Lyr Req: Hush Little Babbie

Subject: Lyr Req: Hush Little Babbie
From: Cyparissa
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 12:31 PM

I've been listening to my new Alva CD (which is wonderful, by the way), and one of my favorite songs on it is "Hush Little Babbie." I'd love to know the full lyrics, but I can't find them anywhere! The beginning goes like this:

Hush little babbie,
Hush, go to sleep,
Hush, little babbie,
Do not cry,
Oh then hush, little babbie,
All alseep
For your mammy and daddy
Will be home by and by.

I think that's how it goes. I can't quite make it out. Anyone know this one?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hush Little Babbie
From: Sorcha
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 03:38 PM

First, put hush little baby in the Seach box...see if any of those are what you want. Note spelling of baby.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hush Little Babbie
From: Cyparissa
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 03:43 PM

I have, actually, and absolutely nothing came up. Nothing on Google either, which is quite surprising.

For the record, it really is "babbie," as opposed to "baby." When I tried with "Hush Little Baby" I got results relating to the song

Hush little baby, don't say a word,
Daddy's gonna buy you a mockingbird.

A great song in its own right, but not the one I'm looking for.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hush Little Babbie
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 03:57 PM

It appears to be a song recorded by Peter Kennedy and Sean O'Boyle from the Traveller Winnie Ryan of Kerry (in Belfast, 1952). It appears in Kennedy's Folksongs of Britain and Ireland, pp 768-9. Presumably that is where Alva got it, and I expect they said so in their sleeve notes. There are two verses, each with a different refrain.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hush Little Babbie
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 04:31 PM

And here is Kennedy's transcription of what Winnie Ryan sang.

Hush, little babbie, hush, go asleep
Hush, little babbie, do not cry
Oh then hush, little babbie, and go asleep
For your mammy and daddy will be home by an' by
With me ho-hi-hey-hi-ho

Where are you going, my old man?
Where are you going, my honey?
Oh then hush, little babbie, do not cry
For your daddy and mammy will be home by an' by
Musha ho-hi-hi-ho-hi-ho
Ho-ho-hi-ho-di-hill-de-ho-ri-am


A choral arrangement by Mauro Zuccante, which apparently fails to credit the original singer, collectors or publishers, can be seen at http://www.maurozuccante.com/:

http://www.maurozuccante.com/scores/scores_mixed%20voices/Zuccante%20-%20Hush,%20little%20babbie.pdf

The original field-recordings of the songs in Kennedy's book are available from folktrax.org:

Songs of the Travellers

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hush Little Babbie
From: Peace
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 04:36 PM

The line also appears in "All My Trials".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hush Little Babbie
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 04:46 PM

And in a great many other lullabies, I'd think; but, fortunately, not spelled "babbie". A search via Google for "hush little babbie" returns plenty of references to the song in question, so I don't know where "Cyparissa" went wrong.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hush Little Babbie
From: Peace
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 04:57 PM

Hush, little babbie
[canto popolare nordirlandese]

Hush, little babbie, hush, go asleep,
hush, little babbie, do not cry.

O then hush, little babbie, and go asleep,
for your mammy and daddy will be home by an' by.

With me ho-hi-hey-hi-ho.

Where are you going, my old man?

Where are you going, my honhey?

O then hush, little babbie, do not cry,
for your daddy and mammy will be home by an' by.

Musha ho-hi-hey-hi-ho
Ho-ho-hi-ho-di-hill-de-ho-ri-am.

from

www.edscuola.it/archivio/interlinea/culla.html

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hush Little Babbie
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 05:03 PM

Yes, that's Winnie Ryan's song again, though I suspect that it was lifted from the choral arrangement in this case.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hush Little Babbie
From: Peace
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 05:10 PM

http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/HHH591b.html

Finding it also cross-referenced with Hush Alee.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hush Little Babbie
From: Sorcha
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 06:05 PM

Oh. OK. sorry

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hush Little Babbie
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 06:36 PM

Hush Alee appears in the DT, though the file omits to mention that the contributor, Annie Patterson, got the song from her mother, a native of Loughran, Coleraine. Sam Henry published it in the edition of The Northern Constitution for 30 March 1935. (Sam Henry's Songs of the People, p 6).

Hush Alee

I don't think I'd follow Bob Waltz of the Traditional Ballad Index in identifying the two songs as relatives. The similarities are mainly just normal lullaby tags, and the tunes bear no resemblance to each other that I can hear. Bob's assumption that Winnie Ryan's song was from the North of Ireland may have been based on the fact that she was recorded in Belfast; though, as I mentioned earlier, she was from Kerry; so that factor is no more than circumstantial.

It's perfectly natural that Sorcha should have assumed that the unusual spelling was the problem, because that is so often the reason why people can't find things. This was just one of those rare occasions when it wasn't.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hush Little Babbie
From: Cyparissa
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 06:40 PM

Thanks everyone, those lyrics were just what I wanted. :)

And don't worry about it, Sorcha. I thought it was a mispelling when I first saw it too.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Hush Little Babbie
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 06:51 PM

Oh, I forgot Peter Kennedy's note that Winnie got the song during her youth in Kerry and Connemara, so Bob was mistaken in that particular.

Kennedy (or perhaps John Brune, who was, I think, responsible for most of the background material in the "Travelling People" section of the book) speculates that the song was "a traveller's version of an English translation or a remake of an Irish-Gaelic original". Maybe; the refrains seem mainly to comprise of familiar Gaelic vocables, at any rate.