Jacob- The "Baby-O" tune, as it's often called, is a traditional tune with some trad and many borrowed verses. In our Kentucky mountain community, the fiddle often played the tune for running sets (now usually known as 'square dancing'). Whole families went to these weekend parties at each other's houses- from grandmas down to babies-in-arms. Babies as they fell asleep would be put on a big bed in a back room, and the womenfolk took time-about watching them. To amuse them the minder would bounce the bedsprings up and down with her hands, in time to the fiddle tune in the next room, and sing the verses she knew to the old tune. Many new verses got made up that way. My mother made up the one about, "give Old Blue your chickenbone" (at dinner, sometimes the baby would be playing underneath the table, and his Mom would hand him a drumstick bone to chew on to keep him-or her- quiet). I made up the verse "Dance him north, dance him south, Pour a little moonshine in his mouth," one time while I was taking my turn being a minder at a dance. Other verses I sing,in our family version, are mine, and I also added the line to the chorus, "He/she won't go to sleepy-O." This explains the copyright notice- it's only for the Ritchie Family version, the one I do on my recordings.

Another of my own verses is the one,
Pull her toes, tickle her chin (3 times)
Roll her up in the county-pin!

"County-pin" is the Kentucky pronounciation of, "Counterpane," which means a bedspread.    End of lesson,    Jean Ritchie