I don't get the "Aunt Rhody" connection with "Hush, my Babe". I've heard Doc perform this and his version is in Am with a capo.

I also published a similar version in my book, "An Appalachian Christmas" Mel Bay Pub.

The versions I know of "Aunt Rhody" are different and in a major key.

There's a recent discussion on falsola about this song. Here's some of the info:

Hush my babe
Peggy Brayfield wrote:
>Recently I heard a folk-song lullaby beginning
>
>Hush my dear, lie still and slumber,
>Holy angels guard thy bed
>
>I recognized the tune as number 312b in the Denson Sacred Harp.
>
>I would like to have all the words to this version. Does anyone out there
>know them, or where I could find them?

    This is Isaac Watts' famous Cradle Hymn, from Divine and Moral
Songs; as I've seen it it usually begins, Hush my babe, lie still
and slumber, but your version is occasionally found, as at
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/h/u/hushmyba.htm. I don't know who
linked this poem with RESTORATION, but it was in Ruth Crawford
Seeger's book of Appalachian songs for Christmas.
Warren Steel
               
The Cradle Hymn by Watts is quoted in full in the New England Primer,
Boston 1777, which has a web site all to iself at:
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/primer.htm

Its worth a look if you havn't found it already
Edwin Macadam

This is the opening of "A Cradle Hymn" by our old friend Dr. Isaac
Watts. Full text at

http://www.bartleby.com/101/435.html


have been learning this song from a beautiful arrangment by Peter
Amidon of Brattleboro VT. It does follow the melody of 312b, but
considerably more delicately!

Watts Cradle Hymn (trad American)

Hush my babe lie still and slumber
Holy angels guard thy bed
Heavenly blessings without number
Gently falling on thy bed

Sleep my babe, thy food and raiment
House and home thy friends provide
All without thy care and payment
All thy wants are well supplied

Soft and easy is thy cradle
Coarse and hard thy Savior lay
When his birthplace was a stable
And his softest bed was hay

Lo he slumbered in his manger
Where the horned oxen fed
Peace, my darling, here's no danger
Here's no ox a-near thy bed.


"The Oxford Book of Carols" has seven verses set to a Northumbrian folk tune. On the other hand, "The New Oxford Book of Carols" has five double verses, i.e., ten verses, set to an interesting rearrangement of "Sweet Affliction".

-Berkley Moore, Springfield, IL

<< I don't know who linked this poem with RESTORATION, but it was in Ruth Crawford Seeger's book of Appalachian songs for Christmas. >>

...And her daughter Peggy sang a lovely version of it on one of her
early recordings (which I wish I still had), which is where I learned
the tune, though I could never quite match her guitar accompaniment.

--Ted Johnson

I found this through Google. It contains all the verses.

http://www.ccel.org/w/watts/divsongs/htm/s8.htm#s8


One verse should be considered unacceptable today:

"Yet to read the shameful story.
How the Jews received their King,
How they served the Lord of Glory,
Makes me angry while I sing."

I also went to the site that Roland Hutchinson referred to, and found it likewise narrow-minded, but I think we have to rise above these alienating beliefs when we sing together. The Spirit behind the words does not allow rejection of what some people (we don't understand) find sacred.

Let us find the Love that unites us at this season, and practice Peace.

Claire Simon

From fasola: Discussion forum

-Richie