Our Singing Country

Complete Text, Lyrics & Sheet Music

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	The Gants were from the square-dancing, ballad-singing country, and on Saturdays there was always a dance at their house. On other week nights some of the boys would drop in to pick Ether's guitar, and there would be singing on the porch. "Working on the highway y earning three dollars a day" And when no one was sick and the girls didn't have dates, there might be a singing at home: Mrs. Gant, who taught them their songs and their love of singing, and who knew the saddest songs 5 the oldest daughter, Glyda, who pretended to turn her nose up at the ballads but could sing "The Old Lady from Tennessee" better than anybody else in the family 5 Foy, who could pick the guitar as well as a man and used to remind them of their tunes; Ella, who was twelve and knew all the old tunes, especially the "funny ones"; the three boys, who mostly sang the blues, the cowboy songs, and the jailhouse ballads; Mr. Gant, who had one song, "Bangum and the Boar," over which his rights were almost personal; and then on the beds, leaning against someone's knee or breast, the tow-headed Gant kids, listening, falling asleep, and waking up to listen again. "The singing kept us so happy, we just couldn't go to sleep," smiled Mrs. Gant. Gant songs in this book: "Tee Roo," "Adieu to the Stone Walls," "Black Jack Davy," "When First to This Country a Stranger I Came."