Songs of the U. S.

Most of the songs U. S. folklorists collect are regional curiosities or quaint survivals that sound strange to the average American. Overlooked by such specialists is the great mass of songs the average American sings, songs that are as familiar as bathtubs or chewing gum. These songs go out of fashion into limbo. But they are authentic U. S. folk music, nonetheless.

Two years ago Carl Carmer, writer & folklorist (Stars Fell on Alabama, Listen for a Lonesome Drum)., put on a radio program called "Your Neck of the Woods." devoted to the folklore and folksongs of different States. From it sprang a plan to issue a comprehensive series of phonograph albums devoted to the songs of every State in the U. S.

Chosen for a beginning were 35 songs of the Civil War period (1861-65). Last week the two Civil War albums and a third containing songs of New York State were put on sale.*

Sung with neither smirk nor schmalz by onetime Preacher Frank Luther and a few assistants, these songs give a clearer glimpse of the old-time U. S. than many a ponderous history book. The U. S. soldier of the 1860's sang about his girl (Lorena), his mother (Who Will Care lor Mother Now?), his pesky bumps & bruises (Eating Goober Peas, A Life on the Vicksburg Bluff) as simply, sentimentally and humanly as his grandson did in the World War. Sample (North):

Oh, Jimmy has gone for to live in a tent.

They grafted him into the army.

He finally puckered up courage and went,

When they grafted him into the army. . . .

Dressed up in his unicorn, dear little chap,

They grafted him into the army.

Sample (South):

All quiet along the Potomac tonight,

Except here & there a stray picket

Is shot as he walks on his beat to and fro

By a rifleman hid in the thicket.

'Tis nothing. A private or two now and then

Will not count in the news of the battle.

Not an officer lost, only one of the men

Moaning out, all alone, a death rattle. ...

* Songs of the North in the War Between the States; Songs of the South in the War Between the States; Songs of Old New York (Frank Luther and Zora Layman, with the Century Quartet; Decca: 8 sides each).

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