Songs/poems our Mothers sang

My nan used to tell me a story of when her 'missing presumed dead' husband returned from WW1 - He stood on the doorstep singing 'If you were the only girl in the world.....' and she opened the door with a baby and a toddler in her arms. He had been away for both conceptions. oops!

My father had been a soldier in WW2 in Italy and used to sing to me and my
sisters some lovely Italian songs, in italian. He taught us to count too in italian. My grandfather was Irish and my grandmother Scottish and I think it must have been a musical family as my father had a very lovely tenor voice. He died 42 years ago but I still miss him.

My Dad used to sing to us every night he was home. Golden Slumbers, Skye Boat song (he was Scots), and a song which had the lines' worry, worry gets you no-where'
Maybe he made that up to comfort us!
He was very musical himself, with a good voice and played the harmonica at every spare moment.
Mum would banish him to the kitchen on Sunday evenings to play and sing along to 'Sing something simple'!!
He was also partial to a naughty song like Auntie Mary had a canary and three old ladies locked in the lavatory!
Being the 50's and my Mum being (or pretending to be) very proper, we thought this was great fun!

I hear both my daughters singing a lot as they make the supper, or are working round the house, their children are now in their teens, both read to them from baby days and continued a nightly story till they were about ten plus as did my daughter in law. All the children love music and are always listening to Spotify, but what songs and rhymes will continue to the next generation I don't know. This is such a fascinating thread, the songs and rhymes are so embedded in all our minds, and are such a precious gift, I hope that lots of children are still sung to, and remember all the baby fun, like Down at the bottom of the deep blue sea, Catching fishes, one, two, three. Being tucked up with a lullaby is so comforting and soothing, words like Sleep baby sleep, your father tends the sheep. Lovely memories.

This thread is making me wonder what memories grandparents will have in sixty years time. I go to lots of toddler groups and regularly hear parents talking about the DVD their children watched in bed. They are usually the ones who don't stay for the singing at the end of the session. It worries me that we are losing the art of communication that singing and passing on rhymes helps so much with. Sonsybesom It is a lovely thread and Grannyknot there's nothing wrong with a tear now and then, especially in a good way. Isn't it wonderful how these threads on Gransnet pull us all together. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, thank you

Bambi I remember that Guy Mitchell song too it was my late husbands favourite. I believe the verse was as follows.

I worked in a London Bank, respectable position, they served you tea from nine to three and ruined your disposition.

One night at the music Hall a travelogue I see and there a pearl of a native girl was smiling down at me.

She wears etc.

Gilly bob

I a cottage in a wood
little old man by a window stood
saw a rabbit running by
and this is what he said
help me help me help I pray
see the huntsmen on his way
little bunny come inside
and be safe with me

all done with actions at guides and brownies ( as was the case of the animal fair song !! )

Bambi - my dad loved that song = I have inherited his Guy Mitchell album
it sits happily next to Led Zep 4 on the shelf !! I still have a turntable, so play it occasionally when in a nostalgic mood

I remember the songs

She wears red feathers and a hula hula skirt (repeat)
She lives on fresh coconuts and fish from the sea
With a wave in her hair, a gleam in her eye
And love in her heart for me.

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts

I do like to be beside the seaside

Golden slumbers kiss your eyes

A Gordon for me ( Scottish song)

Run rabbit,run rabbit, run, run, run

Chick, chick, chick, chick, chicken
Lay a little egg for me.

Can I canoe you up the river
Oh can I canoe you up the stream.
Oh can I canoe you up the river,
Like I did in last night's dream

My Granny used to sing a song that I had never heard before and have
never heard since. It went like this......

Old man moon is laughing in the sky
Cloudlets kiss his face as they go by,
What a lot of lovely things he'd have to say,
if only he a visit to the earth could pat.

But he sits up there and he smiles all night,
The moon is big and shining bright,
And just as you are thinking he has something nice to say,
He slowly shuts his eyes and very gently fades away.

gillybob My dad used to sing Shennondoah (like you unsure of spelling). We also sang it at school, something to do with the BBC broadcasts to schools. If I remember the accompanying book cost 12/6d. It had the music as well as the words and I taught myself to play it with one finger on our old battered piano.

nonna I have been surprised how many versions of the canary song there are.

susieb755 I came across your song about the baby in a childrens poetry book. It was written in Cockney accent.

My mum sang Shenandoah (not sure if I have spelled it right?) to me too Sonsybesom happy days. Also something that started In a cottage in a wood, little man at the window stood, saw a rabbit running by

Lovely, lovely thread - so many happy , funny and poignant memories. Mum sang My Bonny lies over the Ocean, Red Sails in the Sunset, "shenandoah, when Dad was away at sea, Granny and Granda sang to us, the first memory I have is of a lullaby, soothing, repetitive, called Wee Birdie, guaranteed to put babies to sleep, I used it for all ours and for all DGCs. I always thought it was a made up lullaby till to my delight I found it in a book of old Scots rhymes and songs. We also sang in the car, at Brownies, round the piano, oh what happy memories and some tears too. Thank you. X

I remember we always used to sing on long journeys in the car. We went to Wales with my friend and her family. They thought I was mad because I kept braking into song. I was surprised that every family didn't do what we did!

We used to sing something about . "He sat down beside her and played his guitar" he ended up in hell " he frizzled and fried" and "she went to heaven and flip flap she flew." One of Dad's favourites, may be old Music hall song as he loved them.

Ga we used to sing Animal Fair at Guides

sook My auntie sang a version of the canary song but her canary 'it departed -to the sound of applause'

My father in law (and his father before him) has a fund of songs for every occasion. When our children were small no family gathering was complete without us all joining in with him singing:

We went to the animal fair,
The birds and beasts were there,
The big baboon by the light of the moon
Was combing his golden hair.

The monkey did a bunk,
And slid down the elephant's trunk,
The elephant sneezed - AHCHOO!
And fell on her knees,
And what became of the monkey
Monkey, monkey, monkey monkey..?

And yes, now that my children are all adults we STILL end up singing the same songs. I love my father in law.

Sheilagh gulp. Isn't it funny reading these posts how many messgaes there were in the songs and we didn't realise. Maybe they did teach us things but those teaching the songs didn't realise.

My mother sang a song to my children, I can't personally remember her singing it to me but it went ' Jonny was a soldier boy' That's it, it was sad, it was about war, there would have been a message but I can't really remember any more. Ring any bells anyone?

Does anyone remember a song called "Lilac Trees" it was about a little black boy who was warned by his grandma not to stray too far away because the white children wouldn't play with him.
I know the words but I don't think they would be seen as politically correct today if I quoted them, I used to ask her to sing it but I always ended up in tears as I felt so sorry for the little boy who had no one to play with.I think she first heard it at one of the old music halls she used to go to when she was young.

My mum never sang, but Dad used to sing Magic Moments, Hello Dolly, and On the Street Where she lived

However my best friends Nan and her lodger Mabel, both real old cockneys taught us all the old songs, any old iron, who;s your lady friend, my old man said follow the van - and this = which I sang to my children, and now to my GD- even though its morbid!( sing in cockney accent !!!)

A mother was bathing her baby one night
The youngest of 10 and a poor little mite
She turned for to get the soap off the rack
She was only a moment but when she turned back
Her baby was gone ! The poor mother cried
'Oh Where is my baby ' - The angels replied
' Your baby has gone down the plug hole
Your baby has gone down the plug
The poor little thing was so tiny and thin
It should have been bathed in a jug
Your baby is perfectly happy
'He won't need a bath anymore
He's gone to live with the angels
Not lost , but gone before'

absent & Grannyeggs

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
The cops have wooden legs
The bulldogs all have rubber teeth
And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs.

The farmer's trees are full of fruit
Their barns are fullof hay
Oh I want to go
Where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall
ANd the wind don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

Ohhhhh.......

Thanks Feetlebaum I love the Dozy Dotes song.

Thank you Galen

Ah-ha! Silly B song, isn't it? Askeyhad quite a lot of 'animal' songs - one was about a moth, I remember.