gene Williams. What he seems to have done is borrowed an older (American?) tune, the Wyoming Waltz, and quoted some lines from another older American song as part of the lyric. His song was popular in England in the 20s, and was later recorded by people like Alma Cogan.
I guess so many people have sung part of the song as a lullaby to their children that the origins have got lost or confused – which I suppose is how folk music works.
(I bet you wish you’d never started this one …)
How on earth did you find this out BW? This is the great thing about bloggin’, one gets input from so many diverse sources and people know such interesting stuff. However, it would seem that there’s no cotton connection, but rather one of the emerging popular music culture.
Blimey, my Mum, a Leicester lass through and through used to sing it to us, her dad, a Leicester man sang it to her and I used to sing it to my boys. Lovely tune and lyrics, well done WTH.
Just a bit of rootling on the internet. Wright (aka Williams, O’Horgan etc.) seems to have been a fascinating character, who wrote (or claimed the copyright to) an incredible number of songs, some of them with the most wonderful titles – http://www.fredgodfreysongs.ca/Collaborators/lawerence_wright.htm
I’d guess if you go back far enough the lullaby does have folk origins, but I think its popularity in Lancashire owes more to the shows Wright put on on Blackpool Pier than any connection with the cotton industry.
He also seems to have a blue plaque in Conduit St. Leicester!
Thanks so much for that BW – what an interesting chap he was. We forget that these early eras had their superstars as well.
Hi Wartime Housewife – I have recently found your blog through Dabbler, which I discovered via Martinsmoths – Martin being a friend of mine who is married to a friend who was my flatmate in London a long long time ago. I love your blog! This entry about lullabies acted as a memory charge – my mother used to sing a lullaby that started “go to sleep my little piccaninny, mama’s gonna love you if you do. . .” This was in the US, outside of Philly, sung by a woman whose parents emigrated from Belfast just before she was born. Where my mother learned it, I will never know because she has been gone for 13 years, but your post managed to bring her back to me for a moment. Thank you.
Welcome Sarah – isn’t it amazing how these things become part of a huge cultural memory. Thanks you for your comment and I hope we hear from you again.
Hi,
I had completely forgotten about this! Thanks for the memory. My grandfather used to sing this to me when I was little, and I showed it to him and he said his mother used to sing it to him when he was little in the 1920’s in Lancashire and that it came from his grandmother at the turn of the century. He said pincanninys for him meant all small children as there were no blacks in Lancashire when he was growing up. However, his grandparents did a spell in E. America working in the cotton mills in Fall River, Boston – so perhaps it came from there. My grandfather now 90yrs old sang it to me again when I showed him my post and had me in tears!! Thanks again x
Welcome rscott9 and thanks for your lovely story. Maybe there is a cotton connection after all and the song just spread as people spread out. I do hope you keep reading.
Wow, I’ve never actually seen a phonograph in action, so thanks for (inadvertently) posting the video, G-rider. I particularly liked the deliberate panning down the chest of drawers about 1 minute in, for added excitement! 😉
And yes, WH, Spotify IS legal, at least the paid version definitely is. Though it is possible they may need to modify the free version to limit the number of plays of any one song.
Spotify have now changed the rules with effect from 1 June 2011 but – just like the Labour Government trick of the last few years – the changes will come in so gradually that they will creep up on you without you noticing (yeah, right!). Initially it will be unlimited play for 6 months for existing customers, followed by a maximum of 10 plays per track, with an option to buy that track as a one-off download at the end of that time. Or something like that.
Once I get to the end of my free plays, I’ll be walking, which is a shame, because I love the sound quality of Spotify.
I had this sung to me as a child too…probably Mum learnt it from my Grandparents who were from Nottingham and Lincoln. Also without picaninnies, mine was ‘little babies’.
Do any readers know ‘ Lula lula bye bye? Sung to me by an old lady who baby sat for us (she was a Londoner) Sadly can’t remember all of it what I do remember goes:
Lula lula lula lula bye bye
Do you want the stars to play with
Or the moon to run away with
They’ll come if you don’t cry
Oh lula lula lula lula bye
Haven’t had any luck tracking more of it down….
Nice to hear from you again, Under-rabbit. No, I’ve never come across this one before. We seem to have some expert trackers in our group – anyone?