Hush-oh-bye Baby

DESCRIPTION: The singer meets a woman with her three children on a sleeting night. She say her husband, a farmer, was killed in town by a gang. She spent all she had to bury him and was put on the road when she could not pay rent. She and the babies die of the cold.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1951 (MUNFLA/Leach)
KEYWORDS: poverty burial death children mother husband storm
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Lehr/Best-ComeAndIWillSingYou 54, "Hush-oh-bye Baby" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #28971
RECORDINGS:
Anita Best, "Hush-o-bye Baby" (on NFABest01)
John James, "Hush a Bye" (on MUNFLA/Leach)
John Molloy, "Hush a Bye Baby" (on MUNFLA/Leach)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Three Perished in the Snow" [Laws G32] (plot)
cf. "It Was Early One Cold Winter's Morning" (theme)
NOTES [67 words]: In the song the couple are said to live "in a place they called Newton Perry." Newton Perry is a sector of Limerick City, County Limerick, Ireland (source: inforing Ireland Gateway site). Lehr/Best-ComeAndIWillSingYou (viz., Anita Best): "This is no doubt a song which originated in Ireland where, in the nineteenth century, evictions of poor tenant farmers unable to pay rent was extremely common." - BS
Last updated in version 5.0
File: LeBe054

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography