Rock-a-bye Baby

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This article is about the nursery rhyme. For the film see Rock-A-Bye Baby.

Rock-a-bye Baby is an American nursery rhyme, whose melody is a variant of the English satirical ballad Lilliburlero. Originally titled "Hushabye Baby", this nursery rhyme was said to be the first poem written on American soil. Although there is no evidence when the song was written, it may date from the 1600s. It is rumoured that it was written by a young pilgrim who sailed to America on the Mayflower. He was said to have observed the way Native American women rocked their babies in birch bark cradles, which were suspended from the high branches of trees, allowing the wind to rock the baby to sleep. However, the branches holding the cradles steady had a danger of breaking, causing the cradle to fall and the baby in it to get hurt.

Another source reports that Effie Crockett, a relative of Davy Crockett, wrote the lyrics in 1872 while babysitting a restless child.

In Derbyshire, England, local legend has it that the song relates to a local character in the late 1700s, Betty Kenny (Kate Kenyon), who lived with her charcoal-burner husband Luke and their eight children in a huge yew tree in Shining Cliff Woods in the Derwent Valley, where a hollowed-out bough served as a cradle. [1]

The lyrics are:

Rock a bye baby on the treetop,

When the wind blows the cradle will rock,

When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,

And down will come baby, cradle and all.

Only the words in the first four lines are supposed to be from the Pilgrim boy in America. Lines 5-12 are a later invention.

Alternate Lyrics as shown in The Real Mother Goose published in 1916:

Rock-a-bye, baby, thy cradle is green;

Father's a nobleman, mother's a queen;

And Betty's a lady, and wears a gold ring;

And Johnny's a drummer, and drums for the king.[2]