November 14, 2016 (Monday)
Before Wanda and I married (and for a while afterwards), we would drive around and I would sing to her, at her request. You might think the songs would be romantic, but they were not; they were songs she liked to hear me sing. Two of them were our favorites: Kentucky Babe and The Whiffenpoof Song.
Kentucky Babe was a lullaby and was published in 1896.
Click here to hear Bing Crosby’s 1947 recording of this song (with Fred Waring and his Glee Club).
KENTUCKY BABE
(Music by Adam Geibel / Lyrics by Richard Henry Buck, 1896)
Skeeters am a hummin’
on the honeysuckle vine
sleep Kentucky Babe!
Sandman am a comin’
to this little child of mine
sleep Kentucky Babe!
Silvery moon am a shinin’
on de heavens up above
bobolink am pinin’ for his little lady love . . .
You is might lucky
Babe of old Kentucky
close your eyes in sleep . . .
and fly away,
fly away Kentucky Babe,
fly away to rest, fly away,
lay your tiny curly head
on your mammy’s breast,
hmm, hmmm, hmm, hmmm,
close your eyes in sleep!
The other song, “The Whiffenpoof Song,” dates from 1909 and is from the 14-member Glee Club of Yale University. It is a parody of a Kipling poem. I sang only the chorus with the “Baa Baa” lyrics (click here to hear):
We’re poor little lambs who have lost their way
Baa Baa Baa
We’re little black sheep who have gone astray
Baa Baa Baa
Gentlemen songsters off on a spree
Doomed from here to eternity
Lord, have mercy on such as we,
Baa Baa Baa.
Ah, those were the days. I was driving a literal wreck of a car, but love turned it into a golden chariot, making a crooner out of me. Wanda liked it. I liked doing it.