"All the Pretty Little Horses" (also known as "Hush-a-bye") is a traditional lullaby from the United States. It has inspired dozens of recordings and adaptations, as well as the title of Cormac McCarthy's 1992 novel All the Pretty Horses.

Origin

The song is commonly thought to be of African-American origin. An early published version is in "A White Dove", a 1903 story for kindergarteners by Maud McKnight Lindsay (1874–1941), a teacher from Alabama and daughter of Robert B. Lindsay. In the story, "a little girl" sings to "her baby brother" what is footnoted as "an old lullaby": All the pretty little horses, White and gray and black and bay; All the pretty little horses, You shall see some day, some day— All the pretty little horses. Dorothy Scarborough's 1925 study On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs describes the song as "one lullaby which is widely known through the South and which is reported in many varying forms, but with the spirit and the tune practically the same." Scarborough says such lullabies were sung by enslaved mammies to the white children in their care; "the black mother often spent her tenderest love on the white child she nursed" because, while she was in the plantation house, her own children were off in the slave quarters and often sold away. None of Scarborough's versions are named "All the Pretty Little Horses"; most sing of ponies rather than horses, and are innocuous; however, a "somewhat gruesome" one about mules ends "Buzzards and flies / Picking out its eyes, / Pore little baby crying, / Mamma, mamma!". Scarborough then gives other lullabies ("Ole Cow" and "Baa Baa Black Sheep") with similar gruesome endings in which the eyeless animal cries "Mammy" rather than "Mamma". In the 1934 collection American Ballads and Folk Songs, ethnomusicologists John and Alan Lomax give a version titled "All the Pretty Little Horses" and ending: 'Way down yonder / In de medder / There's a po' lil lambie, / De bees an' de butterflies / Peckin' out its eyes, / De po' lil thing cried, "Mammy!"' The Lomaxes quote Scarborough as to the lullaby's origins. In 1971, Angela Davis commented on a version similar to the Lomaxes': All the Pretty Little Horses" is an authentic slave lullaby; it reveals the bitter feelings of Negro mothers who had to watch over their white charges while neglecting their own children.'

Lyrics

Dorothy Scarborough, 1925

Additional verse (included in some versions)

Or

Popular version

Musical and literary adaptations

"All the Pretty Little Horses" has inspired a variety of recordings (both direct performances of the known lyrics and adaptations thereof). Some of the singers who have recorded adaptations of "All the Pretty Little Horses" include (but are not limited to): The song appears in Silkwood, performed by Georges Delerue and sung by Meryl Streep and Cher. The melody is also used in the score of the 1961 film Misty about a Chincoteague pony. The song is featured prominently in the 2023 film Los Colonos (The Settlers). Picture book adaptations include Susan Jeffers' All The Pretty Horses (1974) and Lisa Saport's All the Pretty Little Horses: A Traditional Lullaby (1999). The song provided the title of Cormac McCarthy's 1992 novel All the Pretty Horses. It inspired a short story in Jane Yolen's 1998 collection Here There Be Ghosts. It is sung by Viv in Ken Kesey's novel Sometimes a Great Notion.

Sources