Friday, November 18

Lady Moon

My favorite lullaby that I remember my mother singing to me is called "Lady Moon." Her mother sang it to her and I just learned that my great grandmother sang it to my grandmother. I sing this song to my children and it is the song that Jolee requests the most, especially when she is tired or sad. It always calms her down. I have always wondered what the original words to the song were as my mother told me that she didn't really remember all of the words, so she made words to fit the song. Her mother passed away when my mother was 13 years old, so it is understandable that she had forgotten some of the words over the years (my mother first sang the song to me 15 years after her mother's death). I had done so searching to try to find this song, but without much luck. Today, I again attempted to find it. And after some digging, I found this site http://kol-safran.blogspot.com/2009/10/song-my-grandmother-sang.html. From this I went to http://books.google.com/books?id=Lxiqj0-a6X0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. If you scroll down to page 218. The original song is found with sheet music. The song was published even earlier in the book Songs for Little Children for the kindergarten and primary schools by Eleanor Smith in 1887. The words have significantly changed from the original, but seeing as how it has been 124 years from the date this book was published and that the song existed before the book was published, it is to be expected that things have changed.

The lyrics for the song I sing are as follows:

Lady Moon, Lady Moon shining so bright
Come down to (name of child) from out in the night
Little (name of child), Little (name of child) way down below
Moon hears you calling, but Moon cannot go
In my house full of darkness alone I must stay
Moon loves little (name of child), the bright Moon says

One day I will get around to having my husband video tape me sing this song and I will post it. 

1 comment:

JoAn Ellsworth L's Worth labradoodles are so Worth it. said...

wow thank you! I love some of the words I didn't know, I do know that my grandma use to sing babykin, but we liked our own names in it. I sure want to hear the sheet music and see if it is the same tune. So cool!