Lula lula lula bye bye

http://angustrumble.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-curly-headed-baby.html

Paul Robeson in the late 1940s, when the Victor Gramophone Company described it as an old “plantation song”:

Oh, a-lula, lula, lula, lula bye-bye,
Do you want the moon to play with?
Or the stars to run away with?
They’ll come if you don’t cry…

Oh, a-lula, lula, lula, lula bye-bye,
In your mammy’s arms a-creeping
And soon you’ll be a-sleeping, lula:
Lula, lula, lula, lula bye…

So I knew this song very well from when I was very little. I only can remember the first verse though.

My grandmother sang me this one.

Lilac trees are blooming in the corner by the gate; Mammy in her little cabin door
Curly headed pickaninnie coming home so late, crying cause his little heart is sore,
All the children playin round have been so white and fair, and none of them with him would ever play,
So Mammy in her lap, takes the weeping little chap, and says in her kind old way:

Now honey you stay in your own back yard, don’t mind what those white childs do,
What do you suppose they’re a goin to give, a black little coon like you,
Just stay on this side of the white board fence and honey don’t cry so hard,
just go out and play just as much as you please, but stay in your own back yard.

Every day the children as they passed old Mammy’s place, comin home from school at night or noon,
peering through the fence to see this eager little face, such a wistful, lonesome little coon.
Till one day his little face was gone forever more; God had called this dusky little elf,
Now Mammy in the door, sits and rocks as oft before, and croons to her old black self:

https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=27458#3905725

However, the words went more like. I can’t ask why they sang this song.

Lilac trees are blooming in the corner by the gate; Mammy by her little cabin door
Curly headed pickaninnie coming home so late, crying cause his little heart is sore,
All the other pickaninnies, skin as white as white, none of them with little coon would play,
So Mammy on her lap, takes the weeping little chap, and says in her kind old way:

Now honey you must stay in your own back yard, don’t you mind what those white childs do,
Go out as you may but honey your must stay in your own backyard.

If you don’t stay in your own back yard, you’ll be locked up in great big walls
And there you’ll stay to crack stones all-day
So honey, stay in your own backyard.

E