Songs My Father Sang

• "When The Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin' Along". He'd mostly sing this one to my younger sister when she was still pretty small; seems likely it was mostly in the morning as a way of getting her out of bed.
• "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie". This may have been his trademark song when I was growing up, the one he sang with the most gusto, the one that makes me think of him most clearly now.
• "Detour (There's a Muddy Road Ahead)" by Paul Westmoreland. He says he was overheard singing it below on a Navy ship by an officer who then commanded him to sing it to the entire crew up on deck.
• "Old Black Joe" by Stephen C. Foster.
• "Cool Water" by Bob Nolan.
• "Goodnight, Irene" by Huddie Ledbetter (or "folk standard").
• "Oh, Lonesome Me" by Don Gibson. He'd sing this in his brighter moments.
• "I Get So Lonely" which the Four Knights made popular in 1954.
• "Marianne", probably the Trini Lopez version (though I only remember the seaside chorus).
• "Tom Dooley" by Thomas C. Land (or "traditional"/"author unknown"). He had a thing for the Kingston Trio, this being one of their popular hits.
• "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon/McCartney). My Mother returned from Moscow for medical reasons and bought us a bunch of Beatles albums in the States. That was in 1969, likely, and The White Album had just been released. We learned every song backwards-and-forwards (harder to do with one of them). Inside the album came glossy photographs of each member of the group, which my brother posted outside our apartment. They were gone the next day, as might be expected, Beatles albums being highly sought-after behind the Iron Curtain.
• "Delilah" by Les Reed and Barry Mason. I don't know how many times I actually heard him sing this song, but he told a story of asking the band at a Moscow restaurant to play it to no avail, despite exaggerated and overly-phonetic pronunciations of the title.
• "Cold, Cold Heart" by Hank Williams. I always assumed he was singing to my mother on this one.
• "Your Cheating Heart" by Hank Williams. Another song that sounded like it was aimed at my mother.
• "If Your Sweetheart Sends a Letter of Goodbye" (don't knows whose version he was doing).
• "(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden" by Joe South. This was popular at the time of my parent's separation, so I assumed he related directly to the words Lynn Anderson was singing.
• "Four Strong Winds" by Ian Tyson. He got drunk with his second wife, her sister Pat, and I think his brother Tom, somewhere in Europe--maybe Germany or Austria--and they recorded a version of this on tape to send to us three kids back in the States.
• "Takin' Care of Business" by Bachman-Turner Overdrive. I always thought this was a workaholic's theme song, my father being a card-carrying member, but since I started listening to the words lately I see it's more about my way of doing things.
• "Walk Right In". He mostly seemed to sing this when it came back around on the radio for a second (or third) time.
• "Old Five and Dimers" by Waylon Jennings. From the album by the same name which my father and older brother used to introduce me to this towering Highwayman. I actually remember my brother singing it more than my father, but they both wore the tracks of that record out when drinking.