By Dr. Jonathan Wanner

If you would ask what society is imperilled of death, go to one in which song is extinguished.—Hilaire Belloc

Singing is a manly enterprise. In a time when men rarely sing in public, we are scarcely conscious of this fact, yet the reader of the Little House series feels it keenly. Charles Ingalls—or “Pa,” as we know him—has songs for every human moment, and what he does not sing, he plays on the fiddle. He provides hymns on Sundays when no churchyard is near; evening melodies offer respite from the day’s labor; songs for travel migrate with the family’s covered wagon; and his ordered harmonies offset the blizzard’s unruly course. A true Orpheus of the prairie, his songs seem to animate nature itself:

The large, bright stars hung down from the sky. Lower and lower they came, quivering with the music. Laura gasped, and Ma came quickly. “What is it, Laura?” she asked, and Laura whispered, “The stars were singing.”¹

Only her father’s voice inspires such ancient-hearted wonder and romance. Indeed, there is, for Laura, a certain primitive chord within her that Pa strikes when his voice plummets down “deep, deep…deeper than the very oldest bullfrog’s.”² In this rattling resonance she finds not only a feeling of security and rest, but a deep-throated jollity and an ineffable sense of religion, romance, and patriotism. As finely as Pa steers his family with wagon and plow, his voice and bowstring set them on a more transcendent course.

Nor was Pa an anomaly of his time. Throughout the nineteenth century, the burliest men were often those interested in song—in and out of the taverns. Sailors raised anchors and adjusted rigging to the rhythm of sea shanties. The jaws of lumberjacks rang with ballads. Even soldiers sang—“at least,” Belloc notes, “in those Armies where soldiers [were] still soldiers.”³ If “dead convention” had not forbidden song, he says, “all men…would so sing,” at least “where all the man is working and is working well, and is producing and is not ashamed.”⁴ Laura herself recounts an encounter with such callus-handed men:

Then the cattle were quieter and the cowboys began to sing. Their songs were not like lullabies. They were high, lonely, wailing songs, almost like the howling of wolves.⁵

How foreign and mythic such a pack of men would sound in our time. We may encounter male singers in curated choral ensembles or scholas, but most have little imagination for the wolfish and virile brotherhood of regular, working men whose default appetite is to sing a belly-rumbling song. Belloc said it best: “if you would discover where men are men, take for your test whether songs are always and loudly sung.”⁶

Yet, problems arise from problems: if men did sing openly and boldly tomorrow, their tunes would certainly sound out of place and absurd. There is, Chesterton laments, “an indefinable something in the very atmosphere of the society in which we live that makes it spiritually difficult to sing in banks…the matter is very mysterious.”⁷ Part of that something is the isolation of the individual: The “essence of being a public man [nowadays],” he goes on, is that “you do nearly everything in private. Nobody would imagine a chorus of money-lenders.”⁸ Indeed, most occupations these days are comprised of individuals who technically work together, yet feel isolated, even when they are surrounded by colleagues. Walmart may have a troop of laborers stocking shelves at night, but each is assigned his own individual aisle. They come together only to bundle and compress cardboard boxes into bales, and the quality of the encounter is hampered by the rush to meet stocking quotas. Contrast that with farmers who, side-by-side, shuck corn to a harvest song—and at a more human pace. Their hands and voices are doing the same task at the same time, and there is heart and romance to their song; they are more likely to feel like they are working as one body, even if the conditions of their labor are more strenuous. Yet now more than ever, singing on the job is not only impractical; it is unimaginable. Picture a team of Google software developers bursting into song while pressing their keyboards in synchronized time:

In the glow of the screens at dawn’s first light, We sequence every bit and byte.
From the server room to the office halls,
The Muse of Innovation calls.
Data, data everywhere,
Let songs of keystrokes fill the air!

Not only would the effect be clownish, but the team would likely not be capable of singing it without outside intervention. Corporations expect atomized individuals, not synchronized workers who grew up playing Kindergarten parachute games. Short of restructuring society around manual labor, there is little hope for the return of workaday lyrics. No, we have lost the romance that allows men to sing in public, and because men do not sing in private, we have little hope to regain it.

Still, what is far from the public square may yet remain close to home. Fathers, if you have half an ear for a tune, fill your whole throat with it! Singing, after all, is not inherently feminine simply because it falls under the category of art and feelings. Fathers, in fact, ought to sing because it is sentimental: families ought to feel like one body and find in the sentiment a foretaste of the Mystical Body union. Or if the father’s role is to order the family towards transcendental ends, then activities that ennoble the emotions—and, at times, temper them—ought to remain in his purview. At their best, patriotic tunes imbibe us with the sensation of natural piety, inclining us toward the common good; harvest hymns inebriate us with thanksgiving and the majesty of creation’s abundance; tragic ballads provide a cathartic release of pities and fears; and chant hymns set our hearts to rest in the stillness of the Unmoved Mover. A well-ordered song, wisely chosen, may intuitively intoxicate us with the good, the true, the beautiful—or purge our appetites of excessive passions. When a song is well-ordered and vibrates with an “immortal quality,” feeling human becomes, paradoxically, a natural part of ruling by reason.⁹

Of course, the idea that music has both a moral and a higher transcendent purpose is not new. It was a common classical assumption—one that Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Boethius share. Augustine, in particular, figuratively links disordered rhythm to sin since it puts man out of harmony with God, disrupting the order of the Great Chain of Being. According to him, “the rhythms we experience and identify in poetry and music…reverberate through all levels of creaturely existence” so that “every part of creation, from the highest to the lowest, ‘hums and vibrates’ in a rhythmic manner and, in doing so, forms part of—and gives expression to—what he calls the carmini universitatis, the ‘hymn of the universe.’”¹⁰ Since this macrocosmic rhythm “depend[s] on and point[s] towards the uncreated rhythm of God’s trinitarian life of self-giving love,” any prideful departure from it “leads to a distorted sense of rhythm which is not marked…by equal, well-ordered relations…but by inequality and disproportion, which, in terms of actual music, would ‘cause offense to the ear [offensione aurium].’”¹¹ In other words, the order of the cosmos is analogous to the systematic and mathematically-ordered structure of music, and nestled within this grander scheme, man is himself a microcosmic harmony of the body and soul, the passions and reason, outer limbs and internal organs; when human nature in its fullness is orchestrated properly toward the larger harmony between creation and God, the result is a human song (a musica humana) that is in tune with the universal divine order, the musica mundana. Singing, within this larger harmonic paradigm, calls the whole human self into activity. By their rationality, harmonies whet the mind; by their aesthetic grace, they hone the heart. Although the art admits of many ends—it can aid the memory, inspire rest, stir up spiritedness, or alter the dispositions of the passions—its noblest purpose is contemplation: a simple beholding of the divine. At its best, a song catches us in the present, draws us close to timelessness. It incorporates many voices into one. Music is the kind of loving experience you must hear in person to know; a mass-produced recording may imitate it, but a Pa’s voice is not an electronic speaker. It is a living word.

How, then, does a father become a Pa? If you already have an ear for music and a capacity to carry a tune or an instrument, then all you need is what Laura would call “reckless jollity”: a voracious appetite for mirth and play. Pa is not aiming for technical perfection, and he is not griping about wrong notes or misplaced dance steps: he is too busy enjoying the song and resting in its desirability. Catch yourself in the rapture of the now and stay caught. All your family needs to know is that you want to sing with them, not that you want to hit the right notes. Young children, especially, just want to do what you are doing at the same time as you. Make them want to dance without telling them to do so. Sing after dinner, on Saturday mornings, or on lazy Sunday afternoons. Incorporate work songs into their daily chores or their morning routines: many nursery rhymes have melodies that few sing, and you can’t go wrong with traditional Americana folk songs, gospel tunes, sea shanties, or farming melodies. During recreation, holidays, and times of travel, let car and house ring with rejoicing—consider songs of dancing, of harvest, of Spring, of love. Add to the mix patriotic anthems, tunes that recall your family’s heritage, and melodies of mourning: ballads of the dead, of the poor, of the exiled. Learn songs of sorrow in times of joy and they will teach you how to remain human through tribulating times. Finally, incorporate some singing into your family prayer: chant an Ave or a Gloria Patri instead of saying it, pick up a few psalm tones, include the Marian antiphons, and learn canonical chant hymns—seasonal, Eucharistic, and Marian. If the Liber Usualis or Graduale Romanum are too intimidating, pick up the slim second edition of the “Parish Book of Chant” (The Church Music Association of America). In all, start with songs you already know and can enjoy immediately, then move to ones you would like to know and can learn with little effort. If you cannot read music, learn by ear. If you play no instrument, start with the three most common guitar chords (G major, C major, and D major). Winston Churchill learned to paint in his 40s, so let fathers learn to sing in their 50s. All seasons are a harvest time for song. The only trick is to work hard to work less, or not to work at all: to play.

For fathers who are tone deaf, try an instrument with fixed pitches. Pianos may be difficult, but you don’t need to play Bach: a few easy chords, for the lover of simple beauties, can provide hours of substantial leisure. For fathers who cannot internalize rhythms—or for the physically impaired, delegate the song leading to the mother or an older child, but remain active in play. Invite your family to the simple joys of song; dance with your children; lead by the mirth of appreciation. If all else fails, there are other ways to rejoice, mourn, work, and treasure solemnity together—not as isolated individuals, but as many-limbed members of one body. Pray, make food together, read a poem, recite a speech, or even better—say what is on your mind. Say it as if you were singing it: simply, wholeheartedly, and without reserve. Your voice is the family’s artery, so let it be oxygen-rich.

As ennobling as digital songs can be, we cannot expect Spotify to provide families a mythic sensibility of the permanent Divine. An electronic recording is not the father your family needs. Let us, then, rejoice in fathers so fathers lead us to rejoice. Let us sing:

Our Father, by whose name
all fatherhood is known,
who dost in love proclaim
each family thine own,
bless thou all parents, guarding well,
with constant love as sentinel,
the homes in which thy people dwell.

The 127 songs included in the “Little House” series (in alphabetical order): ¹²

All the Blue Bonnets Am I a Soldier of the Cross? America Arkansas Traveler, The Auld Lang Syne Barbara Allen Battle Cry of Freedom, The Beacon-Light of Home, The Ben Bolt Beware! Big Sunflower, The Billy Boy Blue Juniata, The Bonny Doon Buffalo Gals Buy a Broom! Bye, Baby Bunting Campbells Are Coming, The Camptown Races Canaan Captain Jinks Children’s Songs Come In and Shut the Door Comin’ thro’ the Rye Concert/Theater Songs Daisy Deane Darling Nelly Gray De Boatmen’s Dance De Floating Scow of Old Virginia Devil’s Dream, The Dixie’s Land Down in Alabam Doxology Evergreen Shore, The Gaily Now Our Boat Is Sailing Gentle Words and Loving Smiles Gipsie’s Warning, The Gipsy King, The Girl I Left behind Me, The Golden Years Are Passing By Good Old Way, The Great Is the Lord Green Grows the Laurel Gum Tree Canoe, The Hail Columbia Happy Land, The Haste to the Wedding Heavens Declare the Glory, The Highland Fling Highland Mary Home of the Soul, The Home! Sweet Home! I Wish I Were Single Again In Dreamland far Away In the Starlight Irish Washerwoman, The Jerusalem, the Golden Jesus Holds My Hand Jingle Bells Keep the Horseshoe over the Door Kitty Wells Lend a Helping Hand Let the Toast Pass Life Let Us Cherish Life on the Ocean Wave, A

Lilly Dale Little Annie Rooney Love’s Old Sweet Song Marching through Georgia Mary of the Wild Moor May Queen, Part Second: New Year’s Eve, The Merry, Merry Christmas! Mistress Jinks of Madison Square Money Musk  Motto for Every Man, A Mountain of the Lord My Heart Is Sair for Somebody My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night My Sabbath Home Nelly Was a Lady New Year’s Come Ninety and Nine, The Nobody Ask’d You O Whistle and I’ll Come to You Oft in the Stilly Night Oh! Boys, Carry Me ’Long Old Dan Tucker Old Folks at Home Old Grimes Old John Brown Old Time, The On Jordan’s Stormy Banks Paddle Your Own Canoe Pease Porridge Hot Polly Put the Kettle On Polly-Wolly-Doodle Pop Goes the Weasel Pull for the Shore Railroader, The Red Heifer, The  Ring around the Roses Rock Me to Sleep, Mother Rock of Ages Roll On Silver Moon Roll the Old Chariot Along Shelter in the Time of Storm, A Sing a Song of Sixpence Singin Skewl, The Skidmore Guard Song of the Grass, The Star of Bethlehem, The Star Spangled Banner, The Susanna Sweet By and By Three Blind Mice Tread-Mill, The Twill Nebber Do to Gib It Up So! Uncle John Uncle Ned Uncle Sam’s Farm Wait for the Wagon We Are All Here Weevily Wheat What Shall the Harvest Be? When I Can Read My Title Clear When Johnny Comes Marching Home Where There’s a Will There’s a Way Whip-Poor-Will’s Song, The Yankee Doodle

Endnotes

¹  Laura Ingalls Wilder, “Prairie Day,” in Little House on the Prairie (New York: Harper Trophy, 1971), 51.

²  Ibid., “The House on the Prairie,” 68.

³  Hilaire Belloc, “On Song,” from On Everything, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen & Co., 1910), 1–2.

⁴  Ibid., 3.

⁵  Laura Ingalls Wilder, “Texas Longhorns,” in Little House on the Prairie, 169.

⁶  Hilaire Belloc, “On Song,” from On Everything, 1.

⁷  G.K. Chesterton, “The Little Bird Who Won’t Sing,” from Tremendous Trifles, 3rd ed. (London: Methuen & Co., 1909), 199.

⁸  Ibid., 200.

⁹  Hilaire Belloc, “On Song,” from On Everything, 6.

¹⁰  Marthinus J. Havenga, “Augustine on Rhythm,” Verbum et Ecclesia vol. 44, no. 1 (2023), 4.

¹¹  Ibid, 5, referencing Augustine “on Music” in The Immortality of the Soul, the Magnitude of the Soul, on Music, the Advantage of Believing, on Faith in Things Unseen, trans. R.C. Taliaferro (Washington, D.C., The Catholic University of America Press: 2002), 263.

¹²  This list is derived from the index of The Ingalls Wilder Family Songbook, ed. Dale Cockrell (Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, Inc., 2011).

TITLE IMAGE: The Ingalls family, 1881.