Osler's Razor

For reasons I can't fathom, the song stuck in my head has been "Go Tell Aunt Rhody," an old folk song that someone decided would be fun for kids to learn back when I was a kid. Really, America? Here is one version of the lyrics (different than the one I learned, which revolved around "the old grey mare is dead."):

Go tell Aunt Rhody,
Go tell Aunt Rhody,
Go tell Aunt Rhody
The old gray goose is dead.

The one she's been saving,
The one she's been saving,
The one she's been saving
To make a feather bed.

The goslings are mourning,
The goslings are mourning,
The goslings are mourning,
Because their mother's dead.

The old gander's weeping,
The old gander's weeping,
The old gander's weeping,
Because his wife is dead.

I suppose life on the farm was pretty hard, but that is one depressing song. To really ratchet up the pathos, it even creates the fiction of geese being married! It only uses two notes, though (A and D), so perhaps simplicity trumped theme...