*Attention!* Since what follows is not a story behind a song, but a response to Pete Savage's mention of HIS family songbook, those with little time to waste should skip to the next contribution.
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Pete, your thread has put me in mind of the story behind our family songbook, which was begun in rather trying circumstances a little while back. (I realize this wasn't exactly what you were fishin' for and I hope you get lots of other juicy responses; just thought someone else working on a similar project might like to swap stories.)

Three or four years 'n' some ago, I had the grave misfortune to become intimately acquainted with a ruthlessly ambitious influenza virus. Not content to lay waste to my respiratory system, it set its megalomaniacal sights on my heart, which it left in a condition similar to that in which the infamous General Sherman left Georgia. When the docs at the hospital had done their fancy dancin', I was packed off to expire in the comfort of home.

As soon as the grim prospect of imminent demise sank in, (which took some doing, since my grandparents and their siblings had been notoriously long-lived; --one grandmother lasted to 103, still cracking wise at every opportunity), I turned my attention to settlin' my affairs, such as they were. Akiba, my best of all possible husbands, called together all the young'uns (mostly not so young, as it so happens), and I asked em', "Other than a piece o' whatever's left o' my mind, watcha reckon y' got comin'?"

"We're in for it now, guys, she's talkin' funny again!," declared the family smart-ass, my son Chaz. Then they all sat lookin' at me like I'd put salt 'stead o' sugar in the lukshen kugle (sweet noodle pudding).

"Well," sez I, "No use a'lollygaggin,' speak up afore ya need a long-range satellite t' reach me. Who wants what?" From the guilty looks, you'd a'thunk they'd et up ever' one o' the shul's (synagogue's) special-order hamentashen (pastries served on the holiday of Purim), like they did one year in the locust phase of adolescence. I "figerred" my books 'n' records 'n' my py-anner 'n' git-awr 'n' my afghans 'n' tins 'n' blue glass bottles warn't much, but ez they's all I had t' leave 'em, th' ungrateful lil' buggers could at least "pertend" t' think my stuff worth havin,' if only 'til they reached th' curb with it!

"Is it gonna be a bigger "potch in tuchas" (swat on the behind) if'n y' git it afore er after y' tell me what th' tarnation's a'goin on?!" (I was startin t' get m' dander up, don't y' see?)

"Wool-la, Wool-la (Relax, relax, in pidgin), Ema (Mom, in Hebrew)!," said our darlin' only daughter, who'd only had about five years t' lose her Vietnamese accent, but saw no particular advantage in doin' so.

"We want the songs!," declared Joel, our youngest, who never could wait for a punchline, completely devoid of the Native American taciturnity that should have been his birthright.

"Huh?" sez I, at a thoroughly unfamiliar loss for words.

"Bigmouth!," snarled Chaz, givin' Baby Brother a less-than-tender cuff upside the head, "Shoulda flushed ya when I had th' chance!" Then, he up 'n' tells me, "We decided when you were in the hospital, that if... well, if you came home, we'd really like it if you would write out the words to all the songs you used to sing with us; you know, at bedtime, or in the car or in the kitchen..."

"Yeah, and your recipes, too!," piped up Joel, careless of his continued existence.

"And your recipes, of course, Muti (Mommy in German Yiddish), and your stories, too," said Chaz, ignorin' th' ignorant, "But mostly what we want is the songs. I know they're probably in books somewhere, but we'll never get around to looking them up, and we just thought that we'd like to be able to pass them on, someday," -- which was the longest joke-free utterance ever to exit that boy's mouth!

And so, to keep a long story from gettin any bigger for its britches, it was decided that they would bring home the entire music section of the local library, and I would search my fading recollection, and we'd end up with a nice little keepsake for each of them. We're past five hundred songs, now, (not all of them "folk"), with no end in sight, and since I've discovered the Internet, and the Mudcat, I'm a'fixin t' keep on addin' t' "Savta (Grandma) Shula's Special Collection of Stolen Songs and Other Tasty Treats" until I kick. (And th' ticker that took a lickin' just keeps on a' tickin' -- must be th' healin' pow'r o' music, doncha reckon?) True story.

L'Chaim!

Shula