The "Farmyard Song" (Roud number 544) is a cumulative song about farm animals, originating in the British Isles and also known in North America.
It is known by various titles, such as:
In the first verse, the narrator tells of buying or having a cat, horse or other animal, feeding them under a tree, and the call the animal makes. Each subsequent verse introduces a new animal, then repeats the calls of the animals from previous verses.
There were several versions known in the Thames Valley in the early part of the 20th century. [4] A version collected in Bampton, Oxfordshire around 1916 began as follows:
The very first thing my mother bought me,
It was a hen, you may plainly see;
And every time I fed my hen,
I fed her under the tree.
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. [4]
Musicologists Loraine Wyman and Howard Brockway collected "The Barnyard Song" in Kentucky in 1916. [5] : 5 [2] This version began,
I had a cat and the cat pleased me,
I fed my cat under yonder tree.
Cat goes fiddle-i-fee. [2]
Some American variants are not cumulative, but instead group all the animal calls together at the end of the song. [3]
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