Every little wave..

[fajrdrako]

When I was very young - say, three or four years old - I hated having my hair washed. Every once in a while my mother would take me firmly in hand and wash my hair despite my protests and tears, and while she did, she would sing a hair-washing song that I enjoyed despite my distress. I remember it still. It went:

And every little wave had his nightcap on
Nightcap, white cap, nightcap on.
And every little wave had his nightcap on
So very, very early in the morning.

She always sang this when she washed my hair, and she never sang it except when she washed my hair. I have never heard this song in any other venue, and every year or two I do a Google search for it. I came up with nothing until today.

Today, I found it from two sources, both in the Internet Archive. One book is entitled In My Nursery, "a book of nursery rhymes by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards, 1850-1943". The other is Tirra Lirra Rhymes Old And New (1955) by Laura E. Richards, no doubt the same woman. It's called "A Song for Hal". I'd misremembered a word or two, or my mother had; it's "for" not "and", and "its" not "his". My mother had a habit of changing words in poems or songs when she liked 'her way' better.

The Wikipedia article on Laura E. Richards is interesting, and it mentions "Tirra Lirra Rhymes Old And New" (dating it to 1932) but not "In My Nursery". She wrote a lot, and won a Pulizer prize (with her sister, also a writer), and their mother wrote the words to "The Battle Hymn of the Rupublic." She lived in Boston.

Wikipedia links to some of her works on Gutenberg, mostly prose, nothing with the above titles.

So... I'm left with some questions. I know you won't be able to tell me how and where my mother learned it, but

(1) Are any of you familiar with Richards and her works?

(2) Was this song ever recorded? I'm wondering where my mother got the tune, which is not included in the above works. Since I only remember the chorus - and don't recall whether my mother sang the rest of it - I'd be curious to hear what it sounds like. YouTube isn't helping me.

(3) If there is sheet music for it, is it available somewhere?

Another interesting bit, found in Googling for "every little wave" - I found an anecdotal reference to this song online in the Kenyon Review. I say 'interesting' because this the item is in the right era, but also in Toronto, where my mother was born and raised. And the reference is explicitly to a song, not a poem.

The reference, if you're curious enough, is this, by Claire Messud:

In Toronto, in my grandmother’s house, my sister and I were always happy. Which is not to say that we did not bicker, as bickering, from very early on, was our mode of interaction; but that we adored my grandmother, and trusted her absolutely. She was rightly sized for us, at little over five feet, and stout, with pillowy white hair and a pillowy bosom (which we did not then know to be made of foam and removed, nightly) and an array of silky nylon dresses that seemed designed for hugging. She had small but firm arthritic hands that held ours warmly and allowed us the freedom to finger their odd bends and warts and calluses, and the smooth, distinct ridges of her fingernails. In the mornings, in a bedjacket with large buttons and her near-invisible hairnet (which we loved to pluck) upon her curls, she would invite us, one on either side of her, into her high old marriage bed to play games—‘I Spy’, or ‘I packed my bags to go to Boston’—and to sing songs—‘. . . every little wave had its nightcap on, nightcap, white cap, nightcap on . . .’; ‘Roll, those, roll those pretty eyes, eyes, that, I just idolize. . . ’—seemingly for hours. And how she fed us: daily (in memory, at least), she granted us our favorite meals: Campbell’s tomato bisque soup and salami sandwiches, or Chef Boyardee ravioli, eaten on the sun porch overlooking her steeply tiered back garden, my sister and I vying for the privilege of sitting on the stepping stool and so being able, with our feet, to swing its folding steps in and out, in and out, with spooky creaks, throughout the meal.

...Funny how we can think at the age of four that hair should never be washed, while at fourteen we want to wash it all the time.

Comments

[xinef.livejournal.com]

No idea where I learned it, but I was recognized it immediately and have a vague notion of the tune. Will check out my sons' kiddie tapes and CDs, because I have a feeling that I learned it from there, not from my own childhood. But not sure about that.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You know it too! How wonderful. Let me know if you find it.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

I'd ask the reference librarian at the public library, and have her suggest where in the collection you could search. I think they can get access to sheet music -- either in the library or via ILL.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent! Thank you.

[filkferengi]

I saw the Tirra Lirra collection in the library when I was a kid; it's highly recommended, especially if you like poetry.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Very cool! I'll look for it in second-hand stores, though it's a treat to be able to read it online.

Pat Carfra

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Fajrdrako,

Hope this comment still gets to you somehow! The song "Night Caps" is on the album "Babes, Beasts and Birds" by Pat Carfra. I vividly remember listening to it as a young child. I think the lyrics are slightly different from those given in "In the Nursery"/"Tirra Lirra Rhymes", but I don't remember any of them clearly but the chorus:

"Every little wave had its nightcap on,
Its nightcap, whitecap, nightcap on.
Every little wave had its nightcap on,
So very, very early in the morning."

(I don't have a copy of the cassette tape here or I'd check...I'm going to see if I can track it down! I miss that song.)

[(Anonymous)]

My grandmother sang the same song to me in the late 1960's. She was raised in southern Ontario and would have started school in the nineteen-teens. I'm quite sure she would not have learned this song from her own mother (who was German speaking), but with the wide number of older people who just somehow learned it, I suspect it might have been learned from a school reader or commonly sung in school at that time.

[(Anonymous)]

Really really crazy coincidence but maybe not, I've been trying to track down where my mother had got the song from since she recently passed it has been on my mind, coincidence being her mother (my grandmother) was German, but was born 1911 and grew up in the states. I always remember "said the sturgeon to the eel, just imagine how I feel, please excuse me for yawning, for the folks should let us know when a sailing they will go, so very very early in the morning."

Such find memories

[(Anonymous)]

My grandmother is in hospice and I was hoping to sing the full song to her so I googled it and found this site... She Would sing it to me on long car rides and when I would spend the night. The next part of the song is... said the stergon to the ell, just imagine how we feel, just as the morning is a dawning. Why don't people let us know when a sailing they will go, so very very early in the morning. And every little wave etc. Maybe there wasn't any more to the song... but I will keep checking this site from now on as someone out there must be able to help!

Verses

[(Anonymous)]

A bit late to this, but my grandmother also sang this to me and I now sing it to my grandkids. I know 3 verses to it, below, and also found the full poem in a very early Childcraft book - c 1930,s. There were several more verses.

As I remember it:

Chorus:
When every little wave has its white cap on, white cap, night cap, white cap on.
When every little wave has its white cap on, so very, very early in the morning.

V1
Oh I took my little boat, such a cunning little boat, just as the day was dawning,
And I took my little oars and I rowed out from the shores, so very, very early in the morning.

V2.
In a cave so still and deep all the fishes were asleep, 'til a ripple gave them warning.
"Do you lie abed so late" said the minnow to the skate. Said she "'Tis very early in the morning."

V 3.
Said the sturgeon to the eel "Just imagine how I feel. Forgive me, my darling, for yawing. But the ought to let us know when a-fishing they would go, so very, very early in the morning."

Happy singing!


Libbie.