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April 17, 2014

Listen to the Mockingbird

From Wiki: "Listen to the Mocking Bird" (1855) is an American popular song of the mid-19th century. Its lyrics were composed by Septimus Winner under the pseudonym "Alice Hawthorne", and its music was by Richard Milburn.

It relates the story of a singer dreaming of his sweetheart, now dead and buried, and a mockingbird, whose song the couple once enjoyed, now singing over her grave. Yet the melody is moderately lively.

"Listen to the Mocking Bird" was one of the most popular ballads of the era and sold more than twenty million copies of sheet music. It was popular during the American Civil War and was used as marching music. Abraham Lincoln was especially fond of it, saying, "It is as sincere as the laughter of a little girl at play."

 

2 comments:

Barb said...

that melody is so familiar. I think back to the old Loony-Toons cartoons and they always had characters that were whistling that tune.

Mike said...

It was one the Three Stooges theme songs,along with "Three Blind Mice".

I remember singing it in elementary school music class and we all getting a kick out of singing "Tweet tweet!" at the end of the line "Listen to the mockingbird."