The More We Get Together

History & Origin

"The More We Get Together" is an English children's song set to the melody of the Austrian folk song "Oh du lieber Augustin", which dates from the early eighteenth century and is traditionally associated with the story of a Viennese musician named Marx Augustin who, according to legend, fell drunk into a plague pit during the 1679 epidemic and survived.

The original German text is a lament — "alles ist hin" means "everything is gone", and the song catalogues Augustin's losses: his money, his girl, everything. The English version keeps the same melody but reverses the sentiment entirely, replacing loss with togetherness and substituting "the happier we'll be" for "alles ist hin".

This recording includes the original German verse alongside the English, creating an unusual juxtaposition: a song about everything being lost, sandwiched between verses about the happiness of friendship. In context it works as a reminder that the same tune can carry very different emotional content, and that the relationship between music and meaning is always more complicated than it appears.

The song has been used in nurseries, camps, and youth groups for generations as a simple, joyful expression of communal feeling.