"The Big Rock Candy Mountains", first recorded and copyrighted by Harry McClintock in 1928, is a country folk song about a hobo's idea of paradise, a modern version of the medieval concept of Cockaigne. It is a place where "hens lay soft-boiled eggs" and there are "cigarette trees". McClintock said that he wrote the song in 1895, based on tales from his youth hoboing through the United States while working for the railroad as a brakeman. It is catalogued as Roud Folk Song Index No. 6696.
"Beautiful Dreamer" is a parlor song by American songwriter Stephen Foster. It was published posthumously in March 1864, by Wm. A. Pond & Co. of New York. The first edition states on its title page that it is "the last song ever written by Stephen C. Foster, composed but a few days prior to his death." However, Carol Kimball, the author of Song, points out that the first edition's copyright is dated 1862, which suggests, she writes, that the song was composed and readied for publication two years before Foster's death. There are at least 20 songs, she observes, that claim to be Foster's last, and it is unknown which is indeed his last. The song is set in 9
8 time with a broken chord accompaniment.
"Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife" is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their 1928 music drama The Threepenny Opera. The song tells of a knife-wielding criminal of the London underworld from the musical named Macheath, the "Mack the Knife" of the title.
An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer is an album recorded by Tom Lehrer, the well-known satirist and Harvard lecturer. The recording was made on March 20–21, 1959 in Sanders Theater at Harvard.
"This Land Is Your Land" is a song by American folk singer Woody Guthrie. One of the United States' most famous folk songs, its lyrics were written in 1940 in critical response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". Its melody is based on a Carter Family tune called "When the World's on Fire". When Guthrie was tired of hearing Kate Smith sing "God Bless America" on the radio in the late 1930s, he sarcastically called his song "God Blessed America for Me" before renaming it "This Land Is Your Land".
"Danny Boy" is a song with lyrics written by English lawyer Frederic Weatherly in 1910, and set to the traditional Irish melody of "Londonderry Air" in 1913.
"Ar Hyd y Nos" is a Welsh song sung to a tune that was first recorded in Edward Jones' Musical and Poetical Relics of the Welsh Bards (1784). The most commonly sung Welsh lyrics were written by John Ceiriog Hughes (1832-1887), and have been translated into several languages, including English and Breton. One of the earliest English versions, to different Welsh lyrics by one John Jones, was by Thomas Oliphant in 1862.
A clementine is a hybrid citrus fruit, a cross between a mandarin and an orange.
"Aura Lea" is an American Civil War song about a maiden. It was written by W. W. Fosdick (lyrics) and George R. Poulton (music). The melody was used in Elvis Presley's 1956 hit song "Love Me Tender".
"The Water Is Wide" is a folk song of Scottish origin. It remains popular in the 21st century. Cecil Sharp published the song in Folk Songs From Somerset (1906).
"Streets of Laredo", also known as "The Dying Cowboy", is a famous American cowboy ballad in which a dying ranger tells his story to another cowboy. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
"Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" is a parlor song by Stephen Foster (1826–1864). It was published by Firth, Pond & Co. of New York in 1854. Foster wrote the song with his estranged wife Jane McDowell in mind. The lyrics allude to a permanent separation.
"By the Light of the Silvery Moon" or "By the Light of the Silv'ry Moon" is a popular love song. The music was written by Gus Edwards, and the lyrics by Edward Madden. The song was published in 1909 and first performed on stage by Lillian Lorraine in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1909. It was one of a series of moon-related Tin Pan Alley songs of the era. The song was also used in the short-lived Broadway show Miss Innocence when it was sung by Frances Farr.
"Cindy" is a popular American folk song. According to John Lomax, the song originated in North Carolina. In the early and middle 20th century, "Cindy" was included in the songbooks used in many elementary school music programs as an example of folk music. One of the earliest versions of "Cindy" is found in Anne Virginia Culbertson's collection of Negro folktales where one of her characters, Tim, "sang a plantation song named 'Cindy Ann'," the first verse and refrain of which are:
"I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan" is a popular song published in 1929, with music by Arthur Schwartz and lyrics by Howard Dietz.
"Down in the Valley", also known as "Birmingham Jail", is a traditional American folk song. It has been recorded by many artists and is included in the Songs of Expanding America recordings in Burl Ives' six-album set Historical America in Song.
Huckleberry "Huck" Hound is a fictional cartoon character, a blue anthropomorphic coonhound dog that speaks with a North Carolina Southern drawl. He first appeared in the series The Huckleberry Hound Show. The cartoon was one of six TV shows to win an Emmy Award in 1960 as an "Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Children's Programming"; the first animated series to receive such an award.
"Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms" is a popular song written by the Irish poet Thomas Moore, setting new lyrics to a traditional Irish air that can be traced back into the 18th century. He published it in 1808, naming the air as "My Lodging is on the Cold Ground" from lyrics of British origin with which it was widely associated at the time. The new lyrics were presented in an album of selected Irish melodies arranged by John Andrew Stevenson with “characteristic words” provided by Moore.
"A Bird in a Gilded Cage" is a song composed by Arthur J. Lamb and Harry Von Tilzer. It was a sentimental ballad that became one of the most popular songs of 1900, reportedly selling more than two million copies in sheet music. Jere Mahoney (Edison) and Steve Porter (Columbia) recorded two early popular versions of this song.
"There Is a Tavern in the Town" is a traditional folk song, which first appeared in the 1883 edition of William H. Hill's Student Songs. The song was the college anthem of Trinity University College.
