Song Stories

Lullaby Bangers

What’ll I Do With The Baby-O Sam first heard this lullaby at a community sing led by Claudia Schmidt during the Great Lakes Folk Festival. Sam kept the lyrics as is, but she added a fiddle and a swing to the tempo.

Coqui Elisabeth learned this tune from the songbook of José-Luis Orozco, a bilingual children’s singer from Mexico City/California. The song tells the tale of the Puerto Rican coqui frog who sings at nighttime and puts children to sleep. The coqui frog is onomonopoetically named, based on the song it sings. 

Where Is The Moon? Sam and Elisabeth learned this song from Andrea Moreno Beals, who learned it from biodynamic farmers. The song was written by Becky Reardon.

Angels Watching Over Me Elisabeth grew up singing this tune at Van Buren Youth Camp. At the end of Campfire circle each night, all the campers and staff would cross their arms and hold hands and sing this as the last song of the day before bedtime. 

The Riddle Song The Riddle Song is a 15th-century English lullaby. Sam first learned this song from a musician named Andy David at the Chicago Folk Festival in 2010. Sam changed the ballad feel of the song into a driving rhythm. She’s since spread it around with collaborators such as Fiona Dickinson and Elisabeth.

Sing A Song Of Sixpence We wanted to make a rhythmic version of this classic nursery rhyme. A banger if you will. 

When She Cometh A traditional Baptist hymn, sung by Elisabeth’s grandmother, Martha Pixley. When Elisabeth and her brothers were growing up, her dad sang this to them as a lullaby. She and her brothers would request it by the name “Fa so la”—“sing fa so la papa!” Sam and Elisabeth changed the words slightly to honor her grandmother. 

Precious Memories A traditional gospel song credited to J.B.F. Wright in 1925. This tune was introduced to Elisabeth by Alta and Arlene of LaGrange, Indiana, whom she met on a train trip. The pair are Amish and share songs through the use of voicemail in collective phone shacks. When Sam and Elisabeth visited, they brought them outside to see their special phone shack and share this song.

Sweet And Low The words to this song were written in 1849 by English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, former poet laureate of Great Britain and Ireland, with music by Joseph Barnby. The harmonization is from Elisabeth’s grandpa’s songbook.

Hearth & Hymn (self-titled album)

Dundee Elisabeth learned this tune from the hymnal she grew up singing with at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Kalamazoo, MI. The melody, Dundee, appears in several places for different seasons and for different occasions, including solstice/Christmas celebration and funeral rites. We collected the verses we liked best from these different versions. We chose the words that were most comforting, and sang them often during the period when Pat Carroll, our now departed loved one, was ill.

We Are Alive We learned these words from our friends in a sweat lodge community. One summer day while they were holding a lodge, we stayed home picking blueberries and sang lodge songs. A new melody for these words came to us that day while filling up our blueberry buckets.

Divinum Mysterium This hymn is generally sung around Christmas time. The melody is a medieval plainchant and the words are a translation of the Latin poem “Corde natus” by Roman poet Aurelius Prudentius. We chose to sing the first verse, changing the pronoun to she in reverence for the divine feminine.

In The Bleak Midwinter This is a hymn sung for Christmas. The words, by poet Christina Rosetti, were originally published as a poem in Scribner’s Monthly magazine. We chose to sing the first and last verse.

Precious Lord Thomas Dorsey wrote this song while grieving his wife, Nettie Harper, and his infant son, both of whom died during the birthing process. Many people believe it was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s favorite hymn, and he often requested that it be sung at Civil Rights events. Elisabeth grew up singing this gospel song around the piano with her dad in the evenings, from a songbook that belonged to her grandparents. Pat’s family sang this song with Sam, embracing Pat and each other as he transitioned in May ‘13.

Lloyd This tune is a favorite in the shape-note or Sacred Harp tradition that Elisabeth grew up in as she and her family went to all-day singing gatherings in the Midwest. We changed the words of this song slightly to reflect the power of sisterhood. We were also partial to this tune because “Lloyd” (and variants of) is one of Elisabeth’s many nicknames.

Only With Thine Eyes When we started this project, Elisabeth’s dad, John, dug out an old Victorian songbook from 1891 and pointed out this song to us. In our songbook it says Mozart wrote the tune, but there are many other theories

Farther Along This is one of Sam’s mother Susie’s favorite hymns, which she sang in a women’s trio in her twenties. Sam learned this song from family & friend singalongs as a child. We wrote our own verses to reflect our daily practices of gratitude and mindfulness.