Carl August Sandburg was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg was widely regarded as "a major figure in contemporary literature", especially for volumes of his collected verse, including Chicago Poems (1916), Cornhuskers (1918), and Smoke and Steel (1920). He enjoyed "unrivaled appeal as a poet in his day, perhaps because the breadth of his experiences connected him with so many strands of American life". When he died in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson observed that "Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America."
"St. James Infirmary" is an American blues and jazz standard that emerged, like many others, from folk traditions. Louis Armstrong brought the song to lasting fame through his 1928 recording, on which Don Redman is named as composer; later releases credit "Joe Primrose", a pseudonym used by musician manager, music promoter and publisher Irving Mills. The melody is eight bars long, unlike songs in the classic blues genre, where there are 12 bars. It is in a minor key, and has a 4
4 time signature, but has also been played in 3
4.
"Red River Valley" is a folk song and cowboy music standard of uncertain origins that has gone by different names, depending on where it has been sung. It is listed as Roud Folk Song Index 756 and by Edith Fowke as FO 13. It is recognizable by its chorus :
"Midnight Special" is a traditional folk song thought to have originated among prisoners in the American South. The song refers to the passenger train Midnight Special and its "ever-loving light."
"Frankie and Johnny" is a murder ballad, a traditional American popular song. It tells the story of a woman, Frankie, who finds her man Johnny making love to another woman and shoots him dead. Frankie is then arrested; in some versions of the song she is also executed.
"Hallelujah, I'm a Bum" is an American folk song that responds with humorous sarcasm to unhelpful moralizing about the circumstance of being a hobo. The song's authorship is uncertain, but according to hobo poetry researcher Bud L. McKillips, the words were written by an IWW member. Carl Sandburg collected the song for his anthology The American Songbag, and he wrote that it was "heard at the water tanks of railroads in Kansas in 1897 and from harvest hands who worked in the wheat fields of Pawnee County, was picked up later by the I. W. W.'s, who made verses of their own for it, and gave it a wide fame." Some verses may have been written by a Kansas City hobo known only as "One-Finger Ellis," who scribbled it on the wall of his prison cell in 1897. There is also a questionable theory that Harry McClintock, an IWW member, could have written it in 1899 when he was only fifteen.
The Fox is a traditional folk song from England. It is also the subject of at least two picture books, The Fox Went out on a Chilly Night: An Old Song, illustrated by Peter Spier and Fox Went out on a Chilly Night, by Wendy Watson. The earliest version of the song was a Middle English poem, dating from the 15th century, found in the British Museum.
"The Moonshiner" is a folk song with unknown origins. In Ireland and America, it is sung with similar lyrics but different melodies. It is catalogued as Roud Folk Song Index No. 4301. The song's structure is very similar to The Wild Rover, but instead extolling the virtues of moonshining.
"Skip to My (The) Lou" is a popular American folk song and partner-stealing dance from the 1840s.
"Wee Cooper O'Fife" is a Scottish folk song about a cooper who has "a braw new wife" who will not cook, clean, and sew in case she "spoil her comely hue". A town in Fife is called Cupar; this is a pun.
Historical America in Song, released in 1950 by Encyclopædia Britannica Films, is an album set by folk singer Burl Ives. Each of the six albums consists of five 12-inch vinylite records, for a total of thirty 78 rpm records. Each album has its own cover with a drawing of the Washington Monument on it.
"Keep Your Eyes on the Prize" is a folk song that became influential during the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. It is based on the traditional song, "Gospel Plow," also known as "Hold On," "Keep Your Hand on the Plow," and various permutations thereof.
"The Ballad of Casey Jones", also known as "Casey Jones, the Brave Engineer" or simply "Casey Jones", is a traditional American folk song about railroad engineer Casey Jones and his death at the controls of the train he was driving. It tells of how Jones and his fireman Sim Webb raced their locomotive to make up for lost time, but discovered another train ahead of them on the line, and how Jones remained on board to try to stop the train as Webb jumped to safety. It is song number 3247 in the Roud Folk Song Index.
"Bang Bang Lulu" is a traditional American song with many variations. It derives from older songs most commonly known as "Bang Bang Rosie" in Ireland, "Bang Away Lulu" in Appalachia, and "My Lula Gal" in the West. The form "Bang Bang Lulu" became widespread in the United States from its use as a cadence during the World Wars. The song uses the tune of "Goodnight, Ladies".
"Red Wing" is a popular song written in 1907 with music by F.A Mills and lyrics by Thurland Chattaway. Mills adapted the music of the verse from Robert Schumann's piano composition "The Happy Farmer, Returning From Work" from his 1848 Album for the Young, Opus 68. The song tells of a young Indian girl's loss of her sweetheart who has died in battle.
"It Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo'" or "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More" is a folk song first recorded in 1923 by "The Red-Headed Music Maker," the singer and instrumentalist Wendell Hall (1896–1969). Ukulele arrangement on the song was by May Singhi Breen. The recording was a hit in the US and also in Britain, where it was sung during the 1925 FA Cup final by Sheffield United supporters, making it a popular football song of the era.
"Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie" is a cowboy folk song. Also known as "The Cowboy's Lament", "The Dying Cowboy", "Bury Me Out on the Lone Prairie", and "Oh, Bury Me Not", the song is described as the most famous cowboy ballad. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. Based on a sailor's song, the song has been recorded by many artists, including Moe Bandy, Johnny Cash, Cisco Houston, Burl Ives, Bruce Molsky, The Residents, Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers, Colter Wall, William Elliott Whitmore and Sam Shackleton.
"Willie the Weeper" is a song about drug addiction. It is based on a standard vaudeville song, likely written in 1904. It is credited to Walter Melrose, Grant Rymal, Marty Bloom, who published it with Morris Edwin H & Co Inc in 1908. The first recording was likely by Freddie Keppard between 1923 and 1926. Many artists recorded the song in 1927, including Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon, Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven, and King Oliver. Ernest Rodgers recorded a version, also in 1927, which shares several lines with Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher".
"The Hearse Song" is a song about burial and human decomposition, of unknown origin. It was popular as a World War I song, and was popular in the 20th century as an American and British children's song, continuing to the present. It has many variant titles, lyrics, and melodies, but generally features the line "The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out," and thus is also known as "The Worms Crawl In." Generally, the song recounts the viewing of a hearse, prompting the thought of death. The listener's body is buried in a casket and assaulted by worms, then decomposes; some versions continue by stating the dead listener will be forced to eat their moldering remains.
William Clauson was a Swedish-American singer of folk songs from various nations, including some of the songs of Carl Michael Bellman in both English and Swedish.
