Sing Books with Emily, the Blog

Laura Ingalls Wilder

I’m assembling this post in November 2012, but thinking back to a couple of years ago when I I was talking to my neighbor and she pointed out that the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder contained songs that “Pa” played on his fiddle.  I read these books as a little girl (and never missed an episode on TV), but totally forgot about the songs.  Our library has these books on the shelf and sure enough, the books are filled with the songs and their lyrics and the stories are lovingly illustrated by Garth Williams.

I’d began a post on this subject those couple years ago, but was daunted by the enormity of this task.  I was inspired to begin again today when a notice came through for a production of “A Little House Christmas” (based on the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder) at the wonderful Adventure Theatre, a local children’s theatre company, in Glen Echo, MD.

Doing a little research today, I found some wonderful resources for the music.

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No books in American literature of comparable standing and popularity feature America’s vernacular music so centrally, assign it such a major narrative role, and index it in such rich abundance.

Source: https://www.areditions.com/rr/rra/a071.html

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The Little House book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

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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
This book features the songs:
Yankee Doodle (p. 36-38)
Money Musk (p. 73)
Red Heifer, The (p. 73)
Devil’s Dream, The (p. 73)
Arkansas Traveler
My Darling Nelly Gray

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Farmer Boy
Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Includes Songs with Words and Music by Various Artists
Illustrated by  Garth Williams
This book features the songs:
Yankee Doodle (p. 175)
Star Spangled Banner (p. 178)

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Little House on the Prairie
Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Includes Songs with Words and Music by Various Artists
Illustrated by  Garth Williams
This book features the songs:

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On the Banks of Plum Creek
Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Includes Songs with Words and Music by Various Artists
Illustrated by  Garth Williams
This book features the songs:

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By the Shores of Silver Lake
Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Includes Songs with Words and Music by Various Artists
Illustrated by  Garth Williams
This book features the songs:

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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
This book features the songs:
The Red Heifer (Ch. 15)

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Little Town on the Prairie
Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Includes Songs with Words and Music by Various Artists
Illustrated by  Garth Williams
This book features the songs:

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These Happy Golden Years
Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Includes Songs with Words and Music by Various Artists
Illustrated by  Garth Williams
This book features the songs:

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The First Four Years
Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Includes Songs with Words and Music by Various Artists
Illustrated by  Garth Williams
This book features the songs:

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Books featuring music in the Little House book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

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Laura Ingalls Wilder Songbook (Favorite Songs from the LITTLE HOUSE Books)
Music and Words by Various Artists
Compiled and Edited by Eugenia Garson
Arranged for Piano by Herbert Haufrecht
Illustrated by  Garth Williams
This book has a number of editions with differing cover art.

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A Little House Christmas (Holiday Stories from the Little House Books), Vol. 1
Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Includes Songs with Words and Music by Various Artists
Illustrated by  Garth Williams
This book features the songs:

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A Little House Christmas (Holiday Stories from the Little House Books), Vol. 2
Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Includes Songs with Words and Music by Various Artists
Illustrated by  Garth Williams
This book features the songs:

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My Little House Songbook
Words and Music by Various Artists
From the “Little House” books by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrated by Holly Jones

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LAURA’S MUSIC: SONGS FROM LAURA INGALLS WILDER’S BOOKS
This collection of songbooks, edited by Dale Cockrell, include music and information (including where the songs appear in the books) about all 127 songs in the Laura Ingalls Wilder “Little House” books.
More info about the collection, here:  https://www.areditions.com/rr/LM/LM_Set.html

Songbooks in the collection:

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Laura’s Music: Songs from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Books (LM1)
Music from “Little House in the Big Woods” and “Farmer Boy”
Edited by Dale Cockrell
Published by A-R Editions, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-89579-747-6
Book Code: LM1 (This link includes song list)

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Laura’s Music: Songs from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Books (LM2)
Music from “Little House on the Prairie”
Edited by Dale Cockrell
Published by A-R Editions, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-89579-748-3
Book Code: LM2 (This link includes song list)

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Laura’s Music: Songs from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Books (LM3)
Music from “On the Banks of Plum Creek”
Edited by Dale Cockrell
Published by A-R Editions, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-89579-749-0
Book Code: LM3 (This link includes song list)

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Laura’s Music: Songs from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Books (LM4)
Music from “By the Shores of Silver Lake”
Edited by Dale Cockrell
Published by A-R Editions, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-89579-750-6
Book Code: LM4 (This link includes song list)

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Laura’s Music: Songs from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Books (LM5)
Music from “The Long Winter”
Edited by Dale Cockrell
Published by A-R Editions, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-89579-751-3
Book Code: LM5 (This link includes song list)

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Laura’s Music: Songs from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Books (LM6)
Music from “Little Town on the Prairie”
Edited by Dale Cockrell
Published by A-R Editions, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-89579-752-0
Book Code: LM6 (This link includes song list)

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Laura’s Music: Songs from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Books (LM7)
Music from “These Happy Golden Years”
Edited by Dale Cockrell
Published by A-R Editions, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-89579-753-7
Book Code: LM7 (This link includes song list)

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This extraordinary collection puts all the work of the 7 volumes above into one enormous songbook:

The Ingalls Wilder Family Songbook
Words and Music by Various Artists
Edited by Dale Cockrell
Published by A-R Editions, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-89579-687-5
Book Code: LM7 (set) (This link includes song list)
The songs in this set are broken into categories like Children’s Songs, Fiddle Tunes, and Hymns

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You can view many pages from The Ingalls Wilder Family Songbook on Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=i8tQHrt_NZkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

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I love the description/introduction written for The Ingalls Wilder Family Songbook :

https://www.areditions.com/rr/rra/a071.html

The eight Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957), anchored in her family’s history and filled with memories of frontier life, are cornerstone classics in American children’s literature. Embedded in them are citations to 127 pieces of music–from parlor songs, stage songs, minstrel show songs, patriotic songs, Scottish and Irish songs, hymns and spirituals, to fiddle tunes, singing school songs, play party songs, folk songs, broadside ballads, catches and rounds. No books in American literature of comparable standing and popularity feature America’s vernacular music so centrally, assign it such a major narrative role, and index it in such rich abundance. This edition is a reconstruction of “the family songbook,” based on the music referenced in Wilder’s books. Although no such object ever existed, her representations of music-making have likely informed the imaginations of more Americans than many a paper-and-bindings anthology, for what millions of readers have come to know about America’s musical heritage is what they learned from the Little House books’ the titles and lyrics to songs; how songs and tunes functioned; where they were heard; what they meant; the importance of music to individuals, families, and communities. Wilder’s references and her evocative images of music-making thus form the basis of understanding about “American music” to many readers. The Ingalls Wilder Family Songbook is an effort to give fresh voice and sound to the music inscribed in these great books and new appreciation about how music functioned during a place and time important in American history and mythology.

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MULTIMEDIA INFO ENRICHING THE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE BOOKS AND PERFORMANCE OF THE STORIES BY LAURA INGALLS WILDER AND SONGS IN HER BOOKS 

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ARKANSAS TRAVELER: ‘LITTLE HOUSE’ MUSIC AND TALES
Link to listen to the 2006 NPR Christmas Special
This show features Christmas songs from Laura Ingalls Wilder books, hosted by Noah Adams and with readings by the amazing actress Cherry Jones.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6518738

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Integral to the lovability of these wonderful books are the pictures by Garth Williams, wiki here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Williams

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PA’S FIDDLE PROJECT
Undertaken by Musicologist Dale Cockrill to record and document music from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, this list includes printed songbooks, CDs, DVDs, and Online Videos

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Pa’s Fiddle Project website:
http://www.laura-ingalls-wilder.com/shop.htm

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Pa’s Fiddle Project Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Pas-Fiddle-Project-The-Music-of-the-Little-House-Books/114940435214893

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DVD of the Pa’s Fiddle Concert

http://www.amazon.com/Pas-Fiddle-The-Music-America/dp/B0085AXS7O

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Pa’s Fiddle: Charles Ingalls, American Fiddler
http://www.laura-ingalls-wilder.com/pas_fiddle_cd.htm
This link includes a rich store of liner notes about the songs.

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The Arkansas Traveler: Music from Little House on the Prairie
http://www.laura-ingalls-wilder.com/arkansas_traveler.htm
This link includes a rich store of liner notes about the songs.

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Happy Land: Musical Tributes to Laura Ingalls Wilder
http://www.laura-ingalls-wilder.com/happy_land.htm
This link includes a rich store of liner notes about the songs.

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Pa’s Fiddle Project Recordings Songbook, Happy Land Companion

The Happy Land Companion (Music from the Word of Laura Ingalls Wilder”
Words and Music by Various Artists
Edited by Dale Cockrell
Webpage for this book:
http://www.laura-ingalls-wilder.com/happy_land_songbook_saying.htm

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PBS Special, inspired by Pa’s Fiddle Project, called “Pa’s Fiddle:  American Music”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wizMxLyFoR0

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PBS special preview video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd9FoobG-r4

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PBS special preview on the PBS site:
http://video.pbs.org/video/2240305955/

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Pa’s Fiddle Project, “Polly Put the Kettle On”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVZ6ydiCCTM

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Pa’s Fiddle Project Appalachian Celebration Concert at Vanderbilt University
This is a video of the complete concert, over 1 hour long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTskQ1OiyOY

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Pa’s Fiddle Project website and Facebook page say 127 songs are embedded in the “Little House” books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Titles are listed in Alphabetical Order.

• All the Blue Bonnets
• Am I a Soldier of the Cross?
• America
• Arkansas Traveler, The
• Auld Lang Syne
• Barbara Allen
• Battle Cry of Freedom, The
• Beacon-Light of Home, The
• Ben Bolt
• Beware!
• Big Sunflower, The
• Billy Boy
• Blue Juniata, The
• Bonny Doon
• Buffalo Gals
• Buy a Broom!
• Bye, Baby Bunting
• Campbells Are Coming, The
• Camptown Races
• Canaan
• Captain Jinks
• Children’s Songs
• Come In and Shut the Door
• Comin’ thro’ the Rye
• Concert/Theater Songs
• Daisy Deane
• Darling Nelly Gray
• De Boatmen’s Dance
• De Floating Scow of Old Virginia
• Devil’s Dream, The  (p. 73 LHITBW)
• Dixie’s Land
• Down in Alabam
• Doxology
• Evergreen Shore, The
• Gaily Now Our Boat Is Sailing
• Gentle Words and Loving Smiles
• Gipsie’s Warning, The
• Gipsy King, The
• Girl I Left behind Me, The
• Golden Years Are Passing By
• Good Old Way, The
• Great Is the Lord
• Green Grows the Laurel
• Gum Tree Canoe, The
• Hail Columbia
• Happy Land, The
• Haste to the Wedding
• Heavens Declare the Glory, The
• Highland Fling
• Highland Mary
• Home of the Soul, The
• Home! Sweet Home!
• I Wish I Were Single Again
• In Dreamland far Away
• In the Starlight
• Irish Washerwoman, The
• Jerusalem, the Golden
• Jesus Holds My Hand
• Jingle Bells
• Keep the Horseshoe over the Door
• Kitty Wells
• Lend a Helping Hand
• Let the Toast Pass
• Life Let Us Cherish
• Life on the Ocean Wave, A
• Lilly Dale
• Little Annie Rooney
• Love’s Old Sweet Song
• Marching through Georgia
• Mary of the Wild Moor
• May Queen, Part Second: New Year’s Eve, The
• Merry, Merry Christmas!
• Mistress Jinks of Madison Square
• Money Musk (p. 73 of LHITBW)
• Motto for Every Man, A
• Mountain of the Lord
• My Heart Is Sair for Somebody
• My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night
• My Sabbath Home
• Nelly Was a Lady
• New Year’s Come
• Ninety and Nine, The
• Nobody Ask’d You
• O Whistle and I’ll Come to You
• Oft in the Stilly Night
• Oh! Boys, Carry Me ’Long
• Old Dan Tucker
• Old Folks at Home
• Old Grimes
• Old John Brown
• Old Time, The
• On Jordan’s Stormy Banks
• Paddle Your Own Canoe
• Pease Porridge Hot
• Polly Put the Kettle On
• Polly-Wolly-Doodle
• Pop Goes the Weasel
• Pull for the Shore
• Railroader, The
• Red Heifer, The (p. 73 of LHITBW, ch. 15 of LW)
• Ring around the Roses
• Rock Me to Sleep, Mother
• Rock of Ages
• Roll On Silver Moon
• Roll the Old Chariot Along
• Shelter in the Time of Storm, A
• Sing a Song of Sixpence
• Singin Skewl, The
• Skidmore Guard
• Song of the Grass, The
• Star of Bethlehem, The
• Star Spangled Banner, The (p. 178 FB)
• Susanna
• Sweet By and By
• Three Blind Mice
• Tread-Mill, The
• Twill Nebber Do to Gib It Up So!
• Uncle John
• Uncle Ned
• Uncle Sam’s Farm
• Wait for the Wagon
• We Are All Here
• Weevily Wheat
• What Shall the Harvest Be?
• When I Can Read My Title Clear
• When Johnny Comes Marching Home
• Where There’s a Will There’s a Way
• Whip-Poor-Will’s Song, The
• Yankee Doodle (p. 73 LHITBW, p. 175 FB)

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Addendum 1/28/2013
ELEG’S CONTRIBUTION

My contribution to this study, besides sharing the knowledge I will gain and songs I will learn and share with children everywhere I go, is to study and share the songs individually for the songs’ places in history and to provide an easy reference for folks who want to know more about the songs, read the lyrics and hear the music on videos and recordings.

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Addendum 1/29/2013
THOUGHTS ON LITTLE HOUSE

The little House books are deeply affecting, especially when read as a set all at once.

I began the project of reading all the books out of a desire to extract the songs, to learn and study them.  But I found myself greedily consuming the books for the stories, to find out what would happen next and to absorb them as a chronicle of one of the iron-willed, strong-shouldered, long-suffering, tough-as-nails families that endured the pioneer hardships and agonies of homesteading and settling the American West.  They made a success of it through grit and hard work.  These people (including the Ingalls and Wilder families) expanded our civilization, created communities and industries and they did so starting with nothing but the muscle in their arms and a few tools they brought along with them in their covered wagons.  They had vision and faith.  They survived and they created something from nothing.  I was enthralled by the descriptions of the cooking of food, home building, town founding, crop planting and harvesting, animal raising and the thought and work that went into sewing dresses, shirts, sheets and curtains.

On top of all of that is the music.  Music in threads of lyrics, instrumental song titles, Pa’s fiddle, church singing, and descriptive language about the music of the land and its creatures is woven all through the books.

This all goes to my mission in undertaking this project.  I wish I’d been able to refer to and hear the music while reading the books, at the moments the music was mentioned: because the music changes everything.  I’ve read the books and marveled at their ability to survive in harsh and harrowing circumstances, but to hear the music is to get a real hint of what gave them the will to go on.   The music is jubilation.  The music is the spirit taken wing.  The music is an expression of emotional love of life and family and what it is to survive and be alive.

In the Ingalls family, most of this music came right on out of Pa’s fiddle.  He may not have known it, but his act of playing those songs not only illuminated the dark days and festooned the happy times, but his fiddle songs planted seeds in his daughter who scattered them further into this present day so we can know and understand the fulfillment of our nations’s promise of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness…and the cultivation and preservation of our culture and history.

I look forward now to going through the books again and fitting the sounds of  the music to the scenes in which Laura describes them.

PS:  There are moments of racist expression in the books (towards Native Americans and the description of the black-face minstrel show).  These moments made my heart heavy.  But, as my dad says, “it is what it is.”  I can be disappointed, but without the expression of these thoughts, we would not have a true representation of the lives people led and the opinions people held at that time.  I must take in and digest the good with the bad and be glad that our country has (to whatever degree it is) advanced socially since then.

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A Facebook Page dedicated to the Laura Ingalls Wilder saga:
http://www.facebook.com/pioneergirl

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CHRISTMAS
A Collection of Singable Picture Books that celebrate CHRISTMAS!
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/singable-picture-books-for-christmas/

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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
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/songs-of-the-little-house-books-by-laura-ingalls-wilder/

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LAURA’S MUSIC: SONGS FROM LAURA INGALLS WILDER’S BOOKS – the songbooks
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/lauras-music-songs-from-laura-ingalls-wilders-books-the-songbooks/

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THOUGHTS FOR LITTLE HOUSE
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/thoughts-for-little-house-january-29-2013/

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WHEN I FIRST CAME TO THIS LAND, A SINGABLE PICTURE BOOK
This song chronicles the lives of immigrants and homesteaders in the US who followed the American Dream of starting with nothing, working hard, and making a life for oneself and one’s family, in exactly the same way the Ingalls and Wilder families did as chronicled in the LITTLE HOUSE books by Laura Ingalls Wilder:
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/when-i-first-came-to-this-land-a-singable-picture-book/