Book Review: Burl Ives Songbook

Title: Burl Ives Songbook

Author: “Burl” Ives

Publisher: Ballantine

Date: 1953; 11 reprintings as of 1966

ISBN: none

Length: 276 pages

Quote: “The folk songs in this book are…an integral part of the cultural history of the United States. Above all, they are very good songs.”

Born in 1909, semi-retired by the time I was born, “Burl” Ives was born to break up stereotypes. He was built for football, big and beefy more than fat. He even played football. He was taught to sing for audiences, starting at age four, and was best known for singing comic folk and nursery songs. But he studied history, music, and theatre in New York, and became famous for playing a “Big Daddy” character in movies. In 1953 a record company was busily distributing copies of his first six LP’s, and these are the songs on those records, scored to be easily played along with the records at family, school, or youth group parties.

Well, they are good songs. I say this as a person who grew up with Burl Ives’ last few kiddie LPs playing in the nursery, giving my parents nostalgia trips I didn’t share. I liked Jim Reeves, The Browns, Eddy Arnold, and Ernie Ford as much as the’rents did, but at Burl Ives I drew the line. I didn’t care for his voice or style. But he had spent a lot of time reading American history in music, and he revived a few hundred songs and printed them in books that invite you to sing them better than he did; fortunately that’s easy.

These songs are, of course, politically incorrect. In his Wandering Singer’s Songbag Ives printed lyrics and stories for several songs from the losing side of history, most of which, like the more authentic versions of “Poor Rebel Soldier” with the lines about hating Yankees and wishing the Rebs had killed more of them, Ives refused to sing. (He was from Illinois.) Some authentic songs, not always even just anonymous folk songs, are hateful. The songs in this book are not intended to be hateful but they do honestly express feelings guaranteed to make all the little snowflakes out there whine that they’re “hurtful.” People disappointed in love say nasty things about “men” or “women” generally. People worried about a real shooting war in which their homes might be blown up praise soldiers who kill enemies. “Tobacco’s but an Indian weed…think on this when you drink tobacco.” (In King James’ time, ham might be smoked in a smokehouse, but people who deliberately inhaled smoke seem to have been squeamish about admitting they were smoking themselves; they “drank” in the fumes.) Most people in the United States at least claimed to be Christians, or close enough to sing along with Christian songs.

For anyone who can appreciate these songs in their historical context, this book is still a treasure, and most of the songs are still singable. They are the ones that sold by the thousands in the 1940s and 1950s, when people laughed off the “hurtful” thoughts (“Oh, you know the speaker would soon get over feeling that ‘a true one you never will find’!”) and sang along with the religious ones. Here are “Froggy Went Courting” and “Greensleeves” and “Peter Gray” and many more.