Moonshine Lullaby Lyrics
Moonshine Lullaby
Annie:Behind the hill
There's a busy little still
Where your Pappy's workin' in the moonlight
Your lovin' paw
Isn't quite within the law
So he's hidin' there behind the hill
Bye bye baby
Stop your yawnin'
Don't cry baby
Day will be dawning
And when it does
From the mountain where he wuz
He'll be coming with jug of moonshine
So count your sheep
Mama's singing you to sleep
With the Moonshine Lullaby
Trio:
Loo Loo
Behind the hill
There's a busy little still
Where your Pappy's workin' in the moonlight
Your lovin' paw
Isn't quite within the law
So he's hidin' there behind the hill
Annie and Trio:
Bye bye baby
Stop your yawnin'
Don't cry baby
Day will be dawning
Trio:
And when it does
>From the mountain where he wuz
He'll be coming with jug of moonshine
Annie:
So count your sheep
Mama's singing you to sleep
With the Moonshine Lullaby
Kids:
Dream of Pappy
Very happy
With his jug of mountain rye
Annie:
So count your sheep
Mama's singing you to sleep
With the Moonshine Lullaby
Song Overview
"Moonshine Lullaby" is one of Irving Berlin's slyest character portraits in Annie Get Your Gun. It sounds like bedtime comfort, then you catch what it is actually describing: a family routine built around an illegal still, sung with a wink and a kind of weary tenderness. Annie is not moralizing. She is normalizing. That is the joke, and that is the point.
Review and Highlights
Quick summary
- Work: Annie Get Your Gun (opened on Broadway May 16, 1946) - stage musical
- Where it appears: Act I, Annie sings to the kids (and to herself), using home-life details as show-and-tell
- Usual singers: Annie Oakley with siblings (and sometimes added ensemble trio in later editions)
- What it does: gives Annie warmth without sanding down her rough edges
Annie Get Your Gun (1946) - stage musical - not a show-within-the-show act. This is family talk set to music, the kind of lullaby that tells you what a household considers ordinary. Wikipedia's musical-number list places it in Act I for Annie and her siblings, and that casting matters: the song is less "star turn" than "kitchen table theater."
Berlin writes it as blues-tinged ease. The tune moves in a slow sway, and the lyric rides that sway like a rocking chair. The comic punch is that Annie delivers illegal business with the same cadence other characters reserve for prayers and nursery rhymes. Onstage, the best interpretations do not mug the joke. They let the casualness do the work. You laugh, then you notice what you just laughed at.
Key takeaways
- Character lens: Annie's love is practical. She comforts by describing the world she knows, not the world she is supposed to admire.
- Musical shape: slow blues tempo supports a relaxed, story-first delivery.
- Dramatic leverage: it deepens Annie's background right before the plot tightens around image-making and respectability.
Creation History
Berlin wrote the number for the 1946 Broadway score, and it was first performed by Ethel Merman. A discography record for Decca sessions lists "Moonshine Lullaby" among the 1946 cast-era recordings tied to Merman. The song has remained a favorite for later revivals and studio sets, including the 1999 Broadway cast recording release on Angel Records, where Bernadette Peters frames it as both comic and protective.
Song Meaning and Annotations
Plot
By the time this number arrives, Annie has entered Buffalo Bill's orbit and the musical has begun balancing two worlds: rural survival and touring spectacle. Annie is responsible for children and used to making do, so she sings from habit. The lullaby moment becomes a pause in the machinery, a glimpse of what Annie carries with her when the show tries to turn her into a product.
Song Meaning
The song is a lullaby that smuggles in autobiography. Its meaning is not "moonshine is cute." It is that Annie grew up in a place where bending rules was a form of livelihood, and family loyalty mattered more than civic approval. The lyric treats the still as a fact of life, which underlines a bigger theme of the musical: who gets to define what is respectable.
Annotations
The lyric presents a lullaby tone while describing an illegal still, creating a comic mismatch that also reveals Annie's normal.Lyric and character strategy, rewritten
The mismatch is not only humor. It is a worldview. Annie is telling the kids that comfort comes from routine, even if the routine would scandalize polite company.
The 1950 film adaptation cut the number from the original stage score.Adaptation note, rewritten
That cut is not surprising. A Masterworks Broadway essay frames the omission as a Hollywood discomfort with putting liquor-making in the mouths of Annie and children. Whether or not you agree with the motive, the effect is clear: remove this song and you lose a chunk of Annie's home-life texture.
Genre and rhythm
The style leans toward a slow blues feel rather than march-and-banter show writing. The steady pulse gives performers room to phrase like speech while still singing cleanly. It also makes the jokes land softly, which keeps the scene from turning into a novelty number.
Images and subtext
The still is both literal and symbolic. Literally, it is income. Symbolically, it is the kind of rule-bending that the show world will later package as "color" while demanding Annie behave as "classy." The lullaby format adds a twist: the song argues that love can coexist with messy ethics, and that families survive in the cracks of legality.
Technical Information (Quick Facts)
- Song: Moonshine Lullaby
- Artist: cast and recordings vary (stage: Annie with siblings)
- Featured: Annie Oakley
- Composer: Irving Berlin
- Producer: varies by recording/label
- Release Date: written for the 1946 stage premiere; 1999 cast album release date: February 2, 1999
- Genre: musical theater; traditional pop standard treatment in recordings
- Instruments: voice and orchestra
- Label: varies (1999 cast album: Angel Records)
- Mood: soothing, wry, protective
- Length: about 3 minutes 56 seconds on the 1999 cast album track listings
- Track #: commonly mid-Act I on cast albums
- Language: English
- Album (if any): Annie Get Your Gun (The 1999 New Broadway Cast Recording)
- Music style: slow blues tempo lullaby with comic realism
- Poetic meter: accentual, speech-shaped (blues phrasing over strict classical meter)
Frequently Asked Questions
- Who sings it in the stage musical?
- Annie Oakley sings it with children or siblings, depending on the production edition.
- Is it performed as part of Buffalo Bill's onstage show?
- No. It plays as a private, family-centered moment inside the story.
- Why does the lyric sound comforting while describing moonshine?
- The contrast is the joke and the revelation: Annie treats rule-bending as ordinary because it was part of her home life.
- Where does it appear in the original 1946 song list?
- In Act I, after "They Say It's Wonderful," credited to Annie and siblings.
- Was it included in the 1950 film adaptation?
- Most reference lists for the film say it was cut from the screen version.
- Which performers are strongly associated with recordings?
- Ethel Merman introduced it on Broadway, and Bernadette Peters recorded a widely circulated revival version in 1999.
- What is the acting task in this number?
- Sing it as caretaking first and comedy second. The humor lands when the care is honest.
- Why does it matter for Annie's arc?
- It shows the audience what Annie is trying to protect, even as the show world tries to remake her image.
Additional Info
The song's most famous backstage fact is its absence from the 1950 MGM film. Wikipedia's film page lists it among the stage numbers cut for the screen adaptation. A Masterworks Broadway blog post takes the idea further and speculates about Hollywood squeamishness: a heroine and children singing cheerfully about illegal liquor might have been a bridge too far for a studio musical aiming for family gloss. In any case, the cut changes Annie's shading. Without this number, the screen version leans harder on Annie as star and less on Annie as caretaker from a complicated home.
Recording history also tells a story. The Discography of American Historical Recordings indexes "Moonshine Lullaby" among Decca's 1946 cast-related sessions with Ethel Merman, which fits how fast Broadway material moved into commercial release during that era. Later, the song traveled into studio albums (Doris Day is one notable example) and revivals, where it can be played as comedy, confession, or both, depending on how fiercely the performer protects the lullaby core.
Key Contributors
| Entity | Type | Relation (S-V-O) |
|---|---|---|
| Irving Berlin | Person | Berlin wrote the music and lyrics for the number. |
| Annie Oakley | Person | Oakley sings the lullaby to children as a home-life portrait. |
| Ethel Merman | Person | Merman first performed the number in the Broadway context. |
| Bernadette Peters | Person | Peters recorded the number for the 1999 Broadway cast album. |
| Angel Records | Organization | Angel Records issued the 1999 cast recording release. |
| MGM | Organization | MGM produced the 1950 film adaptation that cut the number. |
| Decca Records | Organization | Decca released cast-era recordings indexed in discography references. |
How to Sing Moonshine Lullaby
Think lullaby first, blues second, and comedy third. A widely used digital sheet-music listing places the song in C major with a printed vocal range of C4 to E5, marked Slow Blues Tempo with a metronome of quarter note equals 80. That tells you the practical goal: keep the sound easy in the middle, let the top open without pushing, and keep the text clear enough that the story stays front and center.
- Tempo: set the groove around 80 and practice speaking the lyric in rhythm. If the groove drifts, the lullaby loses its rocking motion.
- Diction: keep consonants gentle but precise. This number lives on intelligibility, not volume.
- Breath: plan quiet refills. A noisy breath breaks the illusion of bedtime calm.
- Flow: let phrases lean forward slightly, like rocking. Avoid over-sustaining ends unless the scene calls for extra tenderness.
- Color: suggest rustic flavor without turning it into parody. The goal is truthfulness, not caricature.
- Acting focus: aim the lullaby at the kids. When the care is specific, the humor appears naturally.
- Ensemble balance: if children or siblings join, treat them as the room. Keep the lullaby thread steady so their reactions can sit on top.
- Pitfalls: do not punch the illegal-liquor references. The laugh comes from how calmly Annie says them.
Sources
Sources: Wikipedia - Moonshine Lullaby, Wikipedia - Annie Get Your Gun (musical numbers), Wikipedia - Annie Get Your Gun (film) cuts, Musicnotes sheet music listing, Apple Music - 1999 Broadway cast album metadata, Masterworks Broadway blog essay on film cuts, Discography of American Historical Recordings