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In it, Ewbank, a Kent State University professor emeritus, imagines how English poets — from Spenser and Shakespeare to Philip Larkin and Stevie Smith — might have reworked the Mother Goose classic “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

Poetry has been a part of recorded sound ever since Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, showing off his creation by recording “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on tinfoil.

Sarah Hale, the author most famous for her children's poem "Mary had a Little Lamb," used her position as editor of the best-selling magazine Godey's Ladies Book to advance a reformist agenda that included the abolition of slavery and the creation of holidays that promoted pious family values.

Kozinn acknowledges that some songs may not be worth repeated listens: “I could probably go for very, very long periods without hearing his single of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ again.”

“Mary Had a Little Lamb” was inspired by a true incident in the small town of Sterling, Massachusetts, in the 1830s, when little Mary’s brother suggested that she take her pet lamb to school and chaos ensued.