Granddaddy Wells set his first grandson on his knee and sang to him when he was but a little tyke, not yet in school. I was the little tyke. I have no recollection of what song he sang. He may have made it up on the spot. I remember hearing it said that Granddaddy once led a choral group in his younger days.

Momma sometimes sang a song that was so sad that it made me cry every time she sang it. It was a ballad about a child who took sick and died. The words were very sad and the tune was made to match. I never learned the song; it was too sad to think about. She sang other songs however and I learned at least one from her. It was a caution to young lovers. She seemed happy when she sang it.

“The moon has his eyes on you. 
So be careful of what you do.
Every time you go a strolling with your ladylove
Mr. Moon is watching from above.
Big eyes way up in the skies
So be wise; don’t let him surprise.
Don’t try to tease, for way up through the trees   
The moon has his eyes on you.”

Daddy had a little tune he liked to sing now and then. It went “---- jadda jadda jing jing jing.” He may have sung some other stuff, but I don’t remember anything else.

My favorite song in high school glee club was “Aunt Dinah’s Quilting Party”. Quilting parties were pretty rare by that time but the song was fun to sing.

At college I joined the glee club for the fun of it. Professor Earl Hobson Smith of the English department had written a play about Stephen Foster and of course he needed singers in the cast. His play was performed, not only on campus, but also at several high schools in the area. We sang “Camptown Races”, “Old Folks at Home”, “Swanee River”, “Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair”, the nonsensical “Oh Susannah” and a few other famous Foster songs, and had fun doing it.

Most of my favorite songs were created during the Great Depression and World War II and played by the big bands of the swing era. Swing tunes such as “In the Mood”, “Tuxedo Junction” and “String of Pearls” were great favorites of the jitterbugging crowd. I liked the tunes but the dance was too energetic for my body. I liked the love songs better. I could dance to those tunes and appreciate their lyrics. Unlike the stuff that’s peddled today, the songs were set to nice singable tunes, and had words that seemed to come from the heart. “You’d be so Nice to Come Home To” doesn’t sound like a plea for a mere fling. “Moonlight Becomes You” expresses a man’s admiration for his lady’s beauty in the moonlight. ‘Night and Day”, “Deep Purple”, “In the Still of the Night” were songs with tender feelings and beautiful tunes that were sung and played at dances. I was always disappointed in the music of a dance that didn’t include “Stardust” but I usually left the dance singing a tune the band had played.

Big bands declined after the 1940’s and so did the new songs of the kind they played. What happened to the songwriters? I guess their audience dwindled. Was it because people were busy raising the baby boomers. The music that followed lacked the happy melodious quality of earlier times. Was it because of the atom bomb, the cold war, general pessimism? At any rate, new songs with great melodies have been rare since the 40’s.

I take solace in the advance of technology that makes it possible to hear the long forgotten “oldies” almost any time. I can always sing one of my old favorites such as “Mammy’s Little Baby Loves Shortenin’ Bread”.