Baby-O

A traditional call-and-response song with mischievous, sometimes sharp-edged verses.

Status: Traditional repertoire · working songbook
Writer / source: Traditional American folk song; Scrips source follows the Kossoy Sisters title/lineage, also known as What'll We Do with the Baby-O?
Rights: Older song or tune family. The source of this particular working version and its arrangement is still being reviewed.
Related Scrips recording: No Scrips recording linked yet.

Source research

Documented lineage

Earliest evidence: Traditional song family; Roud 826; documented in Ruth Crawford Seeger, American Folk Songs for Children (1948); Kossoy Sisters recording 1956
Aliases / index: What'll We Do with the Baby-O? · What Will We Do with the Baby O · What'll I Do with This Baby-O? · Baby-O · Roud 826
Working arrangement: Key C · Capo 0 · Banjo - Double C (gCGCD) · 4/4 time · 98 BPM (working)

Evidence 01 Evidence 02 Evidence 03 Evidence 04 Evidence 05 Evidence 06 Download full research note ↓

Working lyrics + chords

Working song sheet

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Chorus:
What'll we do with the baby?
What'll we do with the baby-o?
What'll we do with the baby?
Send him off to his mammy-o
That's what we do with the baby
That's what we do with the baby-o

Every time the baby cries
Stick my finger in the baby's eyes
That's what we do with the baby
That's what we do with the baby-o

Every time he starts to grin
Give my baby a bottle of gin
That's what we do with the baby
That's what we do with the baby-o

What'll we do with the baby? ...

Throw him up in the old treetop
The wind will blow and the cradle will rock
That's what we do with the baby
That's what we do with the baby-o

Archive note

This is a working band sheet. Lyrics, repeats, and chord placement remain subject to the band’s final review.

Chords

C · G