The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-01-13
B O O K S
Folklore Collected
THE AMERICAN SONGBAG. By
Carl Sandburg. Harcourt, Brace
& Co. $3.50.

THE AMERICAN SONGBAG. By
Carl Sandburg. Harcourt, Brace
& Co. $3.50.
IN this volume Carl Sandburg, his
publishers and his numerous con-
tributors have at last given the Amer
lean folk-song full ranking as litera-
ture.
Sandburg has understood his ma
terial. AS a matter of fact he has
been using it professionally for years,
as an entertainer with guitar or
ukelele at private gatherings. So
that he went about his compilation Of
American street songs, bar room
songs, fireside songs, open-road
songs, firreide songs, open-road songs,
and spirituals without the air of de-
tached scholarly research that has
characterized most Of the previous
compilations. Moreover, this volume
includes the music as well as the
words. For each ballad there is an
arrangement of the melody for the
voice or piano, on which guitar or
harmonica accompaniment may be
based; though the given harmonies in
many cases are too elaborate for the
quality of the melodies.
The inclusion of the music seems
to emphasize peculiar trait of the
American folk-song. The American
folk-song is essentially literary rather
than musical. The words usually tell
a good story or strike an attitude
worth while for its own sake and the
music in almost every case is make
shift, incidental. The United States
is not singing nation in the sense
in which the European and African
nations are. So many of the folk
songs of the British Isles and Europe
are known for their melodies, the
words being weak and incidental to a
corresponding degree. These Ameri-
can songs in many cases have vital
ity of language that makes them go
by themselves without any music at
all.
"The American Songbag" is divided
as follows: Dramas and Portraits
(Oh, Bury Me Not on the Lone
Prairie, etc.; The Ould Sod (Kevin
Barry, etc.; Minstrel Songs Il Wish
1 was Single Again, etc.; furnished
Love Tales and Colonial and Revolu-
tionary Antiques BARBRA Allen, etc.,;
frankie and Her Man FRANKIE and
Johnny, etc.; Pioneer Memories (The
Little Old Sod Shanty, etc.; Ken
lucky Blazing Star (Ain't Gonna
Rain, etc.; The Lincolns and Hankses
tWeevily Wheat, etc.; Great Lakes
and Erie Canal (The Erie Canal,
etc.; Hobo Songs (Hallelujah, I'm
Bum, etc.; The Big Brutal City tits
the Sy1ne the Whole World Over,
etc.; Prison and Jail Songs (The
Prisoners Song, etc.,; Blues, Mellows.
Ballads Q'm Sad and I'm Lonely,
etc.; The Great Open Spaces (Whoo-
pee I'll vi Yo, Git Along Little Dogies,
etc.; Mexican Border Songs (Man-
anitas, etc.; Southern Mountains
Coon Can, etc.; Picnic and Hayrack
Follies, Close Harmony and Darn Fool
Oitties (Abdul the Bulbul Ameer,
etc.; Railroad and Work Gangs THE
Wind 1t Blew up the Railroad Track,
etc.; Lumberjacks, Loggers, Shanty-
Boys (The Shanty-man's Life, etc.;
Sailorman (Blow the Man Down,
etc.; Bandit Biographies (Jesse
James, etc.; Five Wars (Hinky Din
Ky, Parlee-voo, etc.; Lovely People
Ten Thousand Miles Away from
Home, etc.; Road to Heaven desc
3ones Gwine to Rise Again, etc..
Words in these songs vary in diff
ferent parts of the country and from
decade to decade and in some cases
The words had to be censored. But
Sandburg probably has edited the col
lection as well as anyone could do it.
Scattered through the book are
sketches and decorations by William
Chopper and other artists and repro
ductions in black and white from old