The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of Sean Conner, who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Thursday, March 12, 2026

A rabbit hole full of mocking birds

A bit ago I recalled a lullaby my paternal grandmother used to sing from time to time:

♫Hush little baby, don't say a word,
Mama's gonna buy you a mocking bird.

And if the mocking bird don't sing,
Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring.

And if that diamond ring turns brass,
Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass.

And if that looking glass should break,
Mama's gonna buy you … um … ♫

And I don't recall the rest of the lullaby. Annoyed that I couldn't recall the rest of the lyrics, I decided to look them up and fell into a bit of a rabbit hole. The history of the lullaby seems to go back to the early 1900s in the Appalachian area of North Carolina. My paternal grandmother was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina back in 1921, so it's a pretty gone conclusion that she would have heard it as a child.

But what I did not expect was just how popular it is as a cover song. I had no idea the number of people who covered it over the years, such as Burl Ives, Joan Baez, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Carly Simon, Dusty Springfield and Jimi Hendrix, Bo Diddley and … Eminen‽ The “Slim Shady” Eminen? Eminen did a cover of it?

Wow! What a neat little rabbit hole I fell into.

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