Farmyard Cacophonies: Three Centuries of a Popular Song

‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’ is an immensely successful popular song. In this essay I explore the life of this song from its earliest known version as performed on the English stage in the early eighteenth century, its development as a vaudeville and blackface minstrel song in the nineteenth century, its place in oral tradition, commercial recordings of the song in the 1920s and later, and its status today as a modern ‘children’s favourite’ in a variety of forms. I consider the song in the context of other pieces that list animals, animal parts, and sometimes animal sounds. I look at the way innuendo and satire can be read in versions of the song and the way the song relates to the relationships of humans to animals. I explore examples of the parodies, transformations, and translations the song has spawned, and hypothesize on the reasons for its enormous success. I emphasize that any sound history must look for continuity as well as change but also be aware of the ways in which texts can take on diff erent meanings in diff erent historical situations.

I do not remember when I fi rst heard ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’ but I associate it with a 1950s Saturday morning record show on BBC radio called Children’s Favourites.

I later learned that the recording I heard was by Spike Jones and his City Slickers. Jones specialized in comedy records which combined fantastically good timing and superb musicianship with cartoon-style sound eff ects and zany humour. " ere is what we might term a recurring irony here in that ‘Old MacDonald’ was performed by a band called the ‘City Slickers’: as I will show, the song most probably originated, and was certainly used, as an urban satire on country life. " e Spike Jones recording was lively enough but, young as I was, I thought it was corny.1 Nevertheless, I absorbed the song then and have carried it in my head ever since. It was years later that I realized that the song was of considerable antiquity. As an adult researcher into historical popular song I took to reading through song collections whilstcommuting. Working through " omas D’Urfey’s Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719–20), I cameacross ‘A Charming Country Life’, a clear forerunner of ‘Old MacDonald’.2 I was not the fi rst,nor the last, to discover independently this presence,3 but I can recall that I felt a strongemotion on fi nding that something that I had not believed to be very old had in fact beenaround for some considerable time. Aspects of the song’s story have been told before andI am indebted to people who have investigated the song previously.4 I hope that in this essayI will give a more complete version of its story, together with some exploration of the characteristics of the song, its meanings and uses, and some reasons for its enormous success.5

Copyright © English Folk Dance and Song Society

Farmyard Cacophonies: Three Centuries of a

Popular SongVic Gammon

FOLK MUSIC JOURNAL VOLUME 11 NUMBER 1 PP. 42–72 ISSN 0531–9684

fmj10-1 second revise.indd 42 27/10/2010 12:12:00

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The Development of ‘Old MacDonald’

" e appearance of ‘A Charming Country Life’ in Pills to Purge Melancholy was not the fi rst time it had appeared in print. It was performed as part of a comic ‘opera’ called ! e Kingdom of the Birds, written by D’Urfey and fi rst produced in 1706. " e music notation given here is from ! e Kingdom of the Birds, with text taken from the 1707 edition of Pills to Purge Melancholy.6

A S O N G in the Opera call’d, " e Kingdom of the Birds. " e words by Mr. " o. D’urfey. Sung by Miss Willis.

In the Fields in Frost and Snows, Watching late and early;" ere I keep my Fathers Cows, " ere I milk ’em yearly:Booing here, Booing there,Here a Boo, there a Boo, ev’ry where a Boo,We defy all Care and Strife,In a Charming Country Life.

" en at home amongst the Fowls, Watching late and early;" ere I tend my Father’s Owls, " ere I feed ’em yearly:Whooing here, Whooing there,Here a whoo, there a whoo, every where a whoo,We defy all Care and Strife,In a Charming Country Life.

When the Summer Fleeces heap, Watching late and early;" en I Shear my Father’s Sheep, " en I keep ’em yearly:Baeing here, Baeing there,Here a Bae, there a Bae, every where a Bae,We defy all Care and Strife,In a Charming Country Life.[end of song in ! e Kingdom of the Birds]

In the Morning e’er ’twas light, In the Morning early; " ere I met with my Delight, Once he lov’d me dearly:Woeing here, Woeing there,Here he woe, there he woe, every were a woe,Oh! how free from Care and Strife, Is a Pleasant Country Life.

FARMHOUSE CACOPHONIES: THREE CENTURIES OF A POPULAR SONG

In the Fields in Frost and Snows, Watch ing- late and ear ly;-

There I keep my Fa thers- Cows, There I milk ’em year ly:-

Boo ing- here, Boo ing- there, Here a Boo, there a Boo, ev ’ry- where a Boo,

We de fy- all Care and Strife, In a Charm ing- Coun try- Life.

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FOLK MUSIC JOURNAL44

D’Urfey certainly claimed authorship of the text, but we do not know that that is the case. Did he write the song for this work, or did he merely recycle a pre-existing piece? Charles Burney commented of ! e Kingdom of the Birds that ‘nothing, however, like Italian music or fi ne singing was attempted […] as the songs were all set to ballad tunes of a true English growth’.7 " is could imply that the song is older than the 1706 ‘opera’. Burney noted that the work was performed just fi ve times. " ere are in fact three strands to the textual history of ‘A Charming Country Life’ in the eighteenth century. In ! e Kingdom of the Birds, the song is presented in just three stanzas (the fi rst three quoted above), which I will refer to as the ‘D’Urfey short version’. When the song was reprinted in the 1707–09 Pills to Purge Melancholy, it was either expanded or presented in full as a nine-stanza version, cataloguing cows, fowls/owls, sheep, my delight, my true love, turkey-cock, hens, ducks, swine, which I will refer to as the ‘D’Urfey long version’. While in some ways the song may show signs of being unpolished, this nine-stanza version, to judge by the number of times it was

E’er the light-came from Above, In the Morning early;" ere I met with my true Love, " ere I met him earlyWoeing here, woeing there,Here he woe, there he woe, every where a woe,Oh! how free from Care and Strife,Is a Pleasant Country Life.

In the Morn at six of the clock, In the Morning early;" ere I feed our Turkey-Cock, " ere I feed him yearly, cou, cou, goble, goble, goble,Couing here, couing there,Here a cou, there a cou, every where a cou,Oh! how free from Care and Strife,Is a Pleasant Country Life.

In the morning near the Fens, In the morning early;" ere I feed my Fathers hens, " ere I feed them yearly;Cackle here, Cackle there,Here a cack, there a cack, Every where a cack,Oh! how free from Care and Strife,Is a Pleasant Country Life.

In the morning with good speed, In the morning early;I my Father’s Ducks do feed, In the morning Early:Quacking here, Quacking there;Here a quack, there a quack, every where a quack,Oh! how free from Care and Strife,Is a Pleasant Country Life.

In the morning fair and fi ne, In the morning early;" ere I feed my Father’s Swine, " ere I feed them yearly:Grunting here, grunting there,Here a grunt, there a grunt, every where a grunt,Oh! how free from Care and Strife, Is a Pleasant Country Life.


45

reprinted, retained a signifi cant place in the popular song repertory for about a century.8 But this is not the only direction in which the song developed. " e editor of the 1715 edition of A New Academy of Complements reproduces the D’Urfey short text as per ! e Kingdom of the Birds, cataloguing cows, fowls/owls, and sheep.9 In later editions of the same book, however, right down to the close of the eighteenth century, the song has grown, generating a diff erent tail consisting of a seven-stanza listing of cows, fowls/owls, sheep, hogs, goats, turkey-cocks, ducks and drakes.10 In addition, even printings that derive from these three strands sometimes show verbal variations.11 " ese observations reinforce the point that it is not just oral transmission that can cause signifi cant variation in song texts. I have found the song reprinted in its various versions in more than twenty eighteenth-century books containing songs and no doubt my researches do not disclose the whole story. After such a good innings the song might then have sunk into oblivion like so many of its fellows, but it did not. I have not yet turned up any texts dating to the earlier nineteenth century,12 but the song seems to emerge strongly again in the mid-century when ! e Gobble Family; or, My Grandfather’s Farm Yard, a quartette composed and arranged by Prof. Kirbye and sung nightly with immense applause, at all the popular concerts was printed in Philadelphia some time between 1857 and 1861.13 " en, in 1862, we fi nd the song again as a stage piece, but this time in a publication emanating from the most famous blackface minstrel troupe of the day, the Christy Minstrels.14 Geo’ Christy’s Essence of Old Kentucky is a small book (of words only), containing ‘a Choice Collection of New and Popular Songs, Interludes, Dialogues, Funny Speeches, Darkey Jokes and Plantation Wit’. Here ‘A Charming Country Life’ has developed into ‘" e Merry Green Fields of Oland – As Sung by Christy’s Minstrels’, replete with a modest set of articulating farmyard animals, and by this time the song has developed a cumulative chorus. Here is the fi nal stanza and accumulated chorus:

My grandmother had some very fi ne hens

In the merry green fi elds of Oland.

chorus

With a kickle cackle here, and a kickle cackle there,

Here a kickle, there a cackle, here and there a cackle:

With a grunt grunt here, and a grunt grunt there,

With here a grunt and there a grunt, and here and there a grunt:

With a gibble gobble here, and a gibble gobble there,

And here a gobble, there a gobble, here and there a gobble

With a bla-bla here, and a bla-bla there,

Here a bla and there a bla, here and there a bla.

Say, my bonnie lassie, will you go along with me,

To the merry green fi elds of Oland?

We detect a stress on the fun of the song in this version: these are the merry green fi elds of Oland. A similar version, but with interesting diff erences, was published in another




book by the same publisher and supposedly emanating from the same minstrel troupe. Here again is the fi nal stanza and accumulated chorus for comparison:

My grandfather had some very nice sheep,

In the merry green fi elds of Olden.

chorusWid a blaa blaa here, and a blaa blaa there,

And a quack quack here, and a quack quack there,

And a bow wow here, and a bow wow there,

Say, my bonnie lassie, will you go along with me,

To the merry fi elds of Olden.15

In 1864, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reports a performance of the song, under its variant title of ‘" e Gibble Gobble Family’, as part of Rainforth’s ‘grand pantomime’ ! e Magic Box; or, Love Triumphant. " e song crops up with regularity from this time onwards, both in reference and quotation. It was used in minstrel shows but was not exclusive to that genre, and it seems to have permeated both professional and amateur milieux of various kinds, ultimately including educational books.16

Comparing ‘A Charming Country Life’ with ‘" e Merry Green Fields of Oland’, it is clear that essential elements of the song have remained intact but the outward form has been changed considerably. We can hypothesize that this is largely the result of the song passing through oral/aural tradition: the strong central idea and aspects of structure are maintained, but the outward form of expression has changed. " e point of view has also shifted. " e eighteenth-century version is collective and outward-looking: ‘We defy all cares and strife in a charming country life.’ In contrast, ‘" e Merry Green Fields of Oland’ contains a personal invitation: ‘Say, my bonny lassie, will you go along with me.’ " e distinctive animal-sound ‘multi-directionality’, however, remains fairly consistent: ‘Here a Boo, there a Boo, ev’ry where a Boo’ (‘A Charming Country Life’); ‘With here a grunt and there a grunt, and here and there a grunt’ (‘" e Merry Green Fields of Oland’). " is aspect could be described as the distinctive component of this song family – along, that is, with the imitation animal noises. " e rendering of the animal sounds as words varies in time and space, as ‘boo’ changes to ‘moo’, ‘oink’ to ‘grunt’, and so on, a simple process of what some linguists term ‘paradigmatic substitution’ (although it is noteworthy that diff erent languages render animal sounds in very diff erent phonic forms, so it is not surprising that they should also vary through time). Surviving examples of the song in its dominant nineteenth-century form characteristically carry the ‘merry green fi elds’ phrase of the Christy version, although the place name (and whether or not the song gives one) varies considerably. It may be the case that many of the twentieth-century versions collected on both sides of the Atlantic are little other than nineteenth-century versions remembered and passed on. " us, usually as a fi nal phrase, we have:

merry green fi elds of Orland ([Philadelphia?, 1857–61?])17

merry green fi elds of Oland (Christy, New York, 1862)18

sweet fi elds of Violo (USA, early twentieth century)19


47

the merry green fi elds of Olden (Ohio, 1916; Christy, New York, 1864)20

My grandfather had some very green fi elds / " e fi elds were in Orleans (1922)21

the merry green fi elds of the lowland (Arkansas, 1942)22

the merry green fi elds of Ireland (USA and UK, mid-twentieth century)23

merry green fi elds of Old Ham (USA, sound recording, 1941)24

the merry green fi elds of England (USA, 1925)25

along the banks of Holland (USA, late nineteenth century)26

the merry green fi elds of the farmyard (London, 1908)27

the merry green fi elds and the farmyard (children’s music book, 1914)28

the merry green fi elds so gay! (USA, late nineteenth century)29

to the merry green fi elds away (USA, life history project, 1938)30

down in the land of greeno (UK, 1930s)31

to the bonny woods of ivy (Newfoundland, 1951)32

to see my grandpa’s farmyard (UK, mid-twentieth century)33

I’m as happy as can be (UK, mid-twentieth century).34

" e above listing gives an impression of the way that inessential aspects of the song’s vocabulary can change, not in a random way but through the substitution of a similar-sounding and equally suitable word or phrase. It also attests to the widespread oral transmission of the song. We have good evidence that ‘" e Merry Green Fields’ established itself as a favourite children’s song in the USA in the nineteenth century. Mrs Laura M., an informant for a Federal Writers’ Project on American life histories, who had grown up in South Carolina, testifi ed: ‘We used to sing this a lot when we were kids […] No, you didn’t play any game with it. You just sat around singing it; a bunch could sing it, or just one or two. " e number didn’t matter since no game was attached to it.’35 " e informant was about fi fty years of age when the interview took place, so this dates her juvenile use of the song to the last decades of the nineteenth century. Somewhat earlier, the American actor Mary Anderson recalled having performed the song at her convent school as a child, in the 1860s or 70s.36 And the song was evidently popular enough to serve as the unknown item in a game of charades played by Maude Williams and her family in Ohio around the turn of the twentieth century, where the clues included ‘barnyard madness’, ‘farmyard extravaganza’, ‘animal overture’, and ‘hayseed musicale’. It is interesting and appropriate that the song should have been well known to a farming family in Ohio.37 " e song was then ‘reimported’ into Britain. Copies were advertised for sale in the professional stage weekly ! e Era in 1880.38 It is probable that press references to ‘" e Farmyard’ (‘a very clever descriptive song’) and suchlike refer to the same piece.39 It was often received with great approval, but, in 1896, ‘Miss Kate James had to silence some rude interruptions in the balcony while she was singing her farmyard song.’40 Cecil Sharp collected ‘Merry Green Fields’ in London in 1908, and it seems likely that the immediate or indirect source for this version was the London stage rather than more ‘traditional’ modes of communication, while the theatre in turn took the song from the USA.41

‘" e Merry Green Fields’ seems to be the dominant nineteenth-century form of the song family, but survivals in oral tradition show that it was not the only one.




" e song ‘When I Was a Boy’ (Roud 887) shows some very distinct features. It has the ‘here – there – everywhere’ motif, but in some versions it has cross-pollinated with another immensely popular English song, ‘" e Farmer’s Boy’ (Roud 408):

When I was a boy, and a farmer’s boy,

I looked after my father’s horses

chorusWith a horse a-gee-a-wooing here

And another a-gee-a-wooing there,

Here a-gee-ing, there a-gee-ing

Gee-ing everywhere

And to plough and sow

To reap and mow

And to be a farmer’s boy

And to be a farmer’s boy.42

Not all versions of this song have this intertextual characteristic, but enough do to suggest that it is not just an idiosyncrasy. Whereas ‘" e Merry Green Fields’ seems to have been the dominant North American version of the song, all the references in the Roud indexes to ‘When I Was a Boy’ are English. Other aspects of the song, such as the cows ‘a-boo-ing’, might suggest a strong link with eighteenth-century versions of ‘" e Merry Green Fields’. Notwithstanding the unique qualities of ‘When I Was a Boy’, by the early twentieth century one could easily get the impression that the song family would henceforth usually mention ‘merry green fi elds’; but this was not to be the case, and what seems to be a new branch of the family was emergent and set to dominate. " e fi rst example so far discovered of a song bearing the name of a farmer with Scottish ancestry is not a MacDonald but a Macdougal:

Old Macdougal had a farm in Ohio-i-o,And on that farm he had some dogs in Ohio-i-o,With a bow-wow here, and a bow-wow there,Here a bow, there a wow, everywhere a bow-wow.Old Macdougal had a farm in Ohio-i-o.43

Old Mac dou- gal- had a farm in O hi- o- i- o,- And on that farm he had some dogs in

O hi- o- i- o,- With a bow wow- here and a bow wow- there,

Here a bow, there a wow, ev ery- where- a bow wow.- Old Mac dou- gal- had a farm in O hi- o- i- o.-

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49

" is version is from a 1917 book of soldiers’ songs produced in London. But Macdougal was not to be on the scene long and was soon eclipsed by MacDonald with his somewhat enigmatic or rustic-sounding vowel exercise ‘E I E I O’, the probable origin of which is to be found in the location of Macdougal’s farm: ‘Ohio-i-o’. " ere is a simple reason for MacDonald’s triumph in the twentieth century: commercial sound recordings. A number of commercial recordings of ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’ were made in the 1920s which seem to relate to each other in that they use very similar versions of the song. " e 1920s recordings were products of the vaudeville and minstrel show traditions. " e song was soon taken up by participants in the 1920s boom in ‘hillbilly music’, as northern record producers found a market for homespun music and humour. ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’ fi tted the bill admirably; rural and noisy, performers were often encouraged to play up to a backward rustic image – although such an image also seems to have been a regular aspect of some forms of popular entertainment common in rural areas, such as the medicine show and the minstrel show. " ere is an American Quartet recording dating from 1924, sung in vocal harmony with what sounds like a studio band.44 " is popular professional singing group had already recorded a ‘Farmyard Medley’ featuring animal noises in 1902.45 " e Sam Patterson Trio released ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’, performed in a forthright way, unaccompanied, on the Edison label in 1926.46 " is was followed by a version by Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers, a ‘hillbilly’ string band with a relaxed and swinging style, not averse to playing up to the rural hayseed image, which was issued by Columbia in 1927.47 In a similar vein, in 1928 Warren Caplinger’s Cumberland Mountain Entertainers recorded ‘McDonald’s Farm’ for Brunswick, in a lively version that sets the scene in a pre-song patter and adds animal noises in addition to those named in the song.48 From its appearance on sound recordings in the 1920s, ‘Old MacDonald’ took on a vigorous life and became a highly successful twentieth-century song. It was ‘Old MacDonald’ recorded by Spike Jones and his City Slickers that I fi rst heard in the 1950s, but it is these 1920s recordings that underpin all subsequent recordings and the song’s worldwide dissemination. " e song is now amazingly widely known and held in fond regard by some, hated by others. It has been recorded by a signifi cant number of popular singers. " is is surprising in some ways, because whereas the formulaic and repetitive nature of the song makes it ideal for community or group singing, it does not make for a varied and interesting three- to four-minute audio record. Various arranging tricks are deemed necessary to enhance its attractiveness as a recorded single: for example, on the Spike Jones recording, not only are there humorous sound eff ects but each verse is sung a semitone higher than the previous, giving a lift and sense of urgency to the recording.49 When Sam the Sham and the Pharoes recorded ‘Old MacDonald had a Bugaloo Farm’ in 1968 it was promoted thus: ‘[t]he classic is brought up to date in today’s selling bag by that master of groovie novelties’.50 Performers who have recorded it include Danny Kaye, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, and Flatt and Scruggs.51 Any artist choosing to make a record for children had an obvious candidate in ‘Old MacDonald’ and it has appeared on many albums intended for children. It has also been the subject of numerous books for young children designed for fun and the teaching of reading, which often through their artwork promote a humorous and nostalgic view of the countryside. It has become one of the




most popular cultural artefacts by means of which adults interact and communicate with young children, and this is the prime reason for its popularity in modern times. " e song has got into many surprising places. Its chorus has an entry in Webster’s New World Telecom Dictionary.52 A war correspondent, Frank Martin, heard the song when trying to get from China to Burma in 1944: ‘At one point he encountered a tribe of Naga headhunters singing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm, E-I-E-I-O”. Martin’s guide, also a Naga, told him that the tribe had been taught the song by a missionary, after which they cut off his head.’53 It has even been used as a tool for scientifi c research into musical perception in monkeys.54 In terms of being widely known, ‘Old MacDonald’ is an outstandingly successful song.

Other Animal Catalogue Songs (with and without noises)

It will be helpful to our understanding to consider the ‘Old MacDonald’ family from a wider perspective and set it in a context of related song material. ‘Old MacDonald’ is a catalogue song. It is basically a list of animals and human imitations of the noises they make. " is kind of song has been defi ned and discussed in a brilliant essay on the ‘Anglo-American Catalogue Song’ by Roger Renwick.55 " e catalogue song is characterized by addition and listing. For Renwick, the catalogue song stands alongside (and overlaps with) the two other characteristic forms of Anglo-American folk song: the ballad (characteristically telling a story); and the lyric (characteristically expressing an emotion). " ere are hybrid forms that combine elements of any two, and sometimes all three, of these song types, but ‘Old MacDonald’ is not one of these: there is no narrative action or transformation, and we can argue that any emotion is largely engendered in the mind of the listener rather than intended in terms of the song text. Crucially, what Renwick gives us is a critical vocabulary with which to begin to discuss songs of this type, and it is clear that many of the features of the ‘Old MacDonald’ family can be helpfully described in these terms, as can other songs of the catalogue type. " e ‘Old MacDonald’ family comprises a group of enumerative catalogue songs listing animals and their appropriate noises. Between its characteristic eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century versions, it has also become a cumulative song. Cumulative songs add an additional chorus element with each additional stanza (they can serve as tests of memory and/or endurance for their singers, and sometimes as tests of sobriety too). But ‘Old MacDonald’ displays additional characteristics of catalogue songs. It is bounded in time and space: whether given in the past or present tense, the song focuses on a farm and its occupants. " ere is no narration or development: it makes little diff erence in which order the stanzas are sung. " e song structure is highly redundant: there is a great deal of repetition between stanzas, with only a few words changing. " is makes it possible to ‘know’ what the song will do from hearing just a stanza or two. " e whole song is not greater than the sum of its parts. A number of other songs in English-language song tradition present us with lists of animals, or animal parts, and give them characteristics. An impressionistic conclusion would be that animals are a common, if not the most common, subject for catalogue songs. ‘" ere Was a Pig Went Out to Dig’ (Roud 1369), for example, is a fantasy catalogue in which animals perform agricultural tasks:56


51

" ere was a minnow went out to winnow

On Chrisimus day, on Chrisimus day,

" ere was a minnow went out to winnow

On Chrisimus in the morning.

Broadwood and Fuller Maitland comment: ‘[t]here are no words, properly speaking, after the fi rst verse, but rhymes are invented according to the pleasures of the singer’.57 " ere is no accumulation in this song, but the bawdy possibilities of such improvisation are clear if one considers the possible rhymes for, say, duck and shrew – should such an idea come into the mind of the singer and accord with the social situation in which the song is being performed. ‘" e Twelve Days of Christmas’ (Roud 68) is a cumulative song listing an improbable collection of birds and other things as Christmas gifts. Another classic song of the catalogue type, listing mainly birds, is ‘" e Death of Cock Robin’ (Roud 494). " is is a powerful depiction of a proposed funeral, stark and moving, but the song threatens to expire under the weight of fanciful explanation that has been piled on to it. It displays dialogue characteristics in the stanzas, which are structured as questions and answers:

Who’ll be the parson?

I, said the rook,

With my little book,

I’ll be the parson.58

" e catalogue of birds, plus a fi sh and a bull, are given roles because of rhyme (sparrow/arrow), or because of ascribed qualities (parsons were often compared to rooks because of their black dress), or sometimes both (dove/love). Interestingly, Nettleingham, the source for the earliest ‘Old Macdougal’, prints a First World War parody of the song.59 Parody is good evidence of widespread knowledge and a song’s popularity. Sometimes catalogue songs list animal parts as links in a semantic chain: that is, contiguous elements of a whole. ‘" e Mallard’ (Roud 1517) lists the diff erent parts of the duck’s body as they are consumed. ‘" e Derby Ram’ (Roud 126) enumerates parts of the ram’s body, their fantastic proportions, and the diffi culty of disposing of them.60 In ‘" e Herring’s Head’ (Roud 128) various parts of the fi sh are made into unexpected things. ‘" e Everlasting Circle’ or ‘" e Tree in the Valley’ (Roud 129) brings the diff erent connected parts of tree, nest, egg, and bird into a cumulative text.61

Catalogue songs can show forms of narrative development. In ‘On Ilkley Moor baht ’At’ (Roud 19808), for example, the consumption of the subject is predicted because of the process of death, and then there follows a catalogue in which the deceased will be eaten by worms, which will be eaten by ducks, which will be eaten by ‘us’, i.e. humans.62 Hamlet put it in a levelling way: ‘a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar’. In ‘I Know an Old Lady that Swallowed a Fly’ (Roud 9375), another ‘children’s favourite’, the size of animal the lady has to swallow in order to catch the one she has just swallowed increases until it results in her death.63 In the song widely known as ‘" e Foolish Boy’, ‘My Father Died’, or some variation on ‘Wing Wang Waddle O’ (Roud 469), the catalogue is one of incremental impoverishment and ultimate fi nancial ruin, articulated through the diminishing size of animal that the boy sells and buys.64




" e foolishness of human actions in relation to animals emerges in other songs too. " e crux of the song ‘" e " ree Jolly Welshman’ (Roud 283) is the erroneous identifi cation of a succession of objects and animals;65 while in ‘" e Goose and the Gander’ (Roud 1094) the singer lists the animals he has owned and makes a foolish or nonsense point about each.66 In ‘My Father Kept a Horse’ or ‘" e Irish Family’ (Roud 850), farm, domestic, and vermin animals are enumerated and the sometimes surprising items obtained from the animals are listed:

Oh my father kept a horse, and my mother kept a mare,

My brother kept a rabbit and my sister kept a mare.

We had a leap from the horse, and a foal from the mare

And a whistle from the rabbit and a leveret from the hare.

chorus

" e more we have to drink, the merrier we shall be,

For we do belong to the Irish family.67

In the case of these songs in which the foolishness of the human actors is implied, we must always be on the lookout for cultural sense contained within the nonsense, wisdom within the foolishness. Even what might appear on the surface to be quite trivial pieces can nonetheless contain ruminations on aspects of the human condition. Closer to the ‘Old MacDonald’ family are those songs that include imitations of animal noises. Animal sounds have long been considered suitable material for the education of children.68 ‘Hurrah for the Life of a Farmer’ (Roud 16897) is a relatively rare song which has a chorus consisting entirely of a list of animals and their respective sounds.69 Versions of ‘" e Little Cock’ (Roud 544) are sometime confused with members of the ‘Old MacDonald’ family, partly because variants sometimes have a title such as ‘Farmyard Song’. Here is the fi nal accumulated stanza of a version published by Alfred Williams, obtained from Mrs Martin of Bampton, Oxfordshire:

" e very last thing my mother bought me,

It was a horse, you may plainly see;

And every time I rode my horse,

I rode him all around the tree.

chorus

My horse went neigh, neigh,

My cow went moo, moo,

My sheep went baa, baa,

My pig went grunt, grunt,

My dog went bow-wow

My goose went swish-swash,

My duck went quack, quack,

My hen went chick-chack,

My cock went cock-a-te-too;

Here’s luck to all my cocks and hens,

And my cock-a-doodle-do.70


53

One way of celebrating forms of carnival was to dress as animals, or at least to adopt some form of animal representation.71 " is was an aspect both of popular culture and of the masquerade, an increasingly popular form of elite entertainment in the eighteenth century. Dressing as animals was also an aspect of D’Urfey’s comic ‘opera’ ! e Kingdom of the Birds. Such masquerading was associated with ‘travesty, folly and libidinous excess’, or at least the suggestion of such things.72 I want to argue that, within the prescribed and licensed limits established by a song of a few minutes’ duration, there is an element of the carnivalesque within these animal-noise songs. Such songs allow us to ‘try out’ an aspect of being animals, albeit for a circumscribed period. ‘" e Old Sow’ (Roud 1737), recorded unaccompanied by Albert Richardson in the 1920s, had a great deal of popular success and spawned imitators; with its pig imitations comprising grunts, farts, and whistles, it makes the point about licence perfectly.73

‘Old MacDonald’ is not the only song in the English language song tradition that catalogues animals and their noises, but it is the most successful. I distinguish it from other songs of the animal-noise catalogue type by the ‘here … there … everywhere’ motif." is brief survey has demonstrated the central importance of animals as subject matter to the catalogue song as a genre. ‘Old MacDonald’ and its precursors comprise a widespread, long-lasting, and diverse family within with the larger grouping of animal catalogue songs.

Humans and Animals

" e spectre of human sexuality haunts these animal songs. So do a degree of scatology and the potential for satire at the expense of the rural world. " ese are qualities present from the earliest versions, and with varying emphases and in changed circumstances they may be read into the material right up to the present day. " is paper takes some of its inspiration from a classic essay of English structural anthropology, ‘Anthropological Aspects of Language: Animal Categories and Verbal Abuse’ by Edmund Leach.74 " is is a work I have reread with enjoyment over a number of decades. It is an enormously stimulating piece, but in some ways remains more an inspiration than a fi nished work. Stallybrass and White describe it as ‘one of the fi nest essays on the use of animals as social categories of thought’, and then proceed to expose some of its limitations.75 " eir argument centres on the idea of context: a pig in a farmyard does not mean the same as a pig in an industrial city (and in the early stages of industrialization there were many). " is is a well-made criticism, which reminds us that the creation of meaning always depends on context. " at said, Leach’s anthropologically oriented farm-centredness certainly works well in relation to the ‘Old MacDonald’ family of songs, which are nothing if not farm-centred. Leach explores the homology between diff erent sets of relationships: kinship, topology, and animal categories. Crucially, Leach links animal categories to the way we make verbal obscenities, linking animal names, human sexuality, and terms of abuse. Clearly such links are observable; for example, ‘dog’, ‘bitch’, ‘pig’, and ‘cow’ can all be used as insults. Leach also explores the possibility of phonic proximity words which have ‘taboo associations’ which can be insults or obscenities: thus he links ‘fox’ with ‘fucks’. I was sceptical about this aspect at fi rst, but when I explored old dictionaries it became clear that Leach is picking up on old associations and lines of thought.76




Much of what we think we ‘know’ about animals is in the realm of human ideas and culture, not that of nature or biology. Humans perceive themselves and other species through various cultural and physical processes. At a most fundamental level, animals can function metaphorically for humans because animals are diff erent and can signify diff erence – diff erence, that is, from humans and from each other. " at animals and animal categories are ‘good to think’ seems to me indisputable – this is Lévi-Strauss’s famous solution to the ‘problem’ of totemism, why diff erent human clans identify with diff erent animals.77 By metaphorical extension, animals have then been used to provide emotive descriptions for human categories and characteristics. " us humans create metaphorical connections between human and animal taxonomies, and these become potent and durable, albeit subject to change. But not all animal metaphors are abusive or obscene: ‘hen’, ‘pet’, ‘chick’, ‘dear’ (phonically equivalent to ‘deer’), ‘kid’, and ‘lamb’ can all be used to express aff ection. " e northern English and Scottish use of the word ‘hen’ is largely aff ectionate. ‘Burd’ is an old English word which, I think, lacks the derogatory connotations of the modern disparaging vernacular usage of ‘bird’ for a young woman. ‘Cony’ (or ‘coney’) can be a term of endearment, as well as a term for a dupe and for the female sex organs. Both ‘cony’ and ‘beaver’ can refer to this last, as well as to a type of hat. A ‘foxy lady’ has an aura of attractiveness and excitement, as well as of danger and cunning, about her. Even when such words verge on the obscene, as in some uses of the word ‘pussy’, they can still convey attraction as well as ambiguity. Cultural and linguistic processes and changes shift boundaries and one problem with Leach’s thesis may be that he is trying to be over-precise in his formulation of categories. What is important is the ease with which humans use animals as signifi ers and metaphors; and what they signify, culturally constructed as it is, can shift according to time and context. But there is a potency to the metaphorical use of animal terms. " e case of ‘" e Little Cock’ is highly instructive. " is version is from the Victorian publication Popular Rhymes of Scotland, by Robert Chambers.78 Here is the last, accumulated stanza:

I had a wee pig, and I loved it well,

I fed my pig on yonder hill;

My pig, squeakie, squeakie,

My cat, cheetie, cheetie,

My dog, bouffi e, bouffi e,

My sheep, maie, maie,

My duck, wheetie, wheetie,

My hen, chuckie, chuckie,

My cock, lily-cock, lily-cock, coo;

Every one loves their cock, why should not I love my cock too?

All innuendo comes to life in the mind of the receiver, and it is possible to interpret the last of these verses perfectly innocently. ‘Cock’ is a complex word in English, with multiple, related meanings combining notions of maleness, leadership, and domination, and by extension it provides a metaphor for the phallus. When a gun is cocked it is ready to fi re. A ‘cock’ can also be a pile of hay or dung, and ‘cocked’ can refer to the way you


55

wear your hat!79 ‘Old MacDonald’ and its predecessors are grounded fi rmly enough in the ‘reality’ of a farm, particularly the farmer–livestock nexus, with pets and other humans occasionally intruding. Yet in metaphorical references to animals there is always potentially the idea that humans are in some ways ‘like’ animals. " us animal pairings, such as ducks and drakes, or cocks and hens, are often used to bring to mind human pairings.80 " e widespread use of animal terms as metaphors means that songs about animals frequently have the potential to conjure up ideas about humans. In some ways, ‘Old MacDonald’ and its related songs occupy some of the same territory that Leach explores, and the song versions from diff erent periods resonate with our (changing) uses of animal terms to convey abuse, endearment, and/or sexual metaphor. But the song also posits questions about the relationship between humans and animals per se. In the Judaeo-Christian tradition there are strong theological foundations for human ascendancy over ‘brute creation’. Nature, it was fi rmly believed, exists to serve human interests, for God granted man ‘dominion […] over every living thing’ (Genesis 1. 28). In the ‘Old MacDonald’ song family, the farm is possessed (by Old MacDonald). " e violence of what, in ‘Song Composed in August’ (‘Now westlin winds …’), Robert Burns called ‘tyrannic man’s dominion’ is clear in the Bible: ‘And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fi shes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered’ (Genesis 9. 2). And in the next verse, ‘Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you’ (Genesis 9. 3), man is enthroned as a dominant carnivore, whose rule is based on fear and dread. God’s injunction is also to ‘replenish the earth and subdue it’. " ere may be replenishing going on MacDonald’s farm, but the animals are hardly subdued – at least not acoustically. Copulation is a vital aspect of the farm economy: without it there can be no increase. " e prayer ordained by ! e Book of Common Prayer to be said ‘in time of dearth and famine’ states that it is God’s gift that ‘the earth is fruitful, beasts increase, and fi shes do multiply’. By metaphorical extension, then, the noise of the farmyard can be interpreted as the noise of increase and multiplication; there is plenitude of life on the farm. " is in turn relates to wider notions of the earth and fecundity, relating to persistent stereotypes of a countryside oozing with sexuality, whatever the reality of dearth and famine. In Keith " omas’s excellent Man and the Natural World he traces signifi cant changes in attitudes to animals and nature in the period from 1500 to 1800. By the close of the eighteenth century, ‘a growing number of people had come to fi nd man’s ascendancy over nature increasingly abhorrent to their moral and aesthetic sensibilities’.81 " e book is a work of intellectual history drawing mainly on the written records left by members of the educated groups in early modern society. It outlines a long-term softening in attitudes towards animals, a move away from the harsh interpretation of biblical injunctions in the earlier part of the period. Such shifts in attitude are diffi cult to detect at the popular level, and there is plenty of evidence of callous cruelty towards animals in the society of the time, evidenced, for example, by such traditional customs as cock-fi ghting, bear-baiting, and bull-running, and in popular resistance to such things as the introduction of Martin’s Act in 1822, thought to be the fi rst signifi cant legislation in




the world against animal cruelty.82 However, it may be possible to infer something of a change in attitude from the employment of diminutive and familiar names and terms for animals in some of the songs quoted above.

The Country and the City

" e countryside was primarily the place where man exercised his dominion over nature, but around the turn of the eighteenth century many popular works were beginning to explore diff erent, and sometimes confl icting, attitudes to the country and the town.83 It is worth trying to contextualize the fi rst emergence of ‘A Charming Country Life’ in terms of these reactions. If the element of innuendo is present in these songs, it is integrated with attempts at social satire. Educated opinion inherited much from classical literature, in particular the pastoral tradition. John Dryden summed up a conventional attitude to the countryside in a couplet: ‘How blessed is he, who leads a country life, / Unvexed with anxious cares, and void of strife!’84 Numerous writers make statements in a similar vein, stressing such things as being ‘free from tumult’,85 or commenting on ‘the purest and most healthful air’.86 Popular ballads repeated pastoral ideas about a life ‘Blessed with content and health and ease / Free from faction, noise and strife’.87 Complementary to such views is an image of the town with its ‘tricks and cheats’, ‘follies and vices’.88

Contemporaries were quite aware that the idealized country of the pastoral tradition did not accord with the reality. A pious work of 1677 commented on ‘the misery attending the life of husbandmen’, which ‘at fi rst look seemeth sweet, happy, quiet, simple and innocent’, but, as a result of the Fall, ‘it will appear that these roses are not without their thorns and prickles’.89 In a work published in 1710 there is a frank admission of the artifi ce of the pastoral idiom, urging pastoral poets to off er their readers not ‘the misery and poverty of a country life’ but rather an ‘ideal truth’; shepherds should not be depicted ‘as mean as they are’.90 Alexander Pope thought that it was necessary to ‘use some illusion to render a pastoral delightful’ by ‘exposing the best side only of a shepherd’s life, and concealing its miseries’.91 Notes of realism break through in spite of the weight of rural idealizations. " e Surrey doctor David Irish, for example, commented in 1700 that ‘the country life is oppressed with continual labours’.92

" e experience of the countryside depended, of course, on wealth and social status. " e life of a landed gentleman was very diff erent from that of an estate worker or small farmer with its tedious toil and often poor living and working conditions. Much of the literature and art of the period simply ignored the existence of the labouring poor. Even the landscape was manipulated in order to lessen the chance of encounters with these necessary but inconvenient people; their ‘discovery’ would come later in the eighteenth century. Many accounts of country life in the period seem to ignore both its human and animal populations, except when the latter provided quarry for the chase. Without the inconvenience of labour, peace and tranquillity could be perceived as qualities that the countryside could deliver. Another song from Pills to Purge Melancholy, ‘Happy Is the Country Life’, makes its point without any reference to either humans or animals, although green fi elds, shady woods, springs and streams, ‘nature uncorrupted’, all get their due observance.93


57

Some Christians saw the countryside as a place of innocence, contentment, and quiet, best suited for religious thought and communication with God. " e Quaker William Penn thought the country more conducive to the religious life than the city: in the country ‘we see the Works of God; but in Cities little else but the Works of Men’.94 Animals themselves could be seen as evidence for the greatness of God.95 It was possible, too, to interpret animal noises as hymns of praise to the creator. ! e Book of Common Prayer, echoing Psalm 148, enjoins: ‘O all ye beasts and cattle, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever.’96 On the other hand, while birdsong might be a daily tribute to God, the sounds of beasts in the night, ‘roaring out their hideous yells’, made the writer of ! e Divine Soul in 1703 ‘sigh and mourn for the follies of a past life’.97 Evidently animal sounds could invite diff erent, and sometimes dramatic, interpretations. Many people, however, found the countryside downright dull and longed for the excitement of the city, whatever its dangers. " is point is made in a number of literary forms but comes through particularly vividly in some of the drama of the period. For example, a female character in John Crown’s ! e Country Wit asks if she ‘[s]hould ever endure a dull country clown, and a melancholy country life?’98 And the son of a landowner in John Lacy’s Sauny the Scot exclaims, ‘I am quite weary of the country life; there is that little thing the world calls quiet, but there is nothing else; clowns live and die in’t.’ 99 In " omas Shadwell’s play Epsom-Wells the character Lucinda rails against the boredom and limitations of the countryside in spite of the dangers of the town, both medical and moral.100 Similarly, a female character in " omas Baker’s Tunbridge-Walks exclaims ironically against the ‘joys of a country life’, complaining about boredom and the roughness of manners, the chore of caring for the animals, and telling another character that he should have given his daughter a town education.101

Quiet, however, was not what some people experienced in the countryside. In an earlier play by D’Urfey, a character objects to ‘your lowing of cows, bleating of sheep, and your damn’d noise of chattering rooks in the morning, that would not let one sleep’.102 In a telling work, ! e Female Critick, a woman complains about the inconveniences of country life, including the sounds of animals: ‘Towards evening I am waked with a full consort of music; a pig against the wind, or hung on a gate, strikes up a treble, an ass gravely puts in a tenor and a bull grumbles a bass.’103 " is theme of the noise of the countryside is forcefully expressed in a play by Edward Ravenscroft, ! e Italian Husband, in which diff erent views of the country and the city are expressed in songs given to emblematic characters, one of which is ‘In Derision of a Country Life. By a Court Lady and a Citizen’:

COURT LADY

Fond nymphs, from us true pleasure learn,

" ere is no music in a churn:

" e milk-maids sing beneath the cow,

" e sheep do bleat, the oxen low.

CITIZEN & COURT LADY [ following each stanza]

If these are comforts for a wife,

Defend, defend me from a country life.




COURT LADY

" e team comes home, the ploughman whistles,

" e great dog barks, the turkey-cock bristles,

" e jackdaws caw, the magpies chatter,

Quack, quack, cry the ducks, that swim in the water.

CITIZEN

" en melancholy crows the cock,

And dull is the sound of the village clock;

" e leaden hours pass slow away:

" us yawning mortals spend the day.104

Here again, themes of noise and boredom are brought together. " is background material thus gives us a sense of the cultural context for the inclusion of ‘A Charming Country Life’ in D’Urfey’s ! e Kingdom of the Birds. No doubt such sentiments went down well with an urban audience enjoying the diversions of town life and increasingly coming to see themselves as superior to their country cousins. ! e Kingdom of the Birds is structured around representations of the ‘virtues and vices’ of the court, city, and country, with diff erent parts and songs performed by ‘emblematical fi gures’. In the context of the entertainment, two everyman characters journey to a land that goes ‘by the rule of contraries’, a stage version of the popular idea of the Land of Cockaigne, or the world turned upside down. Eventually the two humans are tried for killing a bird, but they are let off because one of them has been kind to a parrot. In their travels, the human characters are subjected to various musical entertainments, sequences of songs which give the work its ‘opera’ status. One of these sequences contains ‘A Charming Country Life’, performed by ‘Innocence’. It is preceded by a song about horse-riding performed by ‘Sport’ (a song of sexual metaphor), and followed by ‘Maturity’ singing a dialogue with ‘Sport’ about male deception, in which she fi rst refuses him and then succumbs to the promise of money.105 ! e Kingdom of the Birds did not do well at the time and has not had a good critical press since. Jonathan Pritchard describes it as ‘a lengthy, expensive, spectacular failure whose third night clashed disastrously with the opening of [George] Farquhar’s ! e Recruiting Offi cer’.106

On a fairly obvious level, ‘A Charming Country Life’ creates from the sounds of the words meanings that are not strictly in the text. " us in ! e Kingdom of the Birds the way in which the words fall upon the melody places the emphasis on the fi rst syllable of the word ‘country’, so we are confronted with the fi gure of ‘Innocence’ singing what sounds like ‘a charming cunt’. We are reminded of the exchange between Ophelia and Hamlet when he speaks of ‘country matters’ and ‘a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs’. Similarly, although the hens cackle, the eff ect of the birds’ (and other animals’) presence in the farmyard is ‘here a cack, there a cack, everywhere a cack’. " e cackle of the chickens is easily reduced to ‘cack’ (equivalent to ‘shit’).107 (" e ‘cackle’ of chickens may be notionally linked to ‘cack’, in that in the fl ash tongue a ‘cackling-fart’ signifi ed an egg.108) " e fowls and humans engage in ‘woeing’, ‘wooeing’, or ‘whooing’, an orthographically ambiguous signifi er which variously denotes a signal for horses to stop,


59

the noise of an owl, the act of courting, a sound of lamentation, and perhaps a sound of female sexual enjoyment.109 " e New Academy of Complements also has ‘" ere I cram my turkey cocks’; cramming, or forced feeding, is both an indication of advancing food technology and a metaphor for sexual penetration that goes back to medieval times. " e ‘Charming Country Life’ of the early eighteenth-century stage song is quite clearly ironic: the cacophony of animals is accompanied by ideas of dirt and disorder, ‘cack(le)’, ‘gob(ble)’. " at the song is performed by a fi gure of ‘Innocence’ adds to the joke. " is is the innocence of the pastoral being held up to ridicule. One aspect of what the song achieves is something like the eff ect produced by catches popular in certain circles in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the emergence of a secondary meaning which can, in some ways, be passed off as an accident. " e strong link in English culture between animals, terms of abuse and endearment, and sexuality means that, though never explicit, one can hear (or perhaps choose not to hear) innuendo in this and many others of these songs. " is aspect of the song’s life may perhaps be thought to diminish as it goes through its transformations to emerge as the twentieth-century ‘Old MacDonald’. " e song maybe becomes more innocent (a process known in other songs), although it never loses its capacity for suggestion and for satire. " e melody of ‘A Charming Country Life’ could be described as a stately air set in a melodic minor scale. It is dangerous to speculate on the eff ects of tunes when we hear them at such a remove from their original time and cultural context, but we might at least conjecture that the song presents a sort of mock pastoral, an attractive tune wedded to words about cows ‘booing’ and turkeys gobbling. " is melody is in stark contrast to the music of ‘Old MacDonald’ in its widely known form. " is has an easily learned AABA pentatonic melodic structure, with a repeated fi ve-note A section and a B section almost entirely on one note (the tonic), which is a considerable distance from the shapely minor melody of ‘A Charming Country Life’. Nettleingham’s First World War tune is close to the modern popular tune, but not quite so starkly pentatonic.110 Such a radical musical transformation, or substitution, as occurred between the eighteenth-century and the twentieth-century tunes can be observed in many traditional songs that moved from Britain and Ireland to North America, and the process of ‘pentatonicization’ is a widely observable phenomenon. I have found no music for ‘" e Merry Green Fields of Oland’ in the 1862 Christy version, but folk song collectors have obtained versions of the song in North America. Here we can fi nd some melodic common ground between the modern version of ‘Old MacDonald’ and some versions of ‘" e Merry Green Fields’,111 and the one- or two-note B section also seems to occur in a number of variants. Otherwise, I can detect little resemblance between many of them (including Sharp’s ‘English’ version), excepting that they all seem to have a chant-like quality and serve as eff ective carriers for the words.112

" e invitation proff ered in ‘" e Merry Green Fields of Oland’, ‘Say, my bonnie lassie, will you go along with me’, may seem distinctly unattractive in view of the ‘bla’-ing sheep, grunting pigs, and gobbling turkeys. Emerging out of the growth of commercial entertainment in the mid-nineteenth century, this version can also be seen as presenting an image of the countryside to an urban audience. Partly, this is done within the context




of blackface minstrelsy. Minstrelsy as a form thrived on ridicule: of the South by the North; of the rural by the urban; and, crucially, of the black by the white.113 " at said, the strength of the song’s representation in folk song collections made in rural areas of the USA is testimony to its popularity among the very population it might be seen to ridicule. " is seems to be witness to the ways in which songs can be interpreted diff erently, and/or perhaps an indication of the pleasures of self-deprecation. " e ‘Old MacDonald’ 1920s recordings come out of the minstrel and vaudeville traditions, combining what can be interpreted as a sort of cornball humour in the presentation, with high amounts of energy. " e 1924 American Quartet recording has an instrumental accompaniment and a bit of step-dancing on the instrumental sections. As in the Sam Patterson Trio recording, honks, gobbles, and quacks are rattled through with great accuracy, but both recordings add elements of modernity to the song. Both have a Ford that rattles, while Patterson has in addition a still that drips and a wife who goes ‘gimme, gimme’ – a strong parallel with the ‘gobble, gobble’ of the turkey, since both are noises that imply consumption. In this extension to the song, the country is a place not just of noisy animals but of unreliable vehicles, illicit liquor-making, and greedy wives – not altogether an attractive place (or is it?). " is is not the fi rst time that the non-animal world ‘intruded’ into the song family. ‘A Charming Country Life’ has two stanzas about lovers and their wooing. " ese two stanzas are slight modifi cations of the same verbal material, perhaps even a fi rst and second draft that have both got into print. " e wooing lovers fi ll out the same pattern as the animals, and the wooing is somehow ‘equivalent’ to an animal’s noise-making, a point reinforced by the owl which makes a sound written down as ‘whoo’. It is noteworthy that Christy’s nineteenth-century version of ‘" e Merry Green Fields’ sticks to the world of noisy animals and does not stray into what humans might do in the farmyard. " us the song tradition can incorporate stanzas about animals alone; stanzas about animals and humans; and stanzas about animals, humans, and human accoutrements. To confl ate the animal and human worlds is in some ways an act of transgression, a mixing of categories that creates an anomaly or a problem and raises questions as to what exactly the equivalences are. It is interesting that recent children’s book versions of the song tend to stick to enumerating members of the animal world alone, thus presenting the mythical country as an unproblematic place to a largely urban juvenile readership.

Parody, Transformation, and Translation

Minimal creativity is required to participate in the ‘Old MacDonald’ game. " e form of the song is, in technical terms, highly redundant.114 You need just one idea, consisting of two words, an animal (or substitute) and its noise, and you have a new stanza of the song. Put the whole thing in a diff erent frame from the farmyard and you have a parody. Parody is itself an index of the popularity of any song, so it is not surprising that ‘Old MacDonald’ has been very widely parodied. ‘A Charming Country Life’ was parodied in the eighteenth century, apparently by " omas D’Urfey himself, under the title ‘A Mock Song to, “In the Fields”, &c. See the Tune, Page 237’, in the same volume of Pills to Purge Melancholy.115 What is understated in the original song is made manifest in the parody:


61

In the barn on a straw bed,

Watching late and early:

" ere I got her maiden-head,

" ere I got it fairly:

With roving here, roving there,

Here a rove, there a rove, ev’ry where a rove,

Oh how free from care and strife,

Was the charming country life.

Repeated sexual activity leads to the woman’s pregnancy and then her life is no longer ‘free from care and strife’:

But alas it was not so,

In that morning early;

When she came to let me know,

She found her self but queerly:

Qualmish here, qualmish there,

Here a qualm, there a qualm, ev’ry where a qualm,

Oh how full of care and strife,

Was then the country life.

And her pregnant state is not without consequences for her lover too:

For her mother an old trot,

Watching late and early;

Catch’d me at her – you know what,

And paid me for’t severely:

With rogueship here, rogueship there,

Here a rogue, there a rogue, ev’ry where a rogue,

Oh how full of care and strife,

Was then the country life.

He escapes, however, to ‘the Charming London Life’ and drowns his sorrows in wine. What was alluded to and hinted at in ‘A Charming Country Life’ is rammed home in this unsubtle derivative song. " e explicit quality of the ‘Mock Song’ does, however, serve to make the implications of the original that much clearer. I have not discovered any other early parodies of the song family, but later ones abound. In the following version, collected by Vance Randolph in the Ozarks in 1922, the focus of the song has shifted from listing animals to enumerating an individual animal’s body parts:

Old Missouri had a mule, he-hi-he-hi-ho,

And on this mule there were two ears, he-hi-he-hi-ho.

With a fl ip-fl op here, and a fl ip-fl op there,

And here a fl op and there a fl op and everywhere a fl ip-fl op,

Old Missouri had a mule, he-hi-he-hi-ho.116




" is obviously derives from the ‘Old MacDonald’ model, and predates the earliest recording that I know of. " e internet provides numerous examples of ‘Old MacDonald’ parodies, often made up for the use of in-groups (for example, sports fans). " ey rarely seem funny to me, but to members of the in-group they may well be both meaningful and hilarious. Like skits and jokes, they are sometimes used to raise issues or tensions that are perhaps diffi cult to voice in more direct ways, and ‘Old MacDonald’ provides an easily accessible vehicle. Here is an example of a parody from the skeleton puppet character Old Ded Bob, which probably works in the performance context:

Old Ded Bob had a dysfunctional farm

(E-I, E-I, O)

And on this farm he had a dyslexic cow

(E-I, E-I, O)

With an ‘oom-oom’ here and an ‘oom-oom’ there

Here an ‘oom’, there an ‘oom’

Everywhere an ‘oom-oom’

Old Ded Bob had a dysfunctional farm

(E-I, E-I, O).117

" e song has been Christianized on a number of occasions: for example, as ‘Father Noah Got an Ark’,118 and as a ‘sharable parable’.119 As ‘Old MacDonald Had a Band’, the song enumerates musical instruments rather than animals, allowing for imitations of their sounds.120 Recently written children’s songs take elements of ‘Old MacDonald’ and work them in new ways. Here, for example, is a stanza from ‘Turkey Talk’, an eff ective piece with lyrics by Cherry Carl and tune by Lucy Jensen:

What do you say, Mr. Turkey? What do you say today?

Gibble-gobble this, and Gibble-gobble that,

Gibble-gobble all the day! See my ‘turkey-walk’;

Hear my ‘turkey-talk’; but don’t catch me, I pray!121

Many of the parodies have picked up on the farm aspect of the song. In 1939 a strike of cotton workers produced a strike song, ‘Associated Farmers Have a Farm’.122 As ‘Old MacDonald’ deals with animal–human relations, I thought there must be vegetarian or animal rights versions or parodies of the song. Indeed, they were not diffi cult to fi nd, and you can even get this one on a T-shirt:

Old MacDonald forced to sell, e-i-e-i-o

Corporate greed is in our feed, e-i-e-i-o

With a lie-lie here, and a lie-lie there

Here a lie, there a lie

Everywhere a lie-lie

Old MacDonald forced to sell, e-i-e-i-o

FACTORY FARMING: the Earth’s HELL, e-i-e-i-o.123


63

During the row over MPs’ expenses that engulfed Britain in 2009, the publisher and poet Felix Dennis produced a satirical piece entitled ‘Ordure on the Farm’ modelled on ‘Old MacDonald’.124

Because of the easily recognizable patterned structure of its verse form, there is pleasure to be derived from translating ‘Old MacDonald’ into languages other than English. Erudite arguments exist on the internet about the precise grammar of a Latin version.125 Translations into obscure and strange-sounding languages are prized by some people. I fi nd the song very satisfying in Brazilian Portuguese:

O seu McDonald tinha um sitio, iaiao

e neste sitio ele tinha um cachorrinho, iaiao

era ‘au au’ pra ca, ‘au au’ pra la, iaiao

neste sitio ele tinha uma vaquinha, iaiao

era ‘Mu’ pra ca, ‘Mu’ pra la, iaiao.126

" is overview gives the merest taste of the ubiquity of the song and the parodies that have been made from it; the reader will be able to fi nd many more examples.

Conclusion

For a popular song to have a life of more than three centuries, albeit in a changing form, is remarkable, if not unique. " e song, in its various forms, achieves a number of things. It is an ‘open’ text, allowing for various and variable interpretations. It licenses humans to make animal noises, thus achieving a sort of carnivalesque interlude within the confi nes of a song performance. It can function as an urban satire on country life, and perhaps latterly as a nostalgic (and false) memory of the thing that was once satirized. In juxtaposing a farmer and his animals, it raises signifi cant questions about humans and the natural world. It is a song that plays with sexual and scatological innuendo, but does so in a way that is there if you choose to hear it but can be ignored if you do not. It provides a framework for parody and translation with minimal creativity; its repetitious and cumulative form makes it a useful vehicle for the teaching of reading, pattern, and memorization in young children; it has formed the basis for the work of numerous illustrators and cartoonists; and in recorded, visual, and songbook form it has a thriving life today. It is even considered worthy of representing British culture to the world in an animated version on a British Council website.127 In the twenty-fi rst century it provides an image of rural life, something with which only a tiny proportion of people in the developed world have any contact. None of these observations provides a suffi cient reason for the immense success of the song while its relatives have withered or died. A social Darwinist type of explanation, that it was somehow the fi ttest song of the bunch, will only take us so far. More persuasive to me is the idea that, almost accidentally, it was the right song, in the right place, at the right time. Crucially, in terms of its modern popularity, this was the 1920s during the vaudeville and hillbilly recording boom in the USA. " is provided a fi rm foundation and reference point for the song’s future use, which, in the early twenty-fi rst century, seems unstoppable. Its popularity shows no sign of abatement and may well be increasing.128




So why does this song seem unstoppable? I think publication data give a strong indication. ‘Old MacDonald’ has become a major way in which adults interact with young children, whether directly or mediated through the use of recordings and illustrated books. Because of this, I am inclined to the view that, at least as far as the English-speaking world is concerned, there has never been a more widely known song than ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’. " at is, at least, a reasonable hypothesis. One editorial comment on an earlier version of this paper read, ‘it is only ubiquitous in the adult world because everyone learns it as children’; and another added, ‘nearly every English-speaking child has heard it/sung it before they learned to read’. " is is the prime reason for its popularity, but there are other important observations to make. In the history of our use of the song family, its transformations, and interpretations, we can see that the song performs diff erently – at times risqué, satirical, playful, nostalgic. In an increasingly urbanized, agriculturally industrialized, and polluted world, the song provides an imaginative link to a rural past and experience that can hardly now exist – if it ever did. " e human scale of ‘Old MacDonald’ contrasts markedly with the reality of modern industrial agriculture.129 ‘Old MacDonald’s old-fashioned, peaceful farm is ancient history’, declares a website off ering a ‘vegetarian starter kit’.130 I am not sure that the farm ever was that peaceful, but the issues the song and its popularity raise are complex and intriguing. Studies of popular music, and music in general, rightly stress important changes that take place in forms and genres. But such signifi cant changes should not obscure the strong and resilient continuities that can still underlie surface appearances of change. A key question is ‘why the survival survives?’131 " e amazing success of the ‘Old MacDonald’ family of simple songs, their ability to be of use in very diff erent historical times and circumstances, is impressive.


65

Notes

1 <http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/radio/> [accessed 10 May 2010] lists ‘Old MacDonald’ as one

of the ‘recordings which were most popularly requested by the young listeners’.2 [" omas D’Urfey], Wit and Mirth; or, Pills to Purge Melancholy, being a collection of the best merry ballads and songs, old and new, 6 vols (London, 1719–20; repr. New York: Folklore Library,

1959), II, 214–16. 3 Ed Cray, ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’, Western Folklore, 24 (1965), 200; Vance Randolph,

Ozark Folksongs, rev. edn, 4 vols (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1980), III, 211.4 See, for example, James J. Fuld, ! e Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk (New York: Dover, 2000), pp. 410–12; Roger Lax and Frederick Smith, ! e Great Song ! esaurus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 339; William Emmett Studwell, ! e Americana Song Reader (Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, 1997), p. 133; <http://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Old_MacDonald> [accessed 10 May 2010]. " is essay has also benefi ted greatly from

the insightful, though anonymous, comments of members of the FMJ Editorial Board; I thank

them collectively as I cannot do so individually. It has also been facilitated by the continued

unstinting support and help of the staff of the VWML: Malcolm Taylor, Elaine Bradke, and

Peta Webb. 5 " ere is a danger in undertaking the sort of study that follows of creating the impression that

the song family has some inherent power, some momentum or essence, that makes it successful.

" e durability and adaptability of the song family is impressive, but it should always be

remembered that it is because humans have found it usable, as a way of expressing and exploring

human sensibilities and relationships, that the song has been a success. It is human beings who are

active agents, not songs, though all cultural artefacts have some power to shape and circumscribe

human culture. 6 " omas D’Urfey, Wonders in the Sun; or, ! e Kingdom of the Birds, a comick opera (London,

1706), pp. 50–51. " e music in the original does not have textual underlay and I have followed

the slurs as a guide to the setting of the words. Text from [Henry Playford], Wit and Mirth; or, Pills to Purge Melancholy, being a collection of the best merry ballads and songs, old and new,

[2nd edn], 4 vols (London, 1707–09), III, 237–39 (original orthography retained). " ere are

some very minor textual variations between the words in Pills to Purge Melancholy and the three

stanzas given in ! e Kingdom of the Birds.7 Charles Burney, A General History of Music, 4 vols (London, 1776–89), IV, 202.8 See, for example, [Playford], Wit and Mirth; or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1707–09), III,

237–39 (with music); [" omas] D’Urfey, Songs Compleat, Pleasant and Divertive, set to Musick by Dr. John Blow, Mr. Henry Purcell, and other excellent masters (London, 1719),

pp. 214–16 (with music); [D’Urfey], Wit and Mirth: or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719–20),

II, 214–16; William Pinkethman, Pinkethman’s Jests; or, Wit Refi n’d, being a New-Year’s gift for young gentlemen and ladies (London, 1735), pp. 77–79; ! e Vocal Miscellany, a collection of above four hundred celebrated songs (London, 1738), pp. 171–73; ! e Aviary; or, Magazine of British Melody, consisting of a collection of one thousand three hundred and forty four songs (London, [1745?]), pp. 283–84; Orpheus, a collection of one thousand nine hundred seventy four of the most celebrated English and Scotch songs ([London], 1749), pp. 165–66; ! e Merry Man’s Companion and Evening’s Agreeable Entertainer, containing near six hundred of the very best and




most favourite songs, catches, airs, &c. now in vogue (London, 1750), pp. 206–08; Vocal Melody; or, ! e Songster’s Magazine, in three parts, being a collection of two thousand of the most celebrated English and Scotch songs (London, 1751), pp. 165–66; ! e Aviary; or, Magazine of British Melody, consisting of a collection of one thousand fi ve hundred songs (London, [1765?]), pp. 270–71;

! e Busy Bee; or, Vocal Repository, being a selection of the most favourite songs, &c. contained in the English operas (London, [1790?]), pp. 256–68.9 A New Academy of Complements [sic]; or ! e Lover’s Secratary [sic] (London, 1715),

pp. 141–42.10 A New Academy of Complements; or, ! e Lover’s Secretary (London, 1727), pp. 138–39; (1734),

pp. 128–29; (1741), pp. 128–29; (1754), pp. 128–29; (1784), pp. 128–29. See also Henry

Scougal, A New Academy of Compliments; or ! e Compleat English Secretary (London, 1748),

pp. 111–12; (Glasgow, 1789), pp. 93–95.11 ! e Charmer: A Choice Collection of Songs, English and Scots (Edinburgh, 1749), pp. 263–65.12 " is may be a result of the sources I have been able to explore, but the silence does seem

palpable. Nevertheless, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and I would be very happy

if any ‘missing links’ were to be found.13 Worcester, MA, American Antiquarian Society, American Broadsides and Ephemera, 1st ser.,

1760–1900, no. 637: ! e Gobble Family; or, My Grandfather’s Farm Yard, a quartette composed and arranged by Prof. Kirbye and sung nightly with immense applause, at all the popular concerts ([Philadelphia?: A. W. Auner?, 1857–61?]). For further information, see <http://catalog.mbln.

org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=1241V61PQ6695.15692&profi le=bpl1&uri=full=3100001~!3019

943~!0&menu=search&submenu=basic&source=~!horizon> [accessed 10 May 2010].14 Geo’ Christy’s Essence of Old Kentucky (New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1862), pp. 31–32. 15 Christy’s Bones and Banjo Melodist, being a collection of the most popular fashionable patriotic Ethiopian comic and humorous songs, speeches, etc. sung and delivered by the world renowned Christy’s Minstrels (New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1864), p. 30.16 See, for example, Tony Pastor, Tony Pastor’s Book of Six Hundred Comic Songs and Speeches, being an entire collection of the humorous songs, stump speeches, burlesque orations and funny dialogues, as sung and given (New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1867), p. 6; Canteen Songster: A Collection of the Most Popular Songs of the Day (Philadelphia: Simpson, 1866), p. 122

(advertisement); Dick Martz, Dick Martz’s Sensational Songster, containing the latest and all of the most popular songs and ballads as sung in theaters and concertrooms throughout the united states and Great Britain (New York: Ornum, 1871), p. 17; American Song Sheets, Slip Ballads & Poetical Broadsides 1850–1870: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia, ed. by Edwin Wolf (Philadelphia: Library Company of Philadelphia, 1963),

p. 51; Horatio William Parker, The Progressive Music Series (Boston: Silver, Burdett, 1914),

p. 28; Walter Taylor Field, The Field Primer (Boston and New York: Ginn, 1921), pp. 71–

73; Thomas Boyd, The Dark Cloud (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1925), p. 107; Kenneth

Wiggins Porter, ‘Children’s Songs and Rhymes of the Porter Family: Robert Porter,

1828–1910; Ellis K. Porter, 1860–1936’, Journal of American Folklore, 54 (1941), 167–75

(p. 171). 17 American Antiquarian Society, ! e Gobble Family. 18 Geo’ Christy’s Essence of Old Kentucky, pp. 31–32.19 Louise Pound, American Ballads and Songs (New York: Scribner, 1922), pp. 238–40.


67

20 John A. Rayner, ! e First Century of Piqua, Ohio (Piqua, OH: Magee Bros, 1916), p. 197; Christy’s Bones and Banjo Melodist, p. 30.21 Walter Taylor Field and Nell R. Farmer, A Teachers’ Manual for the First Year of School to accompany " e Field Primer and Field First Reader (Boston and New York: Ginn, 1922).22 Randolph, III, 211–12.23 Folk Songs from North Carolina, ed. by Henry M. Belden and Arthur Palmer Hudson,

vol. 3 of ! e Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, gen. ed. Newman Ivey

White (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1952), p. 175; Folksongs of Britain and Ireland: A Guidebook to the Living Tradition of Folksinging in the British Isles and Ireland, ed. by

Peter Kennedy (London: Cassell, 1975), p. 683.24 Library of Congress Copyright Offi ce, Catalog of Copyright Entries (Washington, DC: Library

of Congress, 1941), p. 480. 25 Boyd, p. 107.26 Porter, p. 171. 27 Cecil Sharp’s Collection of English Folk Songs, ed. by Maud Karpeles, 2 vols (London:

Oxford University Press, 1974), II, 425–26.28 Parker, p. 28.29 Mary Anderson, A Few Memories (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1896), p. 15.30 [Laura M., Game Songs and Rhymes] <http://lcweb2.loc.gov/wpa/25060611.html> [accessed

10 May 2010].31 ‘Down in the Land of Greeno’, Folk-Song from Gloucestershire, collected and arranged by H.

Hurlbutt Albino (London: Curwen, 1932) [sheet music].32 <http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfl d/20/farm.htm> [accessed 10 May 2010].33 Folksongs of Britain and Ireland, p. 683.34 Folksongs of Britain and Ireland, p. 683.35 [Laura M., Game Songs and Rhymes].36 Anderson, pp. 15–16.37 Mardo Williams, Maude (1883–1993): She Grew Up with the Country (New York:

Calliope Press, 1996).38 ! e Era, 30 May 1880 (issue 2175); 11 July 1880 (issue 2181).39 Sporting Times, 11 October 1890 (issue 1412); Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 5 October 1890

(issue 2498), p. 1; ! e Era, 11 October 1890 (issue 2716), p. 9; ! e Era, 17 September 1892

(issue 2817), p. 7. 40 ! e Era, 25 January 1896 (issue 2992), p. 18.41 Cecil Sharp’s Collection, II, 425–26.42 Folksongs of Britain and Ireland, p. 668. See also Patrick O’Shaughnessy, Late Leaves from Lincolnshire: Folk-Songs Still in Oral Tradition ! ere (Lincoln: Lincolnshire & Humberside Arts,

1980), pp. 6–7; An East Riding Songster, ed. by Steve Gardham (Lincoln & Hull: Lincolnshire

and Humberside Arts, 1982), p. 17.43 F. T. Nettleingham, Tommy’s Tunes (London: Erskine Macdonald, 1917), pp. 84–85.

" e music in the original does not have textual underlay and I have interpreted the piano

accompaniment to produce the melody.44 <http://www.archive.org/details/OldMacdonaldHadAFarmByAmericanQuartet1924>

[accessed 11 May 2010].




45 <http://www.archive.org/details/AmericanQuartet> [accessed 11 May 2010].46 Sam Patterson Trio, ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’, 78-rpm record (Edison 51644, 1925).

(I am not clear exactly who Sam Patterson is; he may be the black performer, a friend of Louis

Chauvin.)47 Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers, ‘Old McDonald Had a Farm’, 78-rpm record (Columbia

15204-D, 1927). See Ivan M. Tribe, Mountaineer Jamboree: Country Music in West Virginia

(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996), pp. 20, 25; and Tony Russell, Country Music Originals: ! e Legends and the Lost (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), particularly

pp. 31–39, for background on Gid Tanner. Gid Tanner made other recordings which portrayed

rural life in the American South. ‘Hog Killing Day’, for example, is a graphic re-enactment of

a necessary but bloody part of country life, interspersed with lively instrumental string band

numbers, recorded on a 78-rpm record (Columbia 15204-D, 1927), and reissued on ! e Skillet Lickers: Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, vol. 2, 1927–1928, CD (Document

DOCD-8057, 2001).48 Warren Caplinger’s Cumberland Mountain Entertainers, ‘McDonald’s Farm’, 78-rpm record

(Brunswick 294, 1929; Brunswick [Canada] 224, c.1933); <http://www.juneberry78s.com/

otmsampler/otmsampta.html> [accessed 11 May 2010].49 Spike Jones and his City Slickers, People Are Funnier than Anybody!!!!!!!!!, CD (Avid

Entertainment CD 5022810163121, 1998).50 Billboard, 30 March 1968, p. 72.51 Information from Washington, DC, Library of Congress catalogue <http://catalog.loc.gov/>

[accessed 11 May 2010].52 Ray Horak, Webster’s New World Telecom Dictionary (Cleveland, OH: Webster’s New World,

2007), p. 163.53 David Halberstam and Reporters of the Associated Press, Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered War, Peace, and Everything Else (New York: Princeton Architectural Press,

2007), pp. 18–19.54 Bruce Bower, ‘Monkeys May Tune in to Basic Melodies’, Science News, 158.12 (2000),

p. 180.55 Roger deV. Renwick, Recentering Anglo/American Folksong: Sea Crabs and Wicked Youths (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2001), pp. 59–91.56 M. H. Mason, Nursery Rhymes & Country Songs (London: Metzler, 1909), p. 25; Lucy

Broadwood and J. A. Fuller Maitland, English County Songs (London: Cramer, 1893), p. 28. 57 Broadwood and Fuller Maitland, p. 28. 58 ! e Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, ed. by Iona and Peter Opie (Oxford: Oxford

University Press 1951), p. 130; London, EFDSS Archives, Janet H. Blunt Collection, JHB/2/10,

JHB7/10.59 Nettleingham, p. 61.60 See, for example, Broadwood and Fuller Maitland, pp. 44–55; and discussion and texts

in Ed Cray, American Bawdy Songs (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992),

pp. 23–28.61 See ! e Everlasting Circle: English Traditional Verse, from the manuscripts of S. Baring-Gould, H. E. D. Hammond and George B. Gardiner, ed. James Reeves (London: Heinemann, 1960), pp.

101–04, for a selection of texts.


69

62 For an interesting popular history of the song, see Arnold Kellett, On Ilkla Mooar baht ’At: ! e Story of the Song (Otley: Smith Settle, 1998).63 " is song gained its widespread popularity from a 1947 recording by Burl Ives. It is ascribed

to two writers, Rose Bonne and Alan Mills. It nevertheless fi ts perfectly within the traditional

catalogue song genre.64 See, for example, Mason, p. 16; Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, pp. 163–65; Renwick,

pp. 70–71.65 See, for example, Folk-Songs of the Upper ! ames, ed. by Alfred Williams (London: Duckworth,

1923), pp. 179–80.66 Heard orally from the singing of Ron Spicer; and see Traditional Tunes: A Collection of Ballad Airs, ed. by Frank Kidson (Oxford: Taphouse, 1891), pp. 71–72, for a less complete version.67 London, EFDSS Archives, George Gardiner Collection, GG/1/9/497. For a broadside version,

see Oxford, Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads, Firth b.25(318).68 ‘Nurse Lovechild’, Tommy ! umb’s Song-Book (Glasgow: J. Lumsden & Son, 1815), passim.69 Chippenham, Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, WSRO: 2598/36, Packet 5 –

Miscellaneous: Williams, A: MS Collection, no. Mi 594 <http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/

community/getfolk.php?id=341> [accessed 11 May 2010].70 Folk-Songs of the Upper ! ames, pp. 284–85; Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre,

WSRO: 2598/36 Packet 2 – Oxfordshire: Williams, A: MS collection no. Ox 202

<http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getfolk.php?id=596> [accessed 11 May 2010].

A note in the manuscript states: ‘" e chorus was amended from the following format:

Henny went chick-a-chack,

Cocky went cock-a-te-too

Each animal was given the following diminutives: Ducky, Goosey, Doggy, Piggy, Sheepy, Cowy

and its associated noise was, where there are variations: swish-a-swash, grunt-a-grunt.’71 " e pioneering work on carnival is Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World (Bloomington:

Indiana University Press, 1984). 72 Terry Castle, Masquerade and Civilization: ! e Carnivalesque in Eighteenth-Century English Culture and Fiction (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1986), pp. 21–23, 75–78,

and passim (quotation from p. 22); E. C. Cawte, Ritual Animal Disguise: A Historical and Geographical Study of Animal Disguise in the British Isles (London: D. S. Brewer for the

Folklore Society, 1978).73 George Frampton, ‘“… and they calls I Buttercup Joe”: Albert Richardson, the Singing Sexton

of Burwash, 1905–76’, FMJ, 9.2 (2007), 149–69; ‘" e Old Sow’ has been reissued on First I’m going to sing you a ditty: Rural Fun & Frolics, " e Voice of the People, ed. by Reg Hall, vol. 7,

CD (Topic TSCD 657, 1998), track 25. 74 Edmund R. Leach, ‘Anthropological Aspects of Language: Animal Categories and Verbal

Abuse’, in New Directions in the Study of Language, ed. by Eric H. Lenneberg (Cambridge, MA:

MIT Press, 1964), pp. 23–63.75 Peter Stallybrass and Allon White, ! e Politics and Poetics of Transgression (London: Methuen,

1986), p. 45.76 See N[athan] Bailey, ! e New Universal English Dictionary […] to which is added, a dictionary of cant words, 4th edn (London, 1759), ‘fox’.77 Claude Lévi-Strauss, Totemism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), p. 89, and passim.




78 Robert Chambers, Popular Rhymes of Scotland (London and Edinburgh: W & R. Chambers,

1870), p. 32. See also Folk-Songs of the Upper ! ames, pp. 284–85.79 Oxford English Dictionary ([Oxford]: Oxford University Press) <http://dictionary.oed.com/>

[accessed 11 May 2010].80 For example, the traditional song ‘Hares on the Mountain’ (Roud 329); and the historic

use of the term ‘cock and hen club’ in ! e Autobiography of Francis Place (1771–1854), ed. by Mary " rale (London: Cambridge University Press, 1972), p. 77.81 Keith " omas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500–1800

(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984), p. 300. 82 Robert W. Malcolmson, Popular Recreations in English Society 1700–1850 (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 45–51, 118–38, and passim; Jordan Curnutt, Animals and the Law: A Sourcebook (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2001). 83 Raymond Williams, ! e Country and the City (St Albans: Paladin, 1975), explores these

tensions in a very illuminating way.84 John Dryden, Fables Ancient and Modern Translated into Verse from Homer, Ovid, Boccace, & Chaucer, with Original Poems (London, 1700), p. 93.85 Katherine Philips, Poems by the Incomparable Mrs. K.P. (London, 1664), p. 177.86 John Flavel, ! e Whole Works of the Reverend Mr John Flavel (London, 1701), p. 6.87 ! e Country Innocence; or, ! e Shepherds Enjoyment, a new pastoral at the theatre, to a pleasant new tune (London, 1680). 88 ! e Country Gentleman’s Vade Mecum (London, 1699), title page.89 Heraclitus Christianus; or, ! e Man of Sorrow, being a refl ection on all states and conditions of human life (London, 1677), p. 67.90 Abbot Fraguier, ‘An Extract of a Dissertation Concerning Pastoral Poetry’, in Memoirs of Literature […] for the years MDCCX and MDCCXI (London, 1710), p. 44.91 ! e Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (London, 1717), pp. 5–6, quoted in Williams, ! e Country and the City, p. 30.92 David Irish, Levamen Infi rmi; or, Cordial Counsel to the Sick and Diseased (London, 1700),

p. 122.93 [Playford], Wit and Mirth; or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1707–09), II, 254. 94 William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude in Refl ections and Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Human Life (London, 1693), p. 62.95 Edward Topsell, ! e Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes (London, 1607), title page.96 Echoed in William Lux, Poems on Several Occasions (Oxford, 1719), p. 3.97 ! e Divine Soul; or, ! e Christian’s Guide, amidst the various opinions of a vain world (London,

1703), pp. 390–91.98 [John] Crowne, ! e Country Wit: A Comedy, acted at the Duke’s ! eatre (London, 1727), p. 16.99 John Lacy, Sauny the Scot; or, ! e Taming of the Shrew: A Comedy, as it is now acted at the ! eatre-Royal (London, 1698), p. 1.100 " omas Shadwell, Epsom-Wells: A Comedy, acted at the Duke’s ! eatre (London, 1673),

pp. 19–20.101 " omas Baker, Tunbridge-Walks; or, ! e Yeoman of Kent: A Comedy, as it is acted at the ! eatre Royal by Her Majesty’s Servants (London, 1703), p. 23.102 " omas D’Urfey, A Fool’s Preferment; or, ! e Dukes of Dunstable (London, 1688), p. 7.


71

103 S. M., ! e Female Critick; or, Letters in Drollery from Ladies to their Humble Servants (London,

1701), p. 27.104 Edward Ravenscroft, ! e Italian Husband: A Tragedy, acted at the theatre in Lincolns-Inn-Fields (London, 1698), p. 5. 105 D’Urfey, Wonders in the Sun; or, ! e Kingdom of the Birds, pp. 48–53. 106 Jonathan Pritchard, ‘D’Urfey, " omas (1653?–1723)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ([Oxford]: Oxford University Press, 2004) <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/

article/8313> [accessed 11 May 2010].107 Some authorities think this to be a fairly late word in English, but contemporary dictionaries

show this to be incorrect. See Robert Ainsworth, An Abridgement of Ainsworth’s Dictionary of the Latin Tongue […] by Mr. ! omas (London, 1758), ‘cack’; F. [Ferdinando] Altieri, Dizionario italiano ed inglese (London, 1749), ‘cacca’, ‘cack, as children say when they want to shite’. It is

not improbable that ‘cack’ and ‘cackle’ are etymologically related; see John Ash, ! e New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language (London, 1795).108 B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew in its several tribes of gypsies, beggers [sic], thieves, cheats &c. (London, 1699), ‘cackling-farts’. 109 Pills to Purge Melancholy (1707–09) has ‘woe’ and ‘woeing’; Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719–20) Pills and D’Urfey’s Songs Compleat (1719) have ‘wooe’ and ‘wooeing’; all have ‘whoo’. 110 Nettleingham, p. 81. 111 For example, Randolph, III, 211.112 Comparative examples can be found in ! e Music of the Folk Songs, ed. by Jan Philip Schinhan,

vol. 5 of ! e Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, gen. ed. Newman Ivey White

(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1962), pp. 103–06. " e version on p. 105 seems to be

related to ‘Yankee Doodle’. 113 Minstrelsy has an extensive literature. I fi nd the following particularly helpful: Eric Lott,

Love and ! eft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1995); Inside the Minstrel Mask: Readings in Nineteenth-Century Blackface Minstrelsy, ed. by Annemarie Bean, James Vernon Hatch, and Brooks McNamara (Hanover,

NH, and London: Wesleyan University Press, 1996); Michael Pickering, Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008). 114 For the idea of redundancy in song, see Renwick, pp. 81–82; Alan Lomax, Folk Song Style and Culture (Edison, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1978), especially pp. 3–29. 115 [Playford], Wit and Mirth; or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1707–09), III, 327–28.116 Randolph, III, 212–13.117 <http://www.dedbob.com/lyrics.htm> [accessed 11 May 2010]. (For background, see

<http://www.dedbob.com/main.htm> [accessed 11 May 2010]).118 Anna Laura Page and Jean Anne Shaff erman, My First Bible Songs: 12 Traditional Fun Songs, with new sacred lyrics & activities for young children (Van Nuys, CA: Alfred Publishing, 2003),

p. 2.119 Steven James, Sharable Parables: Creative Storytelling Ideas for Ages 3–12 (Cincinnati: Standard

Publishing, 2005), p. 25. 120 Judy Nichols and Lori D. Sears, Storytimes for Two-Year-Olds (Chicago: ALA Editions, 2007),

p. 147. " e song has been used in teaching music technology; see Amy M. Burns, Technology Integration in the Elementary Music Classroom (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 2008), p. 19.




121 <http://www.carlscorner.us.com/Animals/turkeytalk.pdf> [accessed 14 July 2010].122 Voices from the Dust Bowl: ! e Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection 1940–1941 <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tshome.html> [accessed 11 May 2010].123 <http://web.archive.org/web/20070128210104/http://www.cafepress .com/

veganofl ight/795140> [accessed 14 July 2010]. See also <http://www.mercyforanimals.org/Old-

MacDonald-Commercial.asp> [accessed 11 May 2010].124 Guardian, 2 July 2009, p. 29; reproduced at <http://www.felixdennis.com/poemaday.

php?DateID=2009-02-14> [accessed 11 May 2010].125 See <http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=48286> and <http://www.minimus-etc.

co.uk/SupportSheets/supportsheet6MacDonald.pdf> [accessed 11 May 2010]. 126 <http://ms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_McDonald_Had_a_Farm#Brazil_.28Portugis.29>

[accessed 15 July 2010]. " anks to " ereza Webster of Newcastle University, a native speaker,

for checking this for me. 127 <http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-songs-old-macdonald.htm> [accessed 11 May 2010].128 A rough index of the song’s increasing popularity can be constructed by counting, by decades,

the number of publications that the catalogues of the British Library and the Library of Congress

list when a search is made using the term ‘Old MacDonald’. " is analysis produces a striking

increase in references, but it is a statistically crude indication because, for example, no account is

taken of the expansion of the print and recording markets over the period, or of improvements

in indexing techniques. Such a search also includes titles that trade off the ‘Old MacDonald’ idea

but are neither song publications nor recordings, although they are nonetheless indicative of the

song’s cultural penetration. " e usefulness of the exercise, however, must be judged against the

idea that many cultural artefacts that emerged in the inter-war period have now sunk without

trace. " is information is derived from online catalogue searches at the Library of Congress

<http://catalog.loc.gov/> and the British Library <http://catalogue.bl.uk/> [both accessed

19 October 2009].129 Harvey Blatt, America’s Food: What You Don’t Know about What You Eat (Cambridge,

MA: MIT Press, 2008). For an invocation of the song in this context, see C. David Coats,

Old Macdonald’s Factory Farm (London: Continuum, 1989). 130 <http://www.vegkids.com/factory.asp> [accessed 11 May 2010].131 Pierre Bourdieu and Jean Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture (London: Sage, 1990), p. 149.


Farmyard Cacophonies: Three Centuries of a Popular Song

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