"The Cuckoo" (

Roud The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the London ...

413) is a traditional

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...

, also sung in the

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and

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. The song is known by many names, including "The Coo-Coo", "The Coo-Coo Bird", "The Cuckoo Bird", "The Cuckoo Is a Pretty Bird", "The Evening Meeting", "The Unconstant Lover", "Bunclody" and "Going to Georgia". Lyrics usually include the line (or a slight variation): "The cuckoo is a pretty bird, she sings as she flies; she brings us glad tidings, and she tells us no lies." According to Thomas Goldsmith of '' The Raleigh News & Observer'', "The Cuckoo" is an interior monologue where the singer "relates his desires — to gamble, to win, to regain love's affection." The song is featured in the

E.L. Doctorow Edgar Lawrence Doctorow (January 6, 1931 – July 21, 2015) was an American novelist, editor, and professor, best known for his works of historical fiction. He wrote twelve novels, three volumes of short fiction and a stage drama. They included ...

book ''

The March The March can refer to: * March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a 1963 civil rights event * Salt March, when Gandhi in 1930 walked to protest the British salt tax in India * Sherman's March to the Sea during the American Civil War * Long March i ...

''. A soldier suffering from a metal spike stuck in his head sings verses from the song.

Synopsis

Usually, but not always, the song begins with a verse about the

cuckoo Cuckoos are birds in the Cuculidae family, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes . The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals and anis. The coucals and anis are sometimes separ ...

, for example:

The cuckoo is a fine bird he sings as he flies,
He brings us good tidings and tells us no lies.
He sucks the sweet flowers to make his voice clear,
And the more he cries cuckoo, the summer is nigh.

(In many American versions, the cuckoo patriotically "never sings 'cuckoo' till the fourth of July". In some ornithologically observant English versions "she sucks little birds' eggs to make her voice clear.") A young woman (usually - sometimes a young man) complains of the inconstancy of young men (or women) and the pain of losing in love. The song often consists mainly of "floating" verses (verses found in more than one song expressing common experiences and emotions), and apart from the constant cuckoo verse, usually sung at the beginning, there is no fixed order, though sometimes a verse sounds as if it is going to be the start of a story:

A-walking, a-talking, a-walking was I,
To meet my true lover, he'll come by and by,
To meet him in the meadows is all my delight,
A-walking and talking from morning till night.

but then:

O, meeting is a pleasure and parting is a grief,
An unconstant lover is worse than a thief,
A thief can but rob you and take all you have,
An unconstant lover will bring you to the grave.

Often there is a cautionary moral:

Come all pretty maidens wherever you be,
Don't trust in young soldiers to any degree,
They will kiss you and court you, poor girls to deceive,
There's not one in twenty poor girls can believe.

Or a more symbolic warning, here in a Mississippi version:

Come all you fair maidens take warning of me,
Don't place your affections on a sycamore tree,
For the top it will wither, and the roots they will die,
And if I'm forsaken, I know not for why.

Bunclody

An Irish song, this uses a similar tune and starts with verses extolling the beauty of

Bunclody Bunclody (), formerly Newtownbarry (until 1950), is a small town on the River Slaney in Wexford, Ireland. It is located near the foot of Mount Leinster. Most of the town is in County Wexford; a small area at the north end of town is in Count ...

, a town in Co. Wexford. The third verse is the standard "Cuckoo is a pretty bird" and after an adapted floating verse:

If I were a clerk
And I could write a good hand
I would write to my true love
So that she'd understand
That I am a young fellow
Who is wounded in love
Once I lived in Buncloudy
But now must remove.

The song ends in a sad verse about emigration. There is a fine recording of this song from

Luke Kelly Luke Kelly (17 November 1940 – 30 January 1984) was an Irish singer, folk musician and actor from Dublin, Ireland. Born into a working-class household in Dublin city, Kelly moved to England in his late teens and by his early 20s had become i ...

The Dubliners The Dubliners were an Irish folk band founded in Dublin in 1962 as The Ronnie Drew Ballad Group, named after its founding member; they subsequently renamed themselves The Dubliners. The line-up saw many changes in personnel over their fifty-ye ...

Note on the Cuckoo

The

(Cuculus canorus) was until recent times a common visitor to the English countryside in spring and early summer, and its distinctive call was considered the first sign of spring. It is a nest parasite, and the female really does eat an egg of the host species when she lays her own egg in the nest. It is an important bird in folklore. The cuckoo has traditionally been associated with sexual incontinence and infidelity. An old name for the cuckoo was "cuckold's chorister", and old broadsides played on the idea that the cuckoo's call was a reproach to husbands whose wives were unfaithful:

The smith that on his anvill the iron hard doth ding:
He cannot heare the cuckoo though he loud doth sing
In poynting of plow harnesse, he labours till he sweat,
While another in his forge at home may steale a private heat.
– From ''The Cuckowes Comendation: / Or, the Cuckolds Credit: Being a merry Maying Song in Praise of the Cuckow.'', c.1625

History

Early printed versions

"The Cuckoo" was published as a

broadside Broadside or broadsides may refer to: Naval * Broadside (naval), terminology for the side of a ship, the battery of cannon on one side of a warship, or their near simultaneous fire on naval warfare Printing and literature * Broadside (comic ...

by London and provincial printers, but does not seem to have been common. Broadsides are not precisely dated, but the earliest in the Bodleian Ballad Collection was published between 1780 and 1812 CE, the latest before 1845. The broadside texts are similar, of five verses starting with a "Come all ye" warning about courting sailors and with the cuckoo appearing in the second verse.

Collecting

The

Roud Folk Song Index The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the London ...

lists about 149 collected or recorded versions performed by traditional singers - 49 from England, 4 from Scotland, 2 from Ireland, 4 from Canada and 88 from the USA. At least one collected version was published in the ''Folk Songs from the Kentucky Mountains'' (1917).

Field recordings

Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, sch ...

recorded

Jean Ritchie Jean Ruth Ritchie (December 8, 1922 – June 1, 2015) was an American folk singer, songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player, called by some the "Mother of Folk". In her youth she learned hundreds of folk songs in the traditional way (orally ...

from Viper, Kentucky singing ''The Cuckoo is a Pretty Bird'' in New York in 1949. *

Hamish Henderson Hamish Scott Henderson (11 November 1919 – 9 March 2002) was a Scottish poet, songwriter, communist, intellectual and soldier. He was a catalyst for the folk revival in Scotland. He was also an accomplished folk song collector and dis ...

recorded Willie Mathieson from Ellon, Aberdeenshire, singing ''The Evening Meeting'' in 1952. *Max Hunter recorded Mrs Norma Kisner of Springdale Arkansas, singing a fragment of ''Unconstant Lover'' in 1960. *Max Hunter recorded Olivia Hauser of Fayetteville, Arkansas, singing ''False Hearted Lover'' in 1961.

Performers

The first known recording was made by

Kelly Harrell Kelly Harrell (September 13, 1889 – July 9, 1942) was an American country music singer in the 1920s. He recorded more than a dozen songs for OKeh and Victor Records and wrote songs which were recorded by other artists, including Jimmie Rodger ...

for

Victor The name Victor or Viktor may refer to: * Victor (name), including a list of people with the given name, mononym, or surname Arts and entertainment Film * ''Victor'' (1951 film), a French drama film * ''Victor'' (1993 film), a French shor ...

in 1926. The song has been covered by many musicians in several different styles. In North America, an early notable recorded version was performed in 1929 by Appalachian folk musician Clarence Ashley with an unusual banjo tuning. Notable artists who have recorded "The Cuckoo" include:

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuckoo English folk songs American folk songs Bob Dylan songs Peter, Paul and Mary songs Jean Ritchie songs Year of song unknown Songwriter unknown