Little House Songs: The Red Heifer
Posted on: February 22, 2013
Laura mentions that Pa plays THE RED HEIFER on his fiddle on p. 73 of my copy of Little House in the Big Woods:
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Little House in the Big Woods
Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Includes Songs with Words and Music by Various Artists
Illustrated by Garth Williams
THE RED HEIFER is also mentioned in Chapter 15 of,
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The Long Winter
Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Includes Songs with Words and Music by Various Artists
Illustrated by Garth Williams
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I read on p. 26 of the Google Books posting of,
The Ingalls Wilder Family Songbook
…that the music for THE RED HEIFER is unrecovered. I take that to mean that they couldn’t find the music. However, I found a klesmer band playing a song called THE RED HEIFER and imagine this could be something like it, since, though the YouTube clip below features a clarinet playing the melody of the song, klesmer bands do use fiddles and it would easily be a fiddle tune, too.
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I don’t know that Pa would have played this melody, I love this klesmer band version of THE RED HEIFER:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gE1DN74mwQ
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This article from “Bluegrass Today” online magazine, written about the Pa’s Fiddle CD, explains that since no music for THE RED HEIFER seems to exist, they have included a song called THE YELLOW HEIFER, for which music does exist, a song which was noted to have been played in the area Pa Ingalls came from in Wisconsin.
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Hear a clip of THE YELLOW HEIFER, here:
http://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Heifer/dp/B0089AD95Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361469617&sr=8-1&keywords=yellow+heifer%2C+pa%27s+fiddle
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Related Posts
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LITTLE HOUSE SONGS: LAURA INGALLS WILDER – SONGS OF THE LITTLE HOUSE BOOKS
Songs of the “Little House” books by Laura Ingalls Wilder
http://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/songs-of-the-little-house-books-by-laura-ingalls-wilder/
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EDUCATIONAL CONTENT
A list of SPBs with fun and sneakily educational content. The kids won’t even know they’re learning!
http://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/singable-picture-books-with-sneaky-educational-content/
