"The Cuckoo" (Roud 413) is a traditional English folk song, also sung in the United States, Canada, Scotland and Ireland. The song is known by many names, including "The Coo-Coo", "The Coo-Coo Bird", "The Cuckoo Bird", "The Cuckoo Is a Pretty Bird", "The Evening Meeting", "The Unconstant Lover", "Bunclody" and "Going to Georgia". In the United States, the song is sometimes syncretized with the other traditional folk song "Jack of Diamonds". Lyrics usually include the line (or a slight variation): "The cuckoo is a pretty bird, she sings as she flies; she brings us glad tidings, and she tells us no lies."
According to Thomas Goldsmith of The Raleigh News & Observer, "The Cuckoo" is an interior monologue where the singer "relates his desires — to gamble, to win, to regain love's affection."
The song is featured in the E.L. Doctorow book The March. A soldier suffering from a metal spike stuck in his head sings verses from the song.
Synopsis Usually, but not always, the song begins with a verse about the cuckoo, for example:
The cuckoo is a fine bird he sings as he flies,He brings us good tidings and tells us no lies.He sucks the sweet flowers to make his voice clear,And the more he cries cuckoo, the summer is nigh.
(In many American versions, the cuckoo patriotically "never sings 'cuckoo' till the fourth of July". In some ornithologically observant English versions "she sucks little birds' eggs to make her voice clear.")
A young woman (usually - sometimes a young man) complains of the inconstancy of young men (or women) and the pain of losing in love. The song often consists mainly of "floating" verses (verses found in more than one song expressing common experiences and emotions), and apart from the constant cuckoo verse, usually sung at the beginning, there is no fixed order, though sometimes a verse sounds as if it is going to be the start of a story: A-walking, a-talking, a-walking was I,To meet my true lover, he'll come by and by,To meet him in the meadows is all my delight,A-walking and talking from morning till night. but then: O, meeting is a pleasure and parting is a grief,An unconstant lover is worse than a thief,A thief can but rob you and take all you have,An unconstant lover will bring you to the grave.
Often there is a cautionary moral: Come all pretty maidens wherever you be,Don't trust in young soldiers to any degree,They will kiss you and court you, poor girls to deceive,There's not one in twenty poor girls can believe.
Or a more symbolic warning, here in a Mississippi version: Come all you fair maidens take warning of me,Don't place your affections on a sycamore tree,For the top it will wither, and the roots they will die,And if I'm forsaken, I know not for why.
Bunclody An Irish song, this uses a similar tune and starts with verses extolling the beauty of Bunclody, a town in Co. Wexford. The third verse is the standard "Cuckoo is a pretty bird" and after an adapted floating verse: If I were a clerkAnd I could write a good handI would write to my true loveSo that she'd understandThat I am a young fellowWho is wounded in loveOnce I lived in Buncloudy [sic]But now must remove.
The song ends in a sad verse about emigration. There is a recording of this song by Luke Kelly of The Dubliners.
Note on the Cuckoo The cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) was until recent times a common visitor to the English countryside in spring and early summer, and its distinctive call was considered the first sign of spring. It is a nest parasite, and the female really does eat an egg of the host species when she lays her own egg in the nest. It is an important bird in folklore.
The cuckoo has traditionally been associated with sexual incontinence and infidelity. An old name for the cuckoo was "cuckold's chorister", and old broadsides played on the idea that the cuckoo's call was a reproach to husbands whose wives were unfaithful: The smith that on his anvill the iron hard doth ding:He cannot heare the cuckoo though he loud doth singIn poynting of plow harnesse, he labours till he sweat,While another in his forge at home may steale a private heat.– From The Cuckowes Comendation: / Or, the Cuckolds Credit: Being a merry Maying Song in Praise of the Cuckow., c.1625
History Early printed versions "The Cuckoo" was published as a broadside by London and provincial printers, but does not seem to have been common. Broadsides are not precisely dated, but the earliest in the Bodleian Ballad Collection was published between 1780 and 1812 CE, the latest before 1845. The broadside texts are similar, of five verses starting with a "Come all ye" warning about courting sailors and with the cuckoo appearing in the second verse.
Collecting The Roud Folk Song Index lists about 149 collected or recorded versions performed by traditional singers - 49 from England, 4 from Scotland, 2 from Ireland, 4 from Canada and 88 from the USA.
At least one collected version was published in the Folk Songs from the Kentucky Mountains (1917).
Field recordings Alan Lomax recorded Hobart Smith from Saltville, Virginia performing Cuckoo Bird in 1942, and he claimed to have learned it from a man named John Greer in the early 1910s. He also recorded Jean Ritchie from Viper, Kentucky singing The Cuckoo is a Pretty Bird in New York in 1949. Hamish Henderson recorded Willie Mathieson from Ellon, Aberdeenshire, singing The Evening Meeting in 1952. Max Hunter recorded Mrs Norma Kisner of Springdale Arkansas, singing a fragment of Unconstant Lover in 1960. Max Hunter recorded Olivia Hauser of Fayetteville, Arkansas, singing False Hearted Lover in 1961.
Performers
The first known recording was made by Kelly Harrell for Victor in 1926.
The song has been covered by many musicians in several different styles. In North America, an early notable recorded version was performed in 1929 by Appalachian folk musician Clarence Ashley with an unusual banjo tuning.
Notable artists who have recorded "The Cuckoo" include:
Artist Album nameAlbum yearNotes Burr Tillstrom as Kukla Kukla, Fran and Ollie 1951 Billy Strings Rock of Ages 2013 Dave Alvin Best of the Hightone Years 2008-- David Eugene Edwards Hyacinth 2023 -- Clarence Ashley Anthology of American Folk Music, Vol. 1-3 1952Recorded and released in 1929 and included in this compilation albumCosmo SheldrakeWake Up Calls2020 Joan Baez Live At Newport 1996 The Be Good Tanyas Blue Horse 2000Song was titled "The Coo Coo Bird". Big Brother and the Holding Company Big Brother and the Holding Company 1967Song was titled "Coo Coo". Anne Briggs Anne Briggs 1971 Jake Xerxes Fussell When I’m Called2024 Buck 65 Porch2007 Shirley Collins Sweet England1959 Erik Darling True Religion1961 Alfred Deller The Art of Alfred Deller: The Counter-Tenor Legacy 2008 Donovan Beat Cafe2004 Dry Branch Fire Squad Hand Hewn 2001 Bob Dylan Live at the Gaslight 1962 2005 Rory Gallagher Wheels Within Wheels 2003 Tim Eriksen and Riley Baugus Cold Mountain 2003 The Everly Brothers Heartaches and Harmonies 1994 Kelly Harrell Worried Blues 2006The first version recorded, released in 1926 Kristin Hersh Hips and Makers 1994 Ramblin' Jack Elliott Ramblin' Jack Elliott 1961Jonathan FosterRoadside Attraction2023 Hem Rabbit Songs 2002 The Holy Modal Rounders The Holy Modal Rounders 1964 Hamish Imlach Old Rarity1971 Kaleidoscope Incredible! 1969 The New Lost City Ramblers Vol. 4 1962 Osborne Brothers Voices In Bluegrass 1973 Pentangle Basket of Light 1969 Peter, Paul and Mary A Song Will Rise 1965 The Pine Hill Haints Ghost Dance 2007 Rising Appalachia Leylines 2017 Jean Ritchie Singing the Traditional Songs of Her Kentucky Mountain Family 1952 Tom Rush Tom Rush 1965 Martin Simpson Righteousness and Humidity 2003 Hobart Smith In Sacred Trust: The 1963 Fleming Brown Tapes2005 Taj Mahal The Natch'l Blues1968 Steve Martin & Edie Brickell Music from The American Epic Sessions 2017 Richard Thompson & Eliza Carthy The Harry Smith Project Live Vol. 12006 Peter Tork Live/Backstage at the Coffee Gallery 2006 Artie Traum Thief of Time 2007 Doc Watson & Clarence Ashley Original Folkways Recordings: 1960–1962 1994 Doc & Merle Watson Ballads From Deep Gap 1967 Townes Van Zandt Roadsongs 1994 Laura Veirs Two Beers Veirs 2008 Uncle Sinner Ballads and Mental Breakdowns2008 John Renbourn Faro Annie1971Renbourn had previously recorded the song as a member of the band Pentangle (qv).Willie WatsonFolksinger Vol. 22017David Eugene EdwardsHyacinth2023
See also Folk songs with shared motifs and floating verses include:
Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies Jack of Diamonds (song) On Top of Old Smoky
Notes and references