Goober Peas

 "Goober Peas" is a traditional folk song probably originating in the Southern United States. It was popular with Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War, and is still sung frequently in the South to this day. It has been recorded and sung by scores of artists, including Burl Ives, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Rusty Draper and The Kingston Trio.

The lyrics of "Goober Peas" are a description of daily life during the latter part of the Civil War for Southerners. After being cut off from the rail lines and their farm land, they had little to eat aside from boiled peanuts (or "goober peas") which often served as an emergency ration. Peanuts were also known as pindars and goobers.

Publication date on the earliest sheet music is 1866, published by A. E. Blackmar in New Orleans. Blackmar humorously lists A. Pindar as the lyricist and P. Nutt as the composer.

The Reverend Wayland Fuller Dunaway recorded a stanza of the song he heard while imprisoned at the Union prison on Johnson's Island, Ohio, during the latter part of the Civil War. Dunaway had been a captain in Co. I, 40th Virginia Infantry, when captured during the Battle of Falling Waters in July 1863. 

To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here. Enjoy!

Lyrics:

Verse 1

Sitting by the roadside on a summer's day

Chatting with my mess-mates, passing time away

Lying in the shadows underneath the trees

Goodness, how delicious, eating goober peas.

Chorus

Peas, peas, peas, peas

Eating goober peas

Goodness, how delicious,

Eating goober peas.

Verse 2

When a horse-man passes, the soldiers have a rule

To cry out their loudest, "Mister, here's your mule!"

But another custom, enchanting-er than these

Is wearing out your grinders, eating goober peas.

Chorus

Verse 3

Just before the battle, the General hears a row

He says "The Yanks are coming, I hear their rifles now."

He turns around in wonder, and what d'ya think he sees?

The 15th Alabama, eating goober peas.

Chorus

(Note: There sat the 15th Alabama, is reported in contemporary accounts)

Verse 4

I think my song has lasted almost long enough.

The subject's interesting, but the rhymes are mighty tough.

I wish the war was over, so free from rags and fleas

We'd kiss our wives and sweethearts, and gobble goober peas.

Chorus

Peter Cottontail

 "Here Comes Peter Cottontail" is a popular secular Easter song composed in 1949 by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins. They also wrote "Frosty the Snowman" in 1950. Mervin Shiner was the first person to record the song, on Decca Records in 1950. It reached #8 on Billboard Hot 100. The name "Peter Cottontail" was used by a character in a 1914 Thornton Burgess book, but may not have been previously used to refer to the Easter Bunny.

Due to the immense popularity of Gene Autry's Christmas songs "Here Comes Santa Claus" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", Nelson and Rollins asked Autry to record their song. His 1950 version was on the Columbia label and peaked at number 3 on the U.S Billboard Hot Country Singles chart and at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Nelson and Rollins also wrote non-Easter lyrics to the tune that later appeared on the 1963 Walt Disney Records Peter Cottontail Plus Other Funny Bunnies and their Friends. 

To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here. Enjoy!

Lyrics:

Here comes Peter Cottontail,
Hopping' down the bunny trail,
Hippity, hoppity,
Easter's on its way.

Bringing' every girl and boy
Baskets full of Easter joy,
Things to make your
-- Easter bright and gay.

He's got jellybeans for Tommy,
Colored eggs for sister Sue,
There's an orchid for your Mommy
And an Easter bonnet, too.

Oh! here comes Peter Cottontail,
Hopping' down the bunny trail,
Hippity hoppity,
Happy Easter day.

Here comes Peter Cottontail,
Hopping' down the bunny trail,
Look at him stop,
and listen to him say:

"Try to do the things you should."
Maybe if you're extra good,
He'll roll lots of
-- Easter eggs your way.

You'll wake up on Easter morning
And you'll know that he was there
When you find those chocolate bunnies
That he's hiding everywhere.

Oh! here comes Peter Cottontail,
Hopping' down the bunny trail,
Hippity hoppity,
Happy Easter day. 

Go Tell Aunt Rhody

 Go Tell Aunt Rhody" is an English language folk song of nineteenth-century American origin. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 3346. The tune is older, dating to the 18th century. It originated as a gavotte in the 1752 opera Le devin du village (The Village Soothsayer) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The subject of the song is grief associated with loss, in this case from the death of an "old gray goose".

A darker version of the song is depicted in the video game Resident Evil 7. 

Go Tell Aunt Rhody” may have originated as a play-party song during New England’s colonial days. Most Protestant communities had restrictions against dancing and playing musical instruments. Play parties were designed to sidestep those restrictions by using only handclaps for accompaniment and the simple patterns of children’s games to replace the intricate patterns of country dances. Depending on the locale in which this song was sung, the aunt may have had a name such as Patsy, Dinah, or Nancy. 

To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here. Enjoy!

Lyrics:

Go tell Aunt Rhody,
Go tell Aunt Rhody,
Go tell Aunt Rhody
The old gray goose is dead.

The one she's been saving,
The one she's been saving,
The one she's been saving
To make a feather bed.

The goslings are weepin',
The goslings are weepin',
The goslings are weepin',
Because their mammy's dead.

The gander is mournin',
The gander is mournin',
The gander is mournin',
Because his wife is dead.

She died in the mill pond,
She died in the mill pond,
She died in the mill pond
From standin' on her head.

Go tell Aunt Rhody,
Go tell Aunt Rhody,
Go tell Aunt Rhody
The old gray goose is dead. 

Go Down Moses

 "Go Down Moses" is an African American spiritual that describes the Hebrew exodus, specifically drawing from Exodus 5:1: "And the LORD spoke unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me", where God commands Moses to demand the release of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. As is common in spirituals, the song discusses freedom, referring both to the freedom of the Israelites, and that of runaway enslaved people. As a result of these messages, this song was outlawed by many enslavers. 

Lyrically, the song discusses the liberation of the ancient Jewish people from Egyptian slavery. This story held a second meaning for enslaved African Americans, as they related their experiences under slavery to those of Moses and the Israelites who were enslaved by the pharaoh, and they resonated with the message that God will come to the aid of the persecuted. "Go Down Moses" also makes references to the Jordan River, commonly associated with reaching freedom in spirituals because such an act of running away often involved crossing one or more rivers. Since the Old Testament recognizes the Nile Valley as further south, and thus, lower than Jerusalem and the Promised Land, heading to Egypt means going "down" while going away from Egypt is "up". In the context of American slavery, this ancient sense of "down" converged with the concept of "down the river" (the Mississippi), where enslaved people's conditions were notoriously worse. Later verses also draw parallels between the Israelites' freedom from slavery and humanity's freedom won by Christ. 

Although usually thought of as a spiritual, the earliest written record of the song was as a rallying anthem for the Contrabands at Fort Monroe sometime before July 1862. White people who reported on the song presumed it was composed by them. This became the first spiritual to be recorded in sheet music that is known of, by Reverend Lewis Lockwood. While visiting Fortress Monroe in 1861, he heard runaway enslaved people singing this song, transcribed what he heard, and eventually published it in the National Anti-Slavery Standard. Sheet music was soon after published titled "Oh! Let My People Go: The Song of the Contrabands", arranged by Horace Waters. L.C. Lockwood, chaplain of the Contrabands, stated in the sheet music that the song was from Virginia, dating from about 1853. However, the song was not included in Slave Songs of the United States, despite its being a very prominent spiritual among enslaved people. Furthermore, the original version of the song sung by enslaved people almost definitely sounded very different from what Lockwood transcribed by ear, especially following an arrangement by a person who had never before heard the song as it was originally sung. The opening verse, as recorded by Lockwood, is:

The Lord, by Moses, to Pharaoh said: Oh! let my people go
If not, I'll smite your first-born dead—Oh! let my people go
Oh! go down, Moses
Away down to Egypt's land
And tell King Pharaoh
To let my people go 

 Sarah Bradford's authorized biography of Harriet Tubman, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman (1869), quotes Tubman as saying she used "Go Down Moses" as one of two code songs used with fugitive enslaved people to communicate when fleeing Maryland. Tubman began her underground railroad work in 1850 and continued until the beginning of the Civil War, so it is possible Tubman's use of the song predates the origin claimed by Lockwood. Some people even hypothesize that she herself may have written the spiritual. Others claim that Nat Turner, who led one of the most well-known slave revolts in history, either wrote or was the inspiration for the song. 

To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here. Enjoy!

Lyrics:

When Israel was in Egypt’s land,
Let My people go!
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
Let My people go!

Refrain:
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt’s land;
Tell old Pharaoh
To let My people go!

No more shall they in bondage toil,
Let My people go!
Let them come out with Egypt’s spoil,
Let My people go!

Oh, let us all from bondage flee,
Let My people go!
And let us all in Christ be free,
Let My people go!

You need not always weep and mourn,
Let My people go!
And wear these slav’ry chains forlorn,
Let My people go!

Your foes shall not before you stand,
Let My people go!
And you’ll possess fair Canaan’s land,
Let My people go!