Songs for Bedtime

By Randy Keillor

I am sure that most of the time my mother put me to bed. She probably rocked me to sleep many times. I’m guessing she often sang hymns while she rocked me to sleep. But I really can’t remember. What I do remember were the nights that my father Lawrence took over. That was wonderfully memorable.

Even though my mother sang far better than he, the ritual he established was oh so much better. If I lucked out, I could persuade him to start by bouncing me on his foot while he chanted, “Here we go to Merry-ma-she, Pedicoat-ee-ack, and Sheperd-ee.” He might even repeat it several times.

It wasn’t until many years later that we would all learn that those were the names of three small towns in New Brunswick, located around the spot his father and grandfather had lived. The real spellings turned out to be Miramichi, Pettitcodiac, and Shepody. Had I known that, however, it would not have changed the fun of having Dad getting me ready to sleep.

After that, next, I climbed up onto his lap; he would rock and sing. I don’t know for sure how many songs he had in his lullaby repertoire. But several these songs engraved themselves on my memory. I don’t know exactly why. All are depressingly sad — sadism, death, and aging — and maybe should have scared me. But they did not. I don’t ever remember laying awake in terror over death or old age.

“The Kitty Song” is a disturbing song, an awful one to sing to a child. It is the tale of child’s kitty, stolen by a mean boy who ties the kitty up in a sack and dumps her into a creek and drowned her. Who would make up a song like that? Who would repeat it? What kind of father would use it as a lullaby to wonderful little kid like me? I loved it then; the memory connects me to my father still today, 60 or more years later.

The Kitty Song

O where is my kitty, my little grey kitty?
I wandered the fields all around,
I looked in the cradle and under the table,
But nowhere I found.
I went to the stable, looked under the table,
I looked at the old wooded spout.
I went to the woodpile and stayed there a good while
But no little kitty came out.
I took my dog Rover and looked the fields over
to see if my kitty was there.
No dog could be kinder, but he couldn't find her,
O where can my poor kitty be.
I saw a boy trundle away with a bundle
and carry it down to the brook.
Oh could it be kitty, so cunning and pretty?
I’ll guess I’ll go down there and look.
There is no knowing what people are doing
who carry things off in a sack.
Swiftly they hurry, never they tarry,
and always come empty back.
I took my hook, and went to the brook
to see if my kitty was there;
but there I found that she had been drowned
And so I went home in despair.

While it is possible to find these words from other sources, this is not a song that has a wide audience. In our family, however, it has long been a favorite, handed down from one generation to the next. I have been led to believe that some of my nieces and nephews may have softened the words for their children. Too bad for them — and their children. The haunting melody matched the words, and my dad’s somewhat flat baritone voice only made it more so.

On the other hand, “When You and I Were Young, Maggie” is a very well-known song, still recorded and very popular from the time it was written in the 1860s. The song is often treated as a Celtic love song, but its real history has a closer connection to the Keillor family. The words were written by George Johnson of Hamilton, Ontario, in the mid-1860s when my grandfather’s family was living in that area. An Englishman wrote the music, and it was published in 1866. My father used this as a lullaby. I also remember hearing him sing or whistle it many times while he was working in his garden. I remember it as a wonderfully depressing song about aging and love. The real story of the poem is quite different and more tragic. George’s young wife Maggie died after just a couple years of marriage; he actually wrote it as she was dying, a song of loss not of aging love.

When You and I Were Young, Maggie

I wandered today to the hill, Maggie
To watch the scene below
The creek and the rusty old mill, Maggie
Where we sat in the long, long ago.
The green grove is gone from the hill, Maggie
Where first the daisies sprung old rusty mill is still, Maggie
Since you and I were young.
A city so silent and lone, Maggie
Where the young and the gay and the best
In polished white mansion of stone, Maggie
Have each found a place of rest
Is built where the birds used to play, Maggie
And join in the songs that were sung
For we sang just as gay as they, Maggie
When you and I were young.
They say I am feeble with age, Maggie
My steps are less sprightly than then
My face is a well written page, Maggie
But time alone was the pen.
They say we are aged and grey, Maggie
As spray by the white breakers flung
But to me you're as fair as you were, Maggie
When you and I were young.
And now we are aged and grey, Maggie
The trials of life nearly done
Let us sing of the days that are gone, Maggie
When you and I were young.

Of course, when I was little, my parents seemed very old. Although when I was being rocked to sleep, both of them would have been in their 30s. It never seemed odd to me that my father was singing a song about being old and nearing death. To me it was a song about how much my dad loved my mom. I always imagined him singing this song to my mother even though I never heard him actually sing it to her. After I grew up and my parents did age and were so in love, it was the perfect song for them.

Another lullaby that my father sang to me regularly was much older, much better known, and much more depressing than the others. “The Babes in the Woods” has its roots in a traditional children’s tale first printed in English in 1595 with the title, “"The Norfolk gent his will and Testament and how he Commytted the keepinge of his Children to his own brother whoe delte most wickedly with them and howe God plagued him for it."

Oh say, don’t you know that a long time ago,
Two little babes, whose names I don’t know,
Were taken away on a bright summer day
And lost in the woods, so I’ve heard people say.

And when it was night, how sad was their plight.
The sun, it went down, and the moon gave no light.
They sobbed and they sighed, and bitterly cried,
Those poor little babes, they lay down and died.

And when they were dead, the robin so red
Brought strawberry leaves and over them spread,
And all the day long, he sang them this song:
“Poor little babes now dead and gone.”

Randolph Caldecott illustrated the story and published it in book form in 1879. Walt Disney turned it into a 1932 short animated film, Babes in the Woods, (available on YouTube) using the same tune as the song my father sang to me. Of course, Walt changed the story to have a happy ending, something that I never experienced as a child.

Then there was the temperance song written by Henry Clay Work, written in 1864, called “Father, Dear Father.”

Father, dear father, come home with me now!
The clock in the steeple strikes one;
You said you were coming right home from the shop,
As soon as your day's work was done.
Our fire has gone out our house is all dark
And mother's been watching since tea,
With poor brother Benny so sick in her arms,
And no one to help her but me.
Come home! come home! come home!
Please, father, dear father, come home.
Hear the sweet voice of the child
Which the night winds repeat as they roam!
Oh who could resist this most plaintive of prayers?
"Please, father, dear father, come home."
Father, dear father, come home with me now!
The clock in the steeple strikes two;
The night has grown colder, and Benny is worse
But he has been calling for you.
Indeed he is worse Ma says he will die,
Perhaps before morning shall dawn;
And this is the message she sent me to bring
"Come quickly, or he will be gone."
Come home! come home! come home!
Please, father, dear father, come home.
Hear the sweet voice of the child
Which the night winds repeat as they roam!
Oh who could resist this most plaintive of prayers?
Please, father, dear father, come home."
Father, dear father, come home with me now!
The clock in the steeple strikes three;
The house is so lonely the hours are so long
For poor weeping mother and me.
Yes, we are alone poor Benny is dead,
And gone with the angels of light;
And these were the very last words that he said
"I want to kiss Papa good night."
Come home! come home! come home!
Please, father, dear father, come home.
Hear the sweet voice of the child
Which the night winds repeat as they roam!
Oh who could resist this most plaintive of prayers?
"Please, father, dear father, come home."

It just can’t get much more depressing than that. Work’s most popular song was another that my father often sang, called “My Grandfather’s Clock,” written 1876.

My grandfather's clock
Was too large for the shelf,
So it stood 90 years on the floor;
It was taller by half
Than the old man himself,
Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.
It was bought on the morn
Of the day that he was born,
And was always his treasure and pride;
But it stopped short
Never to go again,
When the old man died.

CHORUS:

Ninety years without slumbering,
Tick, tock, tick, tock,
His life seconds numbering,
Tick, tock, tick, tock,
It stopped short
Never to go again,
When the old man died.

Given the dates on many of these songs, I can only guess that my dad learned them from his father, who was born in Canada in 1860. But I just cannot explain the overarching fascination with death and misery that these songs represent. I just do not remember a single joyful song that my dad ever sang to me at bedtime. I do know that I very fondly remember them and my father singing them to me. For some strange reason, their sorrow were then and still are today just plain fascinatingly wonderful.