Just to tie up one loose end (how's that for a topological incongruity?), the song Ebbie was looking for, about the goat who ate a red shirt and then saved his own life by flagging down a train, is Bill Grogan's Goat.

And to provide a multicultural flavor, we used to sing the Hebrew hymn "Adon Olam" (which is in Long Meter, four lines of iambic tetrameter) to a number of different tunes. A big favorite when I was in high school in the late 60's was "Hiroshima" ("I Come and Stand at Every Door", by Nazim Hikmet) -- which, of course, meant that we were singing a Hebrew prayer to a tune used for an English translation of a Turkish poem, as also used by a Mexican-American folksinger for a Scottish ballad. (And I'm sure I'm missing some steps.) Long live the folk process!

If anyone is interested in the interchangeability of shape-note tunes and words, as well as the names of the different meters, here is The Sacred Harp Meter Index.

Aloha,
Mark