Kid's Songs, Lullabies and Nursery Rhymes For Your Little Stars

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O Can Ye Sew Cushions? And can ye sew sheets?
And can ye sing ballooloo when the bairn greets?
And hee and haw birdie, and hee and haw lamb;
And hee and haw, birdie, my bonnie wee lamb!

I biggit the cradle upon the treetop,
And as the wind blew, my cradle did rock.
And hush a baw baby, O ba lil li loo,
And hee and baw, birdie, my bonnie wee doo.

Sing bal la loo lammie, sing bal la loo dear,
Does wee lammie ken that its daddie's no here?
Ye're rockin' fu' sweetly on mammie's warm knee,
But daddie's a rockin' upon the saut sea.

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Origins of "O, Can Ye Sew Cushions"

This Scottish lullaby is a traditional song, collected by the Scottish poet, Robert Burns (1759-1796), and given to the editor of "The Scots Musical Museum, Vol. V", who published it in 1796 as follows:

O can ye sew Cushions, and can ye sew Sheets,
And can ye sing balluloo when the bairn greets?
And hee and baw birdie, and hee and baw lamb,
And hee and baw birdie, my bonnie wee lamb.
Hee O, wee O, what wou'd I do wi' you?
Black's the life that I lead wi' you;
Monny O you, little for to gie you,
Hee O, wee O, what would I do wi' you.

In his 1853 compilation, "Illustrations of the Lyric Poetry and Music of Scotland", William Stenhouse noted:

The words and music of this nursery song were communicated by Burns to the publisher of the Museum, in which it first appeared in print; but the bard has left us no hints respecting the history of the song. The late Mr Urbani of Edinburgh, an excellent musician and composer, who was very fond of the melody, afterwards introduced it, with new accompaniments by himself, in the second volume of his valuable Collection of Scottish Songs. Since that period it has always been a favourite. I have heard another verse of this ditty: It runs--

I've placed my cradle on yon holly top,
And aye as the wind blew, my cradle did rock;
O hush a ba, baby, O ba lilly loo,
And hee and ba, birdie, my bonnie wee dow.
Hee O! wee O!
What will I do wi' you, &c.

This new verse is an adaptation of another Scottish lullaby, "Rock-A-Bye Baby".

Another version of the lullaby, using a different tune, and adding two new verses, was contributed by Lady Carolina Nairne (1766-1845) to R.A. Smith's 1823 publication "Scottish Minstrel Vol IV", under the title "Cradle Song".

Cradle Song

Balooloo, lammie; now baloo, my dear;
Now, balooloo, lammie, ain minnie is here.
What ails my wee bairnie, what ails it this nicht?
What ails my wee lammie; is bairnie no richt?

Balooloo, lammie; now baloo, my dear;
Does wee lammie ken that its daddie's no here?
Ye're rockin' fu' sweetly on mammie's warm knee,
But daddie's a-rockin' upon the saut sea.

Now hush-a-ba, lammie; now hush-a, my dear;
Now hush-a-ba, lammie; ain minnie is here;
The wild wind is ravin', and mannie's heart's sair;
The wild wind is ravin', and ye dinna care.

Sing baloo-loo, lammie; sing baloo, my dear;
Sing baloo-loo, lammie; ain minnie is here;
My wee bairnie's dozin', it's dozin' now fine;
And, oh! may its waukin' be blyther than mine.

In the foreword to the 1893 publication "Scots Minstrelsie", the editor, John Greig, commented:

This lullaby, so full of womanly tenderness and sweet simplicity, was contributed by Lady Nairne to R.A. Smith's "Scottish Minstrel." So anxious was she to preserve her incognito, that she wrote thus to her confidential correpondent:--"I beg the publisher will make no mention of a lady; as you observe, the more mystery the better, and still the balance is in favour of the lords of creation. I cannot help, in some degree, undervaluing beforehand what is said to be a feminine production.." So far as this song is concerned, the public, we imagine, would have difficulty in believing it to be anything but a "feminine production." How beautifully the sentiment of the poetry is re-echoed in the air?

In its present form, the verses of the song are sung in waltz time, switching to 4/4 for the chorus. This unusual mish-mash is a combination of two old Scottish melodies: "Crodh Chailein" for the verse, and "Oran Tlaidh an Eich-Uisge" ("Lullaby of the Water-Horse") for the chorus. The hee-o wee-o lines in the chorus are nonsense words although in a 1911 edition of the "Journal of Folk Songs", Francis Tolmie wrote:

The neighing refrain "Hee-o, wee-o," etc., in the English text seems quite pointless; but, when compared with the Gaelic original, the grafting together of the two Highland lullabies becomes clear and the chorus invested with some importance, seeing that in the Highland "Water-Horse" we have an ancient Norse survival, and that the poor "Kelpie," neighing his child to sleep, was the lonely husband of "brown-haired Morag" who, homesick, fled, to live on dry land once more; regardless of the tender lamentations of her forsaken merman.

Origins text ©2011 TwinkleTrax Children's Songs.