Cradle's Empty, Baby's Gone, The

DESCRIPTION: "Little empty cradle, treasured now with care, Though thy precious burden it has fled, How we miss the locks of curly golden hair...." "Baby's left her cradle for the golden shore... Empty is the cradle, baby's gone." Baby sleeps in a grave in the valley
AUTHOR: Harry Kennedy? (Source: Sheet music by Oliver Ditson & Co.)
EARLIEST DATE: 1880 (sheet music)
KEYWORDS: baby death burial
FOUND IN:
Roud #V4553
RECORDINGS:
Judy Cook, "Cradle's Empty" (Piotr-Archive #483, recorded 02/01/2023)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth b.28(5a/b), "The Empty Cradle, Baby's Gone," R. March and Co. (London) 1877-1884; also Firth b.28(4a/b) (ibid).
NLScotland, L.C.Fol.70(62b), "The Cradle's Empty, Baby's Gone," Poet's Box (Dundee), 1880-1900
NOTES [119 words]: The sheet music in the Levy collection, by Oliver Ditson & Co., is dedicated "To my esteemed friends Mr. & Mrs. E. M. Kayne." Harry Kennedy is listed as the author of "A Flower from Mother's Grave." Sounds like a guy with a morbid streak.
Morbid though it is, there is an 1881 arrangement for classical ensemble: "Cradle's empty baby's gone; Medley quadrille," with parts for two violins, viola, bass, two cornets, trombone, clarinet, and flute or piccolo, published by J. W. Pepper of Philadelphia; the arrangement seems to be credited to "Bowman."
Although the sheet music twice says it is by "Harry Kennedy," and I've seen that attribution in songsters, it is copyrighted in the name of "William H. Kennedy." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: BdEICBG

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