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The Old Grey Goose / Go Tell Aunt Rhody

[ Roud 3346 ; Ballad Index R270 ; DT AUNTRODY ; Mudcat 25358 ; trad.]

Susan Reid sang Go Tell Aunt Rhody in 1954 on her Elektra album Susan Reid Sings Old Airs.

Pete Seeger sang Go Tell Aunt Rhody at a Ballads and Blues concert at St. Pancras Town Hall Theatre on 4 October 1959. A recording of this concert was released by Folklore Records in 1963 on two LPs Pete Seeger in Concert. Both albums were reissued in 2016 on Pete Seeger’s Fellside CD Pete Seeger in England. Another live recording from Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1980 was released in the same year on his Folkways album Singalong Sanders Theatre, 1980.

Robin Hall and Jimmie Macgregor with The Galliards sang Go Tell Aunt Rhody in 196s on their Decca album A Rovin’.

Fay Hield sang The Old Grey Goose in 2020 on her Topic album Wrackline. She noted:

American children sing a jaunty version in the playground, but the melancholic nature of the message is lost. Death brings significant sadness for those close by, though the meaning may be lost on others.

Lyrics

Fay Hield sings The Old Grey Goose

Go and call Aunt Nancy
Go and call Aunt Nancy
The old grey goose is dead

The one that she’d been keeping
The one that she’d been keeping
To make her feather bed
The old grey goose is dead

Gander he’s in mourning
Old gander he’s in mourning
Because his goose is dead
The old grey goose is dead

Goslings they’ve been weeping
Oh goslings they’ve been weeping
Because their mamma’s dead
The old grey goose is dead

Go and call Aunt Nancy
Go and call Aunt Nancy
To make her feather bed
The old grey goose is dead