Lyr Req: Rockabye Baby (Johnny Standley)

Subject: Lyr Req: Rockabye Baby - Johnny Standley
From: z!
Date: 20 Nov 03 - 12:39 PM

The flip side of Johnny Standley's "It's In The Book" was a version of Rockabye Baby (Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree top. What have we here? Another story of juvenile delinquency?)

Anyone?

z!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rockabye Baby - Johnny Standley
From: Leadfingers
Date: 20 Nov 03 - 12:45 PM

I can remember that it ends 'Down will come Cradle baby and All -- Oh what a mess ' or sommat like that. Thats a forty year old memory.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rockabye Baby (Johnny Standley)
From: GUEST,PAPA TONY
Date: 15 Apr 11 - 09:40 AM

All I can remember is segments. One of which says, someone places the baby high up in a tree and waits for the wind to blow and ends with:

"Down will come cradle, baby and all! Ooh what a gooey mess!"

That's about all I can muster up at this time. Wish someone would post the lyrics. They must be around somewhere.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rockabye Baby (Johnny Standley)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 03:19 PM

You can hear what I think is the performance you want at YouTube. There, they call it PROUD NEW FATHER. I have no idea whether that's the correct title.

However, an advertisement in Billboard on August 29, 1953 shows that there was a recording of PROUD NEW FATHER b/w CLAP YOUR HANDS, performed by Johnny Standley, on Capitol 2569.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rockabye Baby (Johnny Standley)
From: GUEST,Here is "Proud new father" on you tube
Date: 09 Mar 12 - 10:18 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jmld3WM7QY&feature=watch_response

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rockabye Baby (Johnny Standley)
From: Jon Corelis
Date: 10 Mar 12 - 02:52 PM

It's always seemed clear to me that this nursery rhyme has a clear Freudian interpretation as a child's dream-censored memory of birth trauma.

Rock-a-bye baby: the child in the womb

In the tree top: the mother's body visualized as a tree, with the baby sleeping at the "top" of the trunk (legs-hips-waist)

When the wind blows: as the mother breathes

The cradle will rock: the child in the womb gently rises and falls with the mother's breath

When the bough breaks: when the mother's water breaks for childbirth

The cradle will fall,: the child will fall into the birth canal

And down will come baby: the child will be born

Cradle and all: with the placenta around it

To the predictable chuckling response that this interpretation is ridiculous, I have of course no defense.

Jon Corelis
Kent State Reconsidered as Nightmare