Hush, Little Baby
A Southern lullaby that promises one gift after another, and forgives each one for failing. It is one of the tunes that come with Hele.
The words
Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,
Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.
If that mockingbird don’t sing,
Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.
If that diamond ring turns brass,
Mama’s gonna buy you a looking glass.
If that looking glass gets broke,
Mama’s gonna buy you a billy-goat.
If that billy-goat don’t pull,
Mama’s gonna buy you a cart and bull.
If that cart and bull turn over,
Mama’s gonna buy you a dog named Rover.
If that dog named Rover don’t bark,
Mama’s gonna buy you a horse and cart.
If that horse and cart fall down,
You’ll still be the sweetest baby in town.
Every couplet promises a present and the next one takes it back: the bird will not sing, the ring turns to brass, the glass breaks. The song never runs out of gifts, only of verses, and it ends on the one promise it can keep. A parent can add couplets for as long as the child is awake.
Where it comes from
Nobody is named as its author. The English folklorist Cecil Sharp collected a version in Franklin County, Virginia, in 1918, and Alan Lomax recorded several more across the South in the 1930s and 1940s, each with its own tune and its own gifts. The version most families sing today follows the one Jean Ritchie carried from her family in Kentucky and sang in 1949, which the folk singers of the 1950s and 1960s took up.
Why it is free to play
The song is traditional and in the public domain in the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and the Philippines. Hele plays the bare melody only. Later songs built on it, such as the 1963 pop record Mockingbird, are separate works and are not used, so nothing in the app depends on a license. See all the lullabies.
How it sounds in the app
It is arranged for an eighteen-note music-box comb, the same eighteen notes a real movement has, so the tune sits inside the range of the instrument rather than being played on top of it. Your child winds the brass key and lets go, and the lullaby slows as the spring runs down until the last note rings out on its own.
You can turn the key yourself, without installing anything, at hele.toys/try.
Hear it on the comb
This lullaby is one of the tunes that come with Hele, played on a modeled eighteen-note movement.
Or turn the key first at hele.toys/try