“Hush-a-Bye, Baby”
Description
The singer is forty-five with a young wife who "loves to go out on a spree" leaving him to watch the baby. One night he goes out for a stroll while the baby is sleeping and "my dear wife I spied hugging a soldier sixteen"
Supplemental text
Hush-a-Bye, Baby
Complete text(s)
*** A ***
From MacEdward Leach, Folk Ballads & Songs of the Lower Labrador Coast,
#115, p. 285. "Sung by Peter Letto, Lance au Clair, July 1960."
I'm sweet forty-five and my dear little wife
She's twenty years younger than me;
She's fond of enjoyment and all sorts of fun;
She loves to go out on a spree.
Lawty, tauty, hush a my baby,
Hail, my baby grows so high,
Lawty, tauty, hush a my baby,
Mother will come to baby by 'n by.
One night as my baby lay silent in sleep,
I took a short stroll around the street,
And to my surprise my dear wife I spied
Hugging a soldier sixteen.
Cross references
- cf. "Rocking the Cradle (and the Child Not His Own)" (theme)
- cf. "Unhappy Jeremiah (The Brats of Jeremiah)" (plot)
References
- Leach-Labrador 115, "Hush-a-Bye, Baby" (1 text, 1 tune)
- ST LLab115 (Full)
- Roud #9971
- BI, LLab115