Cannily, Cannily

DESCRIPTION: "Cannily, cannily, bonnie wee bairnikie, Don't you cry now, my little pet. Hush-a-bye, now, your daddy is sleeping; It's no time tae wauken him yet." Daddy needs his sleep, as soon he will go driving his engine. In time, the child will have its own engine
AUTHOR: Ewan MacColl
EARLIEST DATE: 1954 (MacColl-ShuttleAndCage-IndustrialFolkBallads)
KEYWORDS: lullaby work
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
MacColl-ShuttleAndCage-IndustrialFolkBallads, p. 22, "Cannily, Cannily" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 410, "Cannily, Cannily" (1 text)
DT, CANNLY*
ADDITIONAL: Ewan MacColl, _Journeyman: An Autobiography_, re-edited and with an introduction by Peggy Seeger, 1990; revised edition, Manchester University Press, 2009, pp. 345-346, "(Cannily, Cannily)" (1 text)
NOTES [165 words]: According to Ewan MacColl's book Journeyman: An Autobiography, re-edited and with an introduction by Peggy Seeger, 1990; revised edition, Manchester University Press, 2009, p. 268, this was one of the songs that came out of MacColl's first serious period of songwriting, when he was mildly influenced by Woody Guthrie, Seamus Ennis, and people he knew of through Alan Lomax. MacColl wrote that "I had recently become acquainted with English country songs through Bert [Lloyd]'s singing and through field-recordings made by Alan and it was these that provided models for my next group of songs which included 'The Dove,' 'The Trafford Road Ballad' (written for my son, Hamish), 'Cannily, Cannily,' 'Ballad of the Carpenter' and 'Go Down, You Murderers.'" On the other hand, p. p. 345, he reports writing it for the "Ballads and Blues" series of programs, where he wanted something with less drive than the other songs in the program; it was sung a capella by Isla Cameron for the program. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.0
File: FSWB410A

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