Heart Songs
Dear To The American People and by them
Contributed in the Search for Treasured Songs
Initiated by the National Magazine Joe Mitchell Chapple, complete with a new introduction by W.K. McNeil

Originally published in 1909, Heart Songs was the first large-scale, and still the most expansive, attempt to record America's taste for popular song. For this reason, as musicologist and folklorist W.K. McNeil explains in his introduction, it is a treasure-trove for anyone interested in America 's musical history.

Over 404 songs appear in the anthology, complete with words and music. They are classified under one or more of the following categories: Patriotic/War Songs; Sea Songs; Lullabies/Children's Songs; Dance Music; Negro Melodies/Minstrel Songs, Sacred Songs/Hymns, Love Songs, Songs of the Great Masters, Concerts/Solos/Quartets, and College/Fraternal Songs.

Heart Songs' great value centers around two attributes. For one, it contains the words and lyrics to a large number of songs, many of which are difficult to find nowadays. Equally important, the volume tells us much about the musical taste of the American people at the turn of the last century.

518 pp., paperback, (1909), reprinted 1997, ISBN 0-8063-4737-6