When I was little, my favorite way to be put to sleep was for Mama or Papa to hold me in the rocking chair and rock me to sleep. If Mama rocked me, these were the songs she would sing to me:

You Are My Sunshine
Come Thou Fount
High in the Treetop
Goodnight, My Someone

Hearing these songs now bring back floods of feelings, emotions, and memories.

You Are My Sunshine will never fail to make me feel content, happy, and just a tad bit wistful. Come Thou Fount doesn't bring any emotions or feelings. I suppose I've become numbed to it because of singing it in church also, but it will always be special to me because it was my song. Mama had a hymn for each of us, and that was mine.

These are the songs that they both sang to me:

All the Pretty Little Horses
Rock of Ages
Flee as a Bird

All the Pretty Little Horses always makes me want to cry. It's not necessarily a sad song, but the melody is so haunting and lovely, a little lump always comes up at the back of my throat when I hear it. Mama and Papa both sang it to me, and it makes me think of the comfort I always felt wrapped up in their arms, rocking back and forth in that old, blue rocking chair. Rock of Ages makes me think most of Uncle Mike. Mama and Papa would sing it to me, but I remember going to sleep with Katie and Anne Marie while Uncle Mike's voice sang this from the tape player. Flee as a Bird used to be one of my favorite hymns (and still is in a way) because the melody reminded me of All the Pretty Little Horses---sad and eerie, but beautiful.

If Papa would rock me, these are the songs he would sing:

Kentucky Babe
Old Uncle Ned

"Skeeters am a hummin' on the honeysuckle vine, sleep, Kentucky babe..." This song has the most memories; Papa, rocking me in the rocking chair, warm and scratchy. Papa playing his guitar and singing to us four kids in our bedroom. Papa's voice, the most comforting, reassuring sound in the world.

Old Uncle Ned. He is still one of my best friends. "So lay down the shovel and the hoe-oh-oh-oh, hang up the fiddle and the bow..." I always wondered what the cake tasted like that he couldn't eat. I never could go to sleep while this song was being sung because I would start picturing Old Uncle Ned, and I never could get him right in my mind. Eventually, I think he ended up being something of a mix between the Uncle Remus from the movie Song of the South and Uncle Tom from the Uncle Tom's Cabin play in the movie The King and I. "His fingers were long like the cane in the break..."



Somebody really should get Mama and Papa to record those songs. I'd love for my children to go to sleep with Papa's voice in their ears.