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All The Pretty Little Horses
Traditional Old-Time Bluegrass Lullaby
Painting by Richard L. Matteson Jr. C 2006
ARTIST: From Bullfrog Jumped, a CD of children’s songs that were recorded across Alabama in 1947. Though it is subtitled Children’s Folksongs from the Byron Arnold Collection.
Richard L. Matteson C 2009. Lyrics 2006. All The Pretty Little Horses MP3
Demo recorded & arranged by Richard L. Matteson Jr (guitar) with his niece Kara (vocal) Dec. 2009.
CATEGORY: Children's Bluegrass Songs
EARLIEST DATE: Civil War period printed in 1925, 1926, 1927 (Sandburg) and 1934.
Dorothy Scarborough, "On the Trail of Negro Folk Songs," 1925 (1963 reprint by Folklore Associates, pp. 144-149.
Carl Sandburg, The American Songbag (1927). Sandburg, pp. 454-455, "Go To Sleepy" (1 text, 1 tune, in which the child is promised rewards upon waking -- but seemingly also threatened with the "booger man" if it won't sleep)
John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax, American Ballads and Folk Songs (1934). Lomax-ABFS, pp. 304-305, "All the Pretty Little Horses" (1 text, 1 tune)
RECORDING INFO: All the Pretty Little Horses
Rt - Rocky Bye Baby; Go to Sleep/Sleepy Little Baby (Bye); Mama's Gonna Buy
Lomax, J. A. & A. Lomax / American Ballads and Folk Songs, MacMillan, Bk (1934), p304
Scott, John Anthony (ed.) / Ballad of America, Grosset & Dunlap, Bk (1967), p204 (Hushabye)
Lomax, John A. & Alan Lomax / Folk Song USA, Signet, Sof (1966/1947), # 2
Winds of the People, Sing Out, Sof (1982), p 57 (Pretty Horses)
Blood, Peter; and Annie Patterson (eds.) / Rise Up Singing, Sing Out, Sof (1992/1989), p130
Fox, Lillian M. / Folk Songs of the United States, Calif. State Series, Sof (1951), p41
Silverman, Jerry / Folksingers Guide to Note Reading and Music Theory, Oak, Sof (1966), p39b,p53
Mursell, James, et.al.(eds.) / Music Now and Long Ago, Silver Burdette, Bk (1956), p101
Archer, Frances; and Beverly Gile. International Songs and Ballads, Stand 408, LP (196?), trk# A.01
Chasman, Paul. Solo Guitar, Rose, LP (1978), trk# B.04
Deller, Alfred. Western Wind, Vanguard SRV 73005, LP (1967/1958), trk# A.04
Gribi, Gerri. Womansong Collection, Gribi, CD (1996), trk# 20 (Hushabye)
Journeymen. New Directions, Capitol T 1951, LP (1963), trk# A.02
Lea, Terrea. Folk Songs & Ballads, HiFiRecord R-404, LP (195?), trk# A.08
Lomax, Alan. Texas Folk Songs, Tradition TLP 1029, LP (1958), trk# 7
Lomax, Alan. Collectors Choice, Tradition 1057, LP (196?), trk# B.03
Odetta. Odetta at Carnegie Hall, Vanguard VRS-9076, LP (1961), trk# B.02
Odetta. To Ella, Silverwolf SWCD 1012, CD (1998), trk# 3e
Raven, Nancy. Lullabies and Other Children's Songs, Pacific Cascade LPL 7007, LP (1969), trk# A.03 (Hushabye)
Robertson, Kim. Tender Shepherd, Gourd GM 112, Cas (1992), trk# B.01
Seeger, Peggy. Three Sisters, Prestige International 13029, LP (1960s), trk# A.08b (Pretty Little Horses)
Seeger, Pete. Seeger, Pete / How to Play the Five String Banjo, Seeger, sof (1962), P49 Seeger, Pete. Seeger, Pete / Goofing-Off Suite, Hargail, Sof (1959), p 8
Seeger, Pete. Asch, Moses (ed.) / 124 Folk Songs as Sung and Recorded on Folkways Reco, Robbins, Fol (1965), p 15
Smith, Peggy Donaldson. Shady Grove, Shady Grove PDS 11-30-78, LP (1978), trk# A.06
FLOATING LYRICS: Rocky Bye Baby; Go to Sleep/Sleepy Little Baby (Bye); Mama's Gonna Buy;
RELATED TO: Hush-a bye; Black Sheep Where You Leave Yo' Lamb;
OTHER NAMES: "Hush-a-bye"; "Go to Sleepy Little Baby" (Sandburg); "Whole Heap a Little Horses" (Texas Gladden);
SOURCES: Mudcat forum; Folk Index
NOTES: Odetta said of All the Pretty Little Horses, "A woman crooning a lullaby to a baby while she leaves her own unattended in order to earn money for bread. In the song she refers to her own child as the lambie in the meadow. This lullaby comes from the South, post Civil War."
This lullaby is known from both African-American and white source from the mid-1800's and possibly is older. Below are the lyrics from W. A. Fisher, 1926, Seventy Negro Spirituals, Oliver Ditson Co, Boston, pp. 4-7, with music; Kentucky melody, collection of Miss. M. Crudup Vesey. "...as sung by various black mammys has hushed to sleep five generations of babies in one old Kentucky family." "The melody, in the minor mode, is with lowered seventh."
BLACK SHEEP, WHERE YOU LEFT YOU' LAMB- 1926 version
Black sheep, black sheep, where you left you' lamb,
'Way down in the pasture?
The buzzards an' the flies- A-pickin' out his eyes,
An' the poor li'l lamb say, "Mammy,"
An' the poor li'l lamb say, "Mammy."
Hush-a-bye, don't you cry,
Go to sleep, li'l baby;
The song was printed as early as 1925 by Scarborough and in 1927 by Sandburg. It's been recorded by many people including Peter, Paul and Mary as "Hush-a-Bye." Here's a different list:
Barbara Dickson
Becky Jean Williams
Caroline Herring
Calexico
Charlotte Church
The Chieftains with Patty Griffin
Coil, as "All the Pretty Little Horses", for their album Black Antlers
Current 93, two versions as "All the Pretty Little Horses", for their 1996 album of the same name, one sung by Nick Cave
Esther Ofarim
Friends of Dean Martinez
Grant Campbell For The Burrowers
Holly Cole, as "All the Pretty Little Horses", for her 1997 album Dark Dear Heart
Joan Baez
Judy Collins, for her 1990 album Baby's Bedtime
Kenny Loggins, as "All the Pretty Little Ponies", for his 1994 album Return to Pooh Corner
Laura Gibson, as "All the Pretty Horses", for her EP Six White Horses
Olivia Newton-John
Peter, Paul and Mary, as "Hush-A-Bye", for their 1963 album In the Wind
Shawn Colvin
Shearwater, as "All the Pretty Horses", for their 2004 split album Sham Wedding/Hoax Funeral
Alan Lomax reportedly learned the song from his mother and his version has been recorded and appears on youtube.
The lyrics "birds and butterflies, peck at his eyes" have sometimes been changed to "birds and butterflies, flutter 'round his eyes" to make the lullaby less violent for younger children.
Notes by John Bealle:
Under various titles—"Go To Sleepy" and "All the Pretty Little Horses" are common—this song is one of the most widely collected lullabies in American folksong. It is a favorite among African American singers and is well know to popular audiences through folksong recordings and collections.
The song employs common functional elements of lullabies, promising pleasant rewards to an infant "when you wake" in order to "lull" the infant to sleep. Moreover, the particular way lullabies solicit the cooperation of the infant is taken as a marker of deeply-held values that shape an individual's self-concept beginning in infancy.
Bess Lomax Hawes (1974) has examined the "when you wake" formula in this song, concluding that on the surface, it seem to contain a bribe, a promise of a reward for good behavior. But on closer examination it is revealed as a simple prediction: "When you wake, you shall have...." This future-orientation distinguishes "Pretty Little Horses" from other American lullabies, which are generally "expressed in present tense and filled with descriptive terms about the surroundings and the activities of various people" (p146).
Other characteristics distinctive for this song involve the spatial isolation of the baby. Most American lullabies situate the sleep-induced baby elsewhere:
"All the people around him in song are actually somewhere else—shaking dreamland trees, gone hunting, out watching sheep, or what have you. Baby, meanwhile, is up in a tree, or sailing off in a boat made out of the moon, or driving away with his "pretty little horses." When he does sleep, he is described as being in a place called "dreamland" which, wherever it is, clearly isn't his own bed; and he is variously requested or ordered to take himself to that "land of Nod" by the linguistic convention that requires English speakers to "go to sleep." Even the most widespread choice of a lulling nonsense syllable takes the form of a spatial metaphor: "bye bye," after all, means both "sleep" and "farewell." (p146)
Hawes believes that in this respect, lullabies form part of the bedrock of American individualism. "If we want independent children," she says, "we must thrust them away from us, and, equally importantly, we must thrust ourselves away from them." As a ritual act, then, lullabies shape the consciousness not so much of the infant as of the caretaker. They are "a mother's conversation with herself about separation" (p148).
But "Pretty Little Horses" does not stress separation. The reason, other researchers have noted, have to do with its connection with African American slavery. In this, the song embodies a cruel irony: slave caretakers comforting the masters' babies with assurances of their material privileges. Scarborough (1925:144-47) observed the song sung specifically for that purpose. The version in Harris's Uncle Remus books begins, "Mammy went away—she tol' me ter stay, an take good keer er the baby" (1892:213-14). And some variants, such as the one that appeared in the Lomaxes' collection, American Ballads and Folksongs (1934:204-5; also in Scarborough 1925:147), contain a mysterious, heartrending stanza, "Way down yonder; In de medder; There's a po' little lambie," which is taken by some to refer to a second baby, a slave baby neglected while the caretaker tends to the master's children (Singer 2001:8). "De bees an' de butterflies; Peckin' out its eyes," the verse continues, "De po' lil thing cried, "Mammy!"
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All the Little Horses- Pansy Richardson, Mobile, July 10, 1947
Hush a bye little baby.
When you wake you’ll have a little cake
And all belong to the baby. Hush little baby, don’t you cry.
Hush a bye little baby.
When you wake you’ll have a little cake
And all belong to the baby. All them horses in pa’s window
All belong to the baby.
Hush little baby, don’t you cry
Hush a bye little baby. Go to sleepy little baby.
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