★  History of the Song:

Originally titled “Hush-a-bye Baby,” this nursery rhyme was said to be the first poem written on American soil (according to 1904’s Book Lover). There’s no official record, however, that proves when the song was written. Some sources claim it was as early as the 1500s. It first appeared in print in Mother Goose’s Melody in 1765 and contained a stern morality lesson in the footnote: “This may serve as a Warning to the Proud and Ambitious, who climb so high that they generally fall at last.”