If you spend any time with kids, you likely know the song “Down by the Bay”:
Down by the bay, where the watermelons grow,
Back to my home I dare not go,
For if I do, my mother will say:
“Did you ever see a….”
Then you improvise a last line with the name of an animal, and something absurd that rhymes with the animal: “Did you ever see a fly, wearing a tie?”
We’re going to sing this song at camp this summer, so I wanted lots of verses, subject to the following rules:
1. The verses had to be kid-friendly (i.e., no cheetahs drinking margaritas).
2. Only one verse per animal
3. No repeating rhymes (i.e., once you rhyme frog with dog, you cannot rhyme dog with frog)
4. Try to have as many different verbs as possible
I now have 48 verses, from various sources (Web, oral tradition, writing a few new ones). Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to add even more verses, subject to the above rules. Note that the verses below are listed in alphabetical order by animal.
1. an ant, eat an elephant?
2. a beagle, flying with the seagulls?
3. a bear, combing his hair?
4. a bee, with a sunburnt knee?
5. a beetle, threading a needle?
6. a bunny, eating milk and honey?
7. a cat, swing a baseball bat?
8. a chicken, do some guitar pickin’?
9. a chimp, flying in a blimp?
10. a cockatoo, playing a kazoo?
11. a cow, with a green eyebrow?
12. a crab, drive a taxicab?
13. a deer, throwing a spear?
14. a dog, chopping a log?
15. a duck, in a pickup truck?
16. an eagle, married to a beagle?
17. a fish, do a hula in a dish?
18. a fly, wearing a tie?
19. a fox, hiding in a box?
20. a frog, hopping on a dog?
21. a giraffe, who really made you laugh?
22. a goat, in a ferry boat?
23. a goose, kissing a moose?
24. a hawk, knitting a sock?
25. a hog, going out to jog?
26. a horse, on a golf course?
27. a kangaroo, tying her shoe?
28. a lizard, dressed for a blizzard?
29. a llama, wearing striped pajamas?
30. a lobster, shooting at a mobster?
31. a mink, at the skating rink?
32. a moose, drinking apple juice?
33. a mouse, build a great big house?
34. a mule, swimming in a pool?
35. an octopus, who liked to swear and cuss?
36. an owl, drying on a towel?
37. a pig, dancing a jig?
38. a platypus, in a shuttle bus?
39. a rat, with a great big hat?
40. a seal, on a Ferris wheel?
41. a sheep, driving a jeep?
42. a slug, give a bug a hug?
43. a snail, with a dinner pail?
44. a snake, baking a cake?
45. a spider, drinking apple cider?
46. a turkey, who liked to eat beef jerky?
47. a whale, with a polka-dotted tail?
48. a yak, doing jumping jacks?
(N.B.: If you post an additional verse on Facebook, I’ll assume you give me permission to repost on my blog.)
Is the famous song “This Little Light of Mine” an African American spiritual? Or was it composed by Harry Dixon Loes and Avis B. Christiansen around 1920?
Attributions to the African American tradition
Many hymnals and songbooks attribute “This Little Light of Mine” to “African American Spiritual,” or more generally to “Traditional.”
An influential source: Lift Every Voice and Sing II: An African American Hymnal, ed. Horace Clarence Boyer (New York: Church Publishing, 1993), has the following attribution: “Words: Traditional. Music: Negro spiritual, adapt. William Farley Smith (b. 1941)”. The melody of this version resembles the melody collected in 1939 by Alan Lomax, as sung by Doris McMurray of Huntsville, Texas.; this recording is available online here.
An equally influential source is Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through Its Songs by Guy and Candie Carawan (Montgomery, Ala.: NewSouth Books, 1963/2007). The Carawans give a somewhat different melody, and attribute this as “Traditional song” (p. 21). They provide documentary evidence that indicates the song was included in the “Highlander Song Book” (p. 25), a songbook that would date from the 1930s. Incidentally, the Carawans provide a bridge that is not included in the hymnals I’ve consulted.
In addition to the audio recording by folklorist Alan Lomax in 1939 (see above), “Let hit shine” was collected by Ruby Pickens Tartt, and published in “Honey in the Rock”: The Ruby Pickens Tartt Collection of Religious Folk Songs from Sumter County, Alabama (Mercer University Press, 1991, p. 5; words only). Note that like the Lomax version, this version was probably collected in the 1930s. The editors do not provide any guidance as to when Tartt collected this particular song, but they provide the following editorial comment, without documentation: “Widely performed by choirs and gospel groups during the 1930s, a favorite on gospel radio shows, ‘Let hit shine’ is now also in white folk tradition.”
The words to “This Little Light” are collected by Steven Gould Axelrod, Camille Roman, and Thomas J. Travisano, in their book The New Anthology of American Poetry: Modernisms, 1900-1950 (Rutgers University Press, 2005), on p. 605. The editors add the following editorial comment: “Harry Dixon Loes (1892-1965) wrote and composed this song with Avis B. Christiansen (b. 1895). The pair also wrote the hymns ‘Blessed Redeemer’ and ‘Love Found a Way’.” This attribution, coming as it does from a well-regarded university press, carries some weight; however, the attribution is not documented.
Typical of the stories told about the song is that told by Ace Collins, in his book Music for Your Heart: Reflections from Your Favorite Songs (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013), p. 191: “During his studies [at the Moody Bible Institute], Loes was struck by the significance of three different references to light in the New Testament…. Using light as an inspiration and coupling it to a melody that carried the feel of a spiritual, Loes wrote ‘This Little Light of Mine.’ Yet the song, which is today almost universally known, took a while to take off. Although written in 1920, it would be in the days just before World War II that churches began to adopt ‘This Little Light of Mine’ as a part of Sunday school programs. Within a decade, Loes’s song was translated into scores of languages and sung all over the globe.” Collins provides no documentation whatsoever for any of these assertions.
Although the song was supposedly composed c. 1920, I was unable to find a reference to it in the Catalog for Copyright Entries for the years 1920 and 1921; however, Loes might have copyrighted the song later than 1920.
Hymnary.org shows no publications in hymnals prior to about the late 1930s; see graph here. However, Hymnary.org does not include every single U.S. hymnal from the twentieth century.
Wikipedia attributes the song to Loes, but does not document the source for this attribution. The Wikipedia page was created July 26, 2007, and many online sources (and probably many print sources) unquestioningly accept the Wikipedia attribution in spite of the lack of documentation; therefore, be wary of any source published 2007 and later that attributes the song to Loes.
The Web site Hymntime.com does NOT list “This Little Light” as one of Loes’s compositions. Note that Hymntime.com gives Loes’s dates as October 20, 1892 to February 9, 1965; the birth year is different from the birth year given by Wikipedia.
Conclusion and questions
The fact that folklorists collected the song after Dixon’s purported composition date of circa 1920 indicates that the song could have passed quickly into the folk repertoire soon after composition. However, assuming Loes did indeed write the song (or if Loes co-wrote it with Christiansen), where and when was it first published?
If Loes wrote the melody, what was his original version? Similarly, if the melody is an African American spiritual, what is the earliest recorded version of the melody?
Loes was white, so if he wrote the song, how did it become associated with the African American tradition?
In the absence of firm answers to these and other questions about the origins of this tune, the most careful attribution for this song would be “Unknown.”
NOTE: See the update below for a brief biography of Windom.
I’m trying to track down Aaron Bash Windom, a mid-twentieth century composer of gospel music from St. Louis. One of his better-known songs was “Let Us Sing Till the Pow’r of the Lord Come Down,” often known as “Now Let Us Sing.”
My best guess is that Windom was born in 1910, and died in 1981. The Catalog of Copyright Entries, Third Series, vol. 2, part 5A, number 1, Published Music, January-June 1948 (Washington, D.C.: Copyright Office, Library of Congress, 1948) reveals that his name is Aaron Bash Windom, that he was born in 1910, and that he was the sole owner of A. B. Windom Studio, St. Louis, Mo. The Find-a-Grave Web site has a photo of a grave stone of Aaron Bash Windom who died in March, 1981, at age 70; the grave stone is in Saint Peter’s Cemetery, Normandy, St. Louis County, Missouri.
Windom is mentioned in passing in Horace Clarence Boyer’s The Golden Age of Gospel ([University of Illinois Press, 1995], p. 138): “Two other S. Louis natives who were important figures in gospel between 1945 and 1955 were Martha Bass and A. B. Windom. … Windom, a one-time accompanist for Mother Smith, composed several gospel songs: her ‘I’m Bound for Canaan Land’ and ‘I’ve Got the River of Jordan To Cross” became gospel standards.'” Several other sources indicate that he taught piano; in a couple of places he is referred to as “Professor A. B. Windom,” though I don’t know if he was affiliated with a school or college, or if he, like many other music teachers, was accorded the honorary title lf “Professor” by his students and local community.
The gospel song “Let us sing till the pow’r of the Lord come down” was published in St. Louis, Mo., and is copyright 1948 by A. B. Windom Studio. If you look around online, you can find recordings of it by various musicians. Some online discographies seem to indicate that he made some recordings of his own music, but I can’t confirm that.
But I have no idea if he was white or black; if he played anything besides gospel music; to what extent he made his living as a performer, a teacher, and/or a composer. I cannot find him in the 1930 or the 1940 U.S. Census. Was he married? Did he have children?
If anyone out there knows anything about him, I’d love to hear.
Update, Feb., 2023
Here’s my best effort at a brief biography for Aaron Bash Windom, based on the information listed below, plus information from the comments. Some of this is a little bit speculative, but given how little information we have, this will have to do.
Aaron Bash Windom, known as A. B. Windom, was born on September 11, 1910, in Missouri. Nothing is known about his early years. By 1941, he was publishing his own compositions in St. Louis, often under the imprint “Studio of A. B. Windom.” In addition to being a gospel composer, he also taught music, and his students called him Professor A. B. Windom. He was also a performer, and both sang and played piano.
On February 17, 1949, he married Selma B. Hurd. Born c. 1903, Selma was from East St. Louis, Ill., across the river from St. Louis, and was the daughter of Baptist minister Rev. B. M. Hurd.
Although all his published compositions were gospel music, Windom taught classical piano. As one of his students remembers, “He was very well versed in music theory as well. Gospel music is not all he knew. He was a light-skinned Black man, [and] eccentric. I still miss him.” At least one of his students went on to become a professional musician, the gospel composer Rev. Robert Mayes (1942-1992).
Windom served for forty years as the minister of music at Christ Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church in St. Louis, circa 1940 until his death. In 1966, he served on the Devotional Literature Commission of the Progressive National Baptist Convention.
His gospel compositions were recorded most notably by Mahalia Jackson, and also by less well-known performers such as Martha Bass, the Golden Harmoneers, the Clara Ward Singers, etc. His 1948 composition “Let Us Sing Till the Power of the Lord Come Down” (a.k.a. “Now Let Us Sing”) has been recorded a number of times and is widely sung by church choirs. “This song has even entered the folk tradition to the point where”Now Let Us Sing” has entered the oral tradition, passed from singer to singer; unfortunately in the process Windom’s authorship has sometimes been forgotten.
Windom died on February 28, 1981. He had turned over his school at 3905 Evans Street, St. Louis, to Professor Lee Cochran, Jr., who continued to teach music there. Selma, A. B.’s wife, died on February 26, 1994. They are buried together in St. Peter’s Cemetery, Normandy, St. Louis County, Missouri.
Research notes:
(1) Be sure to read the comments. There is some material there from people who knew him.
(2) I’ve found some genealogical information about Aaron Bash Windom. I assumed that the birth year listed in his copyright entries (1910) was correct. Beyond that, “Windom” is an unusual spelling.
(a) I was not able to find him in the 1920, 1920, 1940, or 1950 U.S. Census. That doesn’t mean he’s not there; sometimes names get horribly mangled by the census takers. But I was unable to track him down.
(b) Aaron Bash Windom and Selma B. Hurd were married on February 17, 1949, in St. Louis, by Rev. E. R. Williams. See attached photostat of the marriage record (from Familysearch.org). With such an unusual name, spelled exactly as it appears on his copyright records, this is pretty definitely our A. B. Windom.
(c) Aaron Bash Windom is in the Social Security Death Index, found via Familysearch.org. Date of birth, September 11, 1910; date of death, February, 1981 (no day given). Since he was buried in early March (see below), I’d assume he died in late February.
(d) According to Find-a-Grave, Aaron Bash Windom died in March, 1981 (though actually, this was probably the burial date; see above for a Feb. date), and he was buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery, Normandy, St. Louis County, Missouri. Interment.net summarizes the interment record as follows: “WINDOM, Aaron Bash, age: 70, burial: 03/07/1981, Section: 28, Block: O, Lot: 28.00, Grave: 1.”
This source (which collates public records) has the following information: “WINDOM, AARON was born 11 September 1910, received Social Security number 498-14-7067 (indicating Missouri) and, Death Master File says, died February 1981 [Source: Death Master File (public domain)….] WINDOM, AARON B. died 28 February 1981 in Missouri, U.S.A. Special thanks to Reclaim the Records.” Given the dates of death, I feel pretty confident that both these entries are for our A. B. Windom.
(e) Selma died in 1994, according to Find-a-Grave (this corresponds to the information in the comments below) and she is also buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery. Interment.net lists her as “WINDOM, Selma B., age: 91, burial: 2/26/1994, Section: 28, Block: O, Lot: 28.00, Grave: 2”; in other words, she’s buried next to A.B. (but darn it, I wish they’d given her full middle name). This also gives Selma’s approximate birth year as 1903. That means she was about 46 years old when she married A.B. Windom; thus it’s no surprise that they didn’t have children together. Another source gives her date of death as February 19, 1994 (using information found on reclaimtherecords.org).
Once I knew Selma’s approximate birth year, I could do more research on her life. Our Selma is probably (but not definitely) the Selma B. Hurd born in 1903, and found in the 1910, 1920, and 1930 U.S Census, living with her parents in East St. Louis, Illinois, right across the river from St. Louis, Mo. Her parents were B. M. Hurd (born in Georgia; first name also given as Morgan) and Lusette Hurd (born in Alabama; first name may be Lucetta, Luretta, or Susetta). B. M. was minister of a Baptist church, and is listed in the American Baptist Yearbook for 1910 (p. 151); he is probably the B. M. Hurd who died in 1937. Lusette doesn’t appear in the 1930 Census; she is probably the Lucetta Hurd who died in 1922 and is buried in the same cemetery, in the exact same section, as B. M. Hurd. Note that Selma was Lusette’s second child, for the 1910 census shows she has two living children, though only Selma is living with Lusette in that year (Lusette was about 40 when she had Selma); also note that Lusette married B. M. circa 1901, and this was her second marriage. Also, the 1920 Census lists Selma, Lusette, and B.M. as black.
Given this information on Selma, we might be able to go a little further. A woman named Selma Hurd of East St. Louis, Ill., married Carl L. Jamerson, also of East St. Louis, on September 22, 1930 — there may have been two women named Selma Hurd in East St. Louis in 1930, but I’m betting that it’s the same woman; and if this is the same Selma who married A. B. Windom, then it was her second marriage. However, note that A. B. Windom did not marry Selma Jamerson; which could mean that these are not the same woman, or it could mean that Selma took back her maiden name after her marriage with Jamerson ended.
Be cautious with any of this information about Selma. I found no definite connection between the Selma Hurd of East St. Louis, Ill., and the Selma Hurd of St. Louis, Mo., who married A. B. Windom. They’re probably the same woman (it’s a somewhat unusual name), but they’re not definitely the same woman.
(3) A. B. Windom is mentioned in the minutes of the “First Annual Midwinter Planning Session” of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., January 19-20, 1966, held at Christ Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, St. Louis, Missouri: “Professor A. B. Windom of the host church sang a solo, ‘Come unto Jesus'” [for the Thurs. morning, Jan. 20, session]; he was also listed as a member of the “Devotional Literature Commission.” These minutes are bound with the Minutes of the Fourth Annual Session of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Sept. 7-12, 1965 (p. 165).
(4) I found a number of copyright listings and publication listings for A. B. Windom, but did not have the patience to go through all those listings looking for bits good information (e.g., where the copyright holder resides, etc.). Below is what my quick search turned up for sheet music publications. These are of interest because they place Windom in St. Louis in the 1940s, and show that he published his own music. It also shows that he had connections to Chicago.
1941: “The First Started Burning in My Soul” (27458 Cass, St. Louis: A. B. Windom) 1942: “You’ve Got the River of Jordan To Cross,” with P.D. Johnson and Theodore Frye (Chicago: Theodore Frye) 1945: “There’s Rest for the Weary” (St. Louis: A. B. Windom Studio) 1947: “I Got To Run to the City Four Square (St. Louis: A. B. Windom Studio) 1948: “Let Us Sing Till the Power of the Lord Come Down” (St. Louis: A. B. Windom Studio) 1949:”Oh Lord Remember Me” (St. Louis: A. B. Windom Studio) 1949:”You Got To Stand Your Trial in Judgment” (St. Louis: A. B. Windom Studio) 1954: “Peace, Peace in Jesus” (St. Louis: A. B. Windom Studio) (Sources: Emory Univ.; eBay listings; U.S. Copyright listings)
(5) A. B. Windom is mentioned in a few published reminiscences about the mid-twentieth century gospel music scene — search Google Books — but most of this material either is not available on Google Books, or says little more than “I remember A. B. Windom.”
Tucked into some papers that I brought back when cleaning out my father’s condo, I found a handwritten note on which was written a theory of organizational analysis. While this should be considered a theory subject to additional testing, given my limited experience in both the for-profit and the nonprofit worlds, this theory sounds like a pretty good model for larger organizations (more than 20 staffers or employees).
The [Robert] Harper Principle of Organization
Persons with aggressive personalities and big mouths will naturally gravitate into management.
Corollary:
Within any given organization, those persons with the loudest voices and most aggressive personalities will become the managers regardless of their inherent ability.
Several of the local Mexican and Central American restaurants near us have their windows painted with a variety of Christmas motifs. My favorite motif is The Unhappy Cactus, as in this window of a restaurant at the corner of Poplar and Ellsworth:
Poor guy. it’s just too wet and cold for him to feel happy. Even his cactus mustache looks unhappy. (Photo credit: Carol Steinfeld)
Carol’s friend Eva, who is a farmer, stayed with us last night. When farmers check luggage on the plane, what do they bring in that luggage? Turnips, onions, garlic, frozen venison — and wheat berries. The wheat berries are a hard winter variety called “Warthog,” from friends of Eva’s who farm in Essex, Massachusetts. Eva soaked the berries in water overnight, and we cooked them in the rice cooker this morning. We added a bit of olive oil and a sprinkling of salt: the perfect breakfast.
Back in 2006, when Wrigley bought out Altoids (R) brand mints, they replaced the peppermint oil with artificial flavor. Although they soon resumed using real peppermint oil, the mints have never been as strongly flavored as they once were. So here’s how to supercharge Altoids (R) so they taste as peppermint-y as they did prior to 2006:
Go to your local health food store, and get the peppermint spirits which are sold as a dietary supplement. I got “Herb Pharm” brand “Peppermint Spirits Essential Oil and Whole Leaf Extract”. Note that they have changed the label since I bought mine (a one ounce bottle lasts a long time), and the new label is different than the one you see in the photograph below. Now get a small dinner plate, and spread out the mints on it.
1. A mint ready for supercharging.
2. Adding peppermint spirits; the typical mint will absorb about three drops.
3. After adding peppermint spirits to one side, let the mint dry out (this could take 15 minutes).
4. A mint flipped over waiting for peppermint spirits to be added to the other side.
5. A supercharged mint drying out and waiting to be eaten.
Once you add peppermint spirits to both sides, the mints are somewhat damp and fragile, and it’s best to let them dry overnight before putting them back in the tin.
(If you want to know more about artificial flavor in Altoids, I wrote about it back in 2006 here, here, and here.)
Recently, I heard some new verses for the parody version of “Old Time Religion.” Here they are:
Yoruba religion, a.k.a. Orisha devotion:
Let us pray to the Orishas,
Not the ones who are too vicious,
Just the ones who grant our wishes;
And that’s good enough for me!
Ancient Egyptian religion:
O we sing the praise of Horus
Like the Dynasties before us —
A three thousand year old chorus;
And that’s good enough for me!
Worshiping at the altar of Wall Street:
The mighty Dollar is my Savior,
She controls my ev’ry behavior
Whether I spend her or I save her;
And that’s good enough for me!
I was particularly interested in these verses because they happened to be about three religions I am currently studying. And lest you think I’m kidding about Wall Street being a religion, you might want to check out Scott Gustafson’s new book At the Altar of Wall Street: The Rituals, Myths, Theologies, Sacraments, and Mission of the Religion Known as the Modern Global Economy (Eerdmans Publishing, Sept., 2015), in which the author “argues that economics functions in our current global culture as religions have functioned in other cultures.”
Isis is a well-known Egyptian goddess who needs little introduction. This beautiful little sculpture of Isis dates from a period when the Romans ruled Egypt; so Isis is wearing an Egyptian headdress, but she’s also wearing Roman clothing.
Above: Isis with sistrum, from Roman Imperial period, c. 100 BCE to 200 CE; bronze. Boston Museum of Fine Arts, accession no. 04.1713.
She is shaking a sistrum, an small percussion instrument that was used almost exclusively by women. Kara Cooney, a professor of Egyptian art and architecture, interprets the sistrum in terms of sexuality: “The sistrum was a kind of rattle — a wooden handle supporting bars of metal, each piercing small rings that clanged together when the instrument was vibrated. The sistrum itself represented human sexuality — round objects penetrated by a phallic rod holding them in place” (1). This interpretation could be accurate, but it could be overly influenced by Freud and Co., and therefore anachronistic.
The archaeologist Joyce Tyldesley offers another interpretation; she says the sistrum, which “was played only by women,” was “a rather large loop-shaped rattle with a long handle, often featuring the head of Hathor [another Egyptian goddess], which had initially represented the papyrus reeds of the Nile Delta where, mythology decreed, Hathor had been forced to hide with her young son. Eventually the sistrum lost all trace of its original meaning and instead started to serve as a religious symbol for life itself. It consequently become absorbed by other deities, and was particularly identified with the cult of Isis at the end of the Dynastic period.” (2) And this sculpture in fact does date from the end of the Dynastic period, the time when Isis had taken over the sistrum form Hathor.
Thus in this sculpture, we see the goddess Isis at the end of some three millennia of change and development. She is wearing the flowing robes of Rome rather than the simple sheath dress of Dynastic Egypt. She wears a headdress that identifies her as Isis, though it is not the older stepped headdress of Isis seen in sculptures from 500 years earlier (see, e.g., the sculpture of Isis below, from c. 685-525 BCE). And she has taken over the sistrum from Hathor and other goddesses.
Although their adherents may say otherwise, art and material culture does not show gods and goddesses as unchanging and fixed; instead, they grow and evolve over time.
Above: Isis mourning Osiris, from Dynasty 26, c. 685-525 BCE; wood. Boston Museum of Fine Arts, accession no. 72.4172.
Notes:
(1) Kara Cooney, The Woman Who Would Be King (New York: Broadway Books, 2014), p. 39. (2) Joyce Tyldesley, Daughters of Isis: Women of Ancient Egypt (London: Penguin, 1994), p. 139.
I was particularly interested in these verses because they happened to be about three religions I am currently studying. And lest you think I’m kidding about Wall Street being a religion, you might want to check out Scott Gustafson’s new book 
