mitchstrang --
Thanks for your clarification and the invitation to post an answer to
your question.
I have looked around quite extensively, and I am even more convinced
that this must be the song that your mother remembers. Not only does
it contain all of the content elements you mentioned, the title is
very similar, and, I have discovered that the song has also been
remembered -- sometimes as a poem -- by some other online senior
citizens. Most important, after a significant search, I can come
with no other poems or songs that come at all close to fitting your
description.
Here's what I have concluded, along with the online evidence for my conclusions.
The versions of "Good Morning, Merry Sunshine" that are most plentiful
online are very similar to the one I provided in my "Clarification
Request." They are never ascribed to an author, but rather are
described as "anonymous" in origin when they have any attribution at
all.
Like most "folk" literature, there seems to be no generally accepted
"authoritative" version. The closest thing to a standard published
version, I suggest, is in the acclaimed classic noted Random House
book called "Eloise Wilkin's Poems to Read to the Very Young," which
was originally published in 1982 and was republished in 2001.
Here is the "Anonymous" poem as contained in that classic book:
"Good morning, merry sunshine,
How did you wake so soon?
You've scared the little stars away,
And shined away the moon.
I saw you go to sleep last night,
Before I ceased my playing,
How did you get way over there,
And where have you been staying?
"I never go to sleep, dear child,
I just go round to see
My little children of the East,
Who rise and watch for me.
I waken all the birds and bees,
And flowers on my way,
And now come back to see the child
Who stayed out late to play."
Source: "Eloise Wilkin's Poems to Read to the Very Young," illustrated
by Eloise Wilkin (Random House, 2001), at page 1.
Amazon.com: Eloise Wilkin's Poems to Read to the Very Young ("Search
Inside the Book" feature)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0375804757/002-5554037-2585618?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155
You will note that the Wilkin version differs from the version I
initially provided you only in a few very small ways (using "shined"
for "shone" and "saw for watch", e.g.) and in the substitution of "And
now come back to see the child" for "Then last of all the little
child."
Here are links to several other websites that feature the text of the
song/poem. All are very similar to the Wilkin version:
Early Literature: Earth Wonders
http://www.earlyliterature.ecsd.net/earth_wonders.htm
Rootsweb: Homespun
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/HOMESPUN/2001-03/0985666447
New York State Police: Summer Readings
http://www.summerreadingnys.org/planners/manual/chap-3-pt-3.pdf
The Best Kids Books
http://www.yourcraftfinder.com/supersongs.cfm?songsid=228
Other online references to the song often seem to be based on
recollections from the 1930s.
"Grannie used to sing "Good morning merry sunshine, how did you wake
so soon?" When I hear this tune, I see an overgrown garden, maybe the
one over the fence that I never found, where an old woman stands in
the sun."
Judith Palache Gregory: Grannie and Grandpa
http://simplethinking.com/cp/grandpa2.shtml
"I ran to the kitchen. I stood at the kitchen door and waited for
Nana. She turned from the stove, smiled and sang to me: ?Good morning,
merry sunshine. How did you wake so soon? You scared the little stars
away and shined away the moon.? I knew it was a song for babies. But
Nana loved it."
David Roche: King David
http://www.davidroche.com/kingdavid.htm
The oldest reference I have been able to find is from an online
document entitled "Songs As Remembered and Sung by Agnes Amelia Ransom
Burton (1886 - 1969)." This version is worth quoting in full, both
because it establishes that the song was sung in the 19th century and
that the version recalled here is strikingly similar to the modern
"standard" version. Here it is:
"Good morning, merry sunshine!
How did you wake so soon?
You chased away the little stars
And shinned away the moon.
I saw you go to sleep last night
Before I said my prayer,
How did you get way over there?
And, pray, where did you stay?
"I never go to sleep, my dear,
I just go round to see
The little children over East
That watch and pray for me."
" Learned in school at the age of nine (1895). "
Honoring My Father and Mother: Agnes Amelia Ransom Burton
http://www.outer-chaos.net/songs.htm
The above evidence seems to me to be convincing for the propositions
that "Good Morning, Merry Sunshine" is the traditional children's song
that you and your mother remember and that its "standard" version has
remained largely intact since at least the late 19th century.
In the interest of completeness and just because it is interesting, I
note two online references to somewhat different recollections of the
poem/song. The first is a recollection of a Texan who grew in a
Spanish-speaking household. Here is his recollection:
"He [the author's father] also had an English 'Wake-up' song:
"Good morning, Merry Sunshine,
How did you wake so soon,
You used to wake at 9:00 o'clock,
And now you wake at noon."
Andres C. Gonzalez, Jr.: Mother and Dad
http://users.mstar2.net/jag2/p0ANDY15.htm
The other recollection is of the writer's grandmother:
"Grandma had taught briefly in a one-room school in North Dakota, and
once in awhile she would sing a song she had taught her school kids:
"Good morning merry sunshine,
How did you wake so soon?
You scared away the little stars
And shone away the moon.
I saw you go to sleep last night
Before I ceased my playing.
How did you get way over there?
And where have you been staying?
"I did not go to sleep, dear child,
I've been shining all the while.
But as you're world keeps turning 'round
It hides me from your sight.
But as it turns you back again
You'll find me waiting here
To shine a bright "good morning" down
On all the children dear. "
Singles Plus: Grandmas
http://singlesplus.net/grandmas.htm
Note that the last four lines of this version -- and only the last
four lines --are significantly different from all of the other
versions cited. While this recollection is certainly interesting and
presumably could indeed be the version the mother remembers, it is the
only example of this variant that I have come across.
Now for the final piece of the puzzle -- locating recordings of the
song that you can purchase for yourself and your mother.
Here are links to the online ordering pages for several versions of the song.
This one is on a CD called "100 Kids Favorites" and is available for
purchase from this ordering page at the Tower Records website:
Tower Records: 100 Kids Favorites
http://www.towerrecords.com/product.aspx?pfid=2600905
This collection containing the song is available from Barnes & Noble:
Barnes & Noble: 125 Songs for Kids
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?sourceid=00401402266267232331&ean=011301711427&bfdate=02-02-2005+14:50:04
This one is by far your best buy ($5.98) and appears to contain the
same version as the previous collection (listen to the audio clip):
Barnes & Noble: Story Time: 52 Favorite Lullabies, Nursery Rhymes and
Whimsical Songs
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?sourceid=00401402266267234361&ean=724381828427&bfdate=02-02-2005+14:54:09
Finally, here is a version by Hap Palmer, a favorite singer of
children's songs, which is available from Amazon.com:
Amazon.com: Hap Palmer: Patriotic and Morning Time Songs
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000090W5V/102-6933422-8622561?v=glance
And now, should you need or want a printed copy of the catchy melody,
you can get it here in the form of a "primer-level" piano arrangement:
Ruth Perdue: Music (scroll down to "piano duet books," about 3/4 down the page)
http://www.piano-pal.com/perdew.htm
Search Strategy:
I first conducted straightforward Google searches just as you did, and
came up with nothing using search terms containing the words "mister,"
"mr" and "sun." It then occurred to me that the "good morning" phrase
was most likely to have been correctly remembered by your mother, so I
continued to use it as a search term, but combined it with the word
"sunshine". Since that still turned up nothing using the terms
"mister" or "mr", I then tried a "wild card" search that looked like
this:
"good morning * sunshine" [in "Googlese", the asterisk stands for any
complete word]
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLB,GGLB:1969-53,GGLB:en&q=%22good+morning+%2A+sunshine%22
The first "hit" from that search was the link to the lyrics that I
provided you with my clarification request. The name of the song/poem
then "rang a bell" with me (my mother used to say "Good Morning Merry
Sunshine" to me when I was a tot in the 1940s).
Most of the rest of my research was based on Google searches that used
that complete title along with a short phrase from the poem to narrow
down the results to sites related to the song/poem. Here is an
example of one of those searches:
"good morning merry sunshine" "wake so soon"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLB%2CGGLB%3A1969-53%2CGGLB%3Aen&q=%22good+morning+merry+sunshine%22+%22wake+so+soon%22
Finally, I searched the All Music Guide for recordings of the song and
conducted some other searches with variants in the search terms aimed
at giving me reasonable confidence that I hadn?t missed something.
Based on your helpful clarification, I am confident that the above is
the information you are seeking. If anything is unclear, please ask
for clarification before rating the answer.
markj-ga |
Clarification of Answer by
markj-ga
on
02 Feb 2005 15:04 PST
mitchstrang --
First, using Google (and every other search engine I know), an
asterisk can only substitute for a complete word. Thus, searching for
"good morning * sun*" returns the same results as "good morning * sun"
(without the second asterisk),
As for how I decided to use "sunshine", it was kind of intuitive and
thus hard to explain, but the chain of thought was something like
this:
1. I thought that "good morning" is very likely to be accurately recalled;
2. I found nothing promising using the term "sun", with or without an
asterisk where the word "mister" would be in the phrase;
3. I thought it was likely, though, that the poem/song had something
to do with the sun, given the other general hints about the content;
4. I couldn't use an asterisk for a partial word, so I had to think of
other possibilities to "catch" hits that include the idea of "sun";
5. "Sunshine" was the first word that came to mind, possibly because
it seemed more likely than "sunlight" (and because I had unconscious
memory of the phrase "merry sunshine." Most probably a combination of
both, plus a dose of luck.
Re Pinkfreud's comment, my asterisk strategy picked up three
references to the phrase "Good Morning, Mister Sunshine," There were
three such irrelevant hits, but none at all with a narrower search
using "good morning * sunshine" "wake so soon". (There will be one
now, based on her comment!).
There were also a few (five) hits for "good morning mary sunshine"
"wake so soon", but they were all of recent vintage and pretty clearly
based on ignorance of the traditional gender-neutral word "merry,"
which makes much more sense in context.
markj-ga
|
