All the Pretty Little Horses
This lullaby comes from the Southern U.S.
All the Pretty Little Horses
Lullaby
1. Hush-a-bye, don't you cry,
Go to sleepy little baby.
When you wake, you'll have cake,
And all the pretty little horses.
2. Blacks and bays, dapples and greys,
Coach and six-a-little horses,
Hush-a-bye, don't you cry,
Go to sleepy little baby.
3. Hush-a-bye, don't you cry,
Go to sleepy little baby,
When you wake, you'll have cake,
And all the pretty little horses.
4. Way down yonder, down in the meadow,
There's a poor wee little lambie.
The bees and the butterflies pickin' at its eyes*,
The poor wee thing cried for her mammy.
5. Hush-a-bye, don't you cry,
Go to sleepy little baby.
When you wake, you'll have cake,
And all the pretty little horses.
Notes
*Alternatively, "peckin' out his eyes".
One theory is that this was originally an African American lullaby. That the 4th verse refers to an African American mother who can't take care of her own baby because she has to take care of a slave owner's baby.
Here's a version from Athens, Georgia as recorded in "American Songbag" compiled by Carl Sandburg in 1927...
Go to sleepy, little baby,
'Fo de booger man ketch you.
When you wake you'll have a piece of cake
And a whole lot of little horses.
Go to sleepy, little baby,
'Fo de booger man ketch you.
When you wake you shall have a cake,
Coach and four little ponies,
A black and a bay, and a dapple and a gray.
Go to sleepy, little baby.
Thanks!
Thanks and Acknowledgements
Thanks to Monique Palomares for the midi tune.
Image: Edited from illustration in Arabian Nights (1888).
