Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits

Subject: Lyr Add: MISTER RABBIT
From: oldhippie
Date: 26 Feb 07 - 12:41 PM

MISTER RABBIT

Mister Rabbit, Mister Rabbit, your tail's mighty white
Yes, bless God, been gittin' out of sight

Refrain:
Ev'y little soul gwine-a shine, shine
Ev'y little soul gwine-a shine along.

Mister Rabbit, Mister Rabbit, your coat's mighty grey
Yes, bless God, been out 'fo day

Mister Rabbit, Mister Rabbit, your ears mighty long
yes, bless God, been put on wrong

Mister Rabbit, Mister Rabbit, your ears mighty thin
Yes, bless Good, been splittin' the wind.

Subject: Lyr Add: TRACKS IN THE SNOW (Steve Thomason)
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 26 Feb 07 - 04:26 PM

If hares are allowed, Steve Thomason's song, "Tracks in the snow" inspired by an arctic hare in the Peak District.

TRACKS IN THE SNOW  Steve Thomason

All the events in this song happened, even the sighting of a red kite which possibly came over to the Peak District from Wales. The hare was one of the arctic hares that had been introduced onto Kinder. Every winter it turned white and would be feeding in the 15 acre field as we came home to walk the ¼ mile down the track towards the glow of the farm lights, visible in the valley even though the farm itself was hidden.

Chorus - Walk with me down hidden paths
White hare in the field, trout in the stream
Walk with me down hidden paths,
To the land that is now just a dream.

I remember the paths I walked with my dog,
Over high heather moors, past the cotton grass bog,
Heard the lark on the wing and the curlew's lone call,
Heard the grouse cry "Come back" over Matley Moor wall.

In the spring I would sit with my back at the Rocks,
Looking down o'er the field where I watched the hares box,
Saw the vole in the stream, red kite in the sky,
Never thinking those days they would pass by and by.

With the swaling long done and the heather shoots grown,
And the bilberry fruit on the banks near my home,
And haymaking done and the dusk folding round,
We'd watch as the owls hunted mice o'er the ground.

And Autumn comes round and the grey clouds roll in,
There's a blanket of mist hides the high moorland rim,
As you walk through the fields and the rain turns to sleet,
And the whole of your world is the ground at your feet.

With the winter comes snow and the fields turn as white,
As the coat of the hare that was waiting each night,
As we walked down the track to the lights of the farm,
With their promise of comfort, fire and warmth.

But those days are long gone and the ground at our feet,
Is concrete and metal on the hurrying street,
And tractor and link box are lost long ago,
But I still see the tracks of white hare in the snow.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: Cool Beans
Date: 26 Feb 07 - 05:11 PM

"The Rabbi Elemelech."
Oh. Rabbits. Never mind.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: Bainbo
Date: 26 Feb 07 - 05:42 PM

"I'm glad that I'm Bugs Bunny" by Mel Blanc.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: Cool Beans
Date: 26 Feb 07 - 06:04 PM

"I'm Late," sung by the rabbit in Disney's "Alice in Wonderland"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: Joe_F
Date: 26 Feb 07 - 09:53 PM

Say, old man, can your dog catch a rabbit?
Yacky yacky
Take a man time, take a man time.

Sung by my roommate, 1953. Not in DT; mentioned once in a thread.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 08:05 AM

3 songs about hares on my site
1 Latin, 1 German, 1 mixed German and Latin (very short)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: eddie1
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 11:06 AM

"And her hare it hung over her shoulder
Tied up with a black velvet band"

Eddie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,Billy the Bunnie.
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 12:28 PM

My furry thanks to all for songs anbout my friends and relations.

"See Billy the Bunnie descending the mountainside
Fierce as the torrent and wild as the gale;
Boldly he bounds where bright burns, with brown trout in, glide
Swift to the broad river far down the vale;
So fleetly he leapt, so neatly he stepped,
Adjusting his ears so his balance was kept,
See him leap, land, bouncing and scampering;
Jaunty the jinks of his furry white tail."

6:8 Rabbit twitching his nose.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: Cool Beans
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 01:22 PM

Joe F., I think your old roommate misheard what Leadbelly sang:
Old man, can your dog catch a rabbit?
Take him and try him, take him and try him.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: Rowan
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 04:35 PM

Way above, eanjay posted the distintions between hares and rabbits; rabbits live in burrows and hares live on the surface.

John Wormsley, famous in Australia for his efforts at protecting native wildlife from feral pests (and wearing a hat made from a complete cat skin to an award presentation) tried to establish a refuge in the South Australian mallee country. 6000 acres (from recollection) were double fenced and then he started eradicating the resident rabbits. Using all the usual agricultural techniques he got down to about 10% of the original population; to reduce them to zero he had to employ a bloke with a dog and a gun.

During the final stages, the rabbits changed their behaviour completely, avoiding burrows and behaving like hares; they made nests in the grass and chamged camp every night, covering considerable distances between camps.

I gather the exercise was successful, despite malcontents trying to reinfest hte refuge by throwing live cats and rabbits over the fences into the property,

But I've not yet heard any songs about it.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: Joe_F
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 11:36 PM

Cool Beans: Very likely!

I never even knew it was a Leadbelly song. We didn't talk about the origins of songs; we just sang them.

The roommate's name was Ives Hendrick. He made banjos & played them. He killed himself in 1953.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 07:37 AM

A program about Churchill's bodyguard mentioned that around June 1940
"Run Rabbit Run" was a favourite of Churchill at Checkers.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 09:11 AM

The Rabbit Skipped (Maggie Hammons Parker)

The rabbit skipped
The rabbit hopped
The rabit ate
My turnip tops
....

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,squirrel
Date: 27 Apr 07 - 10:26 PM

love this site about rabbits.I prefere Squirrels. Need words to song not previously mentioned. I think its called Shadow boy. Some words,At night amoung the t'tree my shadow boy and i.And thats when the Bunnies come leaping all about.It finishes,Hide and seek with cottentails is just the nicest play.I used to sing this song in a choir 50's 60's. Its driving me crazy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,mackiela
Date: 04 Jun 08 - 10:33 PM

Just love that song. Teaching it to granddaughter, tku for lyrics. just have to get the music now.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: alanabit
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 03:54 AM

"My bunny lies over the ocean
My bunny lies over the sea..."

(alanabit ducks for cover...)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,Suffolk Miracle
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 08:17 AM

There is a Scottish bothy ballad called The Last Farewell To Stirling (which I used to sing a lot in the early seventies, until someone stared referring to it as The Decimalisation Song, so that noone could take it seriously!) about a poacher about to be transported, in the usual Folk way, for fourteen years to Van Dieman's Land. Addressed to his girlfriend, one verse goes:

No more I'll walk you in the dark
Nor take you out through the King's Park
Nor start a rabbit from its flat
When I am far from Stirling-o

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 08:43 AM

Shotgun Boogie - 1950

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,cStu
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 08:58 AM

I've got a bunny song sung to a vaguely discernable fiddle tune!

Run Run Bunny Bunny Go

Old Fox coming down the road now bunny bunny
Run Run bunny bunny go
Whitetails bobbing in the air there funny bunny
Go go bunny bunny run

Farmer coming with his gun now bunny bunny
Run Run bunny bunny go
rest his gun on his hungry tummy bunny
Go go bunny bunny run

Jump for the hole in the hedge now bunny bunny
Run Run bunny bunny go
Whitetails flying through the air there funny bunny
Go go bunny bunny run

Subject: Lyr Add: BIG-EYED RABBIT
From: MissouriMud
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 11:43 AM

Don't forget Big Eyed Rabbit:


1. Yonder comes a rabbit, skipping through the sand
Shoot that rabbit, he don't mind
Fry him in my pan, Lord I'll fry him in my pan

Chorus 1. Big-eyed rabbit's gone, gone, the big-eyed rabbit's gone

2. Yonder comes a rabbit, fast as he can run
If I see another one
Gonna shoot him with my gun, shoot him my gun

Chorus 1 ...

3. Yonder comes my darling, how do I know?
I know her by her big brown eyes
Shining bright like gold, shining bright like gold

Chorus 2 . Rocking in a weary land, I'm rocking in a weary land.

Probably some another verses I dont recall in there - lots of versions of this - Tommy Jarrell recorded it a couple of times

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: peregrina
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 12:04 PM

African proverb on old Oxfam poster: Until the lions have their historians, history will always tell of the victories of the hunters.


Song challenge: the hunt from the rabbit's point of view.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: peregrina
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 12:12 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 12:46 PM

Bunny ain't got no tail at all, tail at all, tail at all.
Bunny ain't got no tail at all. Only a ball of fluff.

Second verse same as the first. Can't get better, must get worse.

Bunny ain't got etc.etc.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 12:51 PM

The Rabbit Song!
There is an old Soviet comedy from 1969, the Diamond Arm, about a mild-mannered family man who gets tangled up in a web of international smuggling. A cast containing diamonds was placed by accident on his arm, so now the smugglers want them back. He is taken to some restaurant, to get him drunk, to make things easier. He gets up to sing and causes a riot.

The song is about two rabbits who go to an oak forest to work a charm. If they nibble the grass three times in the face of danger, they will grow brave.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyIIGAy6s40

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: banjoman
Date: 06 Jun 08 - 06:56 AM

Just to clear up a couple of misconceptions in this thread:
Rabbits and Hares are not Rodents - they both belong to the species Lagomorph - which also includes the mountain hare.

Rabbits are wonderful creatures and make great companions - I currently have two and they provide hours of stress relief.
Highly recomended as pets for older people

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: Rowan
Date: 06 Jun 08 - 07:28 PM

Just to clear up a couple of misconceptions in this thread:
Rabbits and Hares are not Rodents - they both belong to the species Lagomorph - which also includes the mountain hare.

Well, almost right; they're lagomorphs, which is the colloquial name for the family, equivalent to "rodents". I'm in the middle of transporting a workplace from one building to another and my references are packed away but the scientific binomial (genus and specific epithet), for the rabbit that has gone feral in Oz, is Oryctolagus cuniculus

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: RobbieWilson
Date: 06 Jun 08 - 09:20 PM

Coney Island baby

Subject: Lyr Add: THE RABBIT TRAPPER'S SONG
From: Rowan
Date: 06 Jun 08 - 11:07 PM

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned

THE RABBIT TRAPPERS SONG
(posted by John in Brisbane in 1998); the words are apparently from the oral tradition, recorded by Dave de Hugard.

1. Oh, my traps are all a-jangle,
At an easy swinging tangle,
I'm setting in a circle
Keeping round a fringe of trees;
Although I'm mud and gory spattered,
And my clobber's torn and tattered
I'm as carefree as the bunnies
Till they fall for one of these.

2. Oh, I'm under no man's orders
And I recognise no borders,
There's a welcome everywhere for me
And my old dungarees;
I am a rabbit trapper,
And a canny bunny snapper,
And I whistle through the bushland,
Though I'm wet up to the knees.

3. While you guys are courting tabbies,
I'm out among the rabbies,
I can hear them bucking, squealing,
Oh, a dozen traps ahead,
And again while you are flirting
At the last trap I am certain
To be bagging up my bunnies,
Keeping tally as I tread.

So Ginger make the railway early,
There's a shy and dinkum girlie
Let's me juggle with the cream cans
As she write cheques out for me.

I'm told Dave de Hugard wrote the tune to which it has been most commonly sung (in the Top End, with the audience doing "chorus" actions) for the last 20 odd years and, apparently, got so tired of hearing it that he wrote another.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jun 08 - 11:21 PM

Variation on Guest, Pete a couple of days ago:

To the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb"

Wabbits got no tails at all
Tails at all,
Tails at all;
Wabbits got no tails at all
Just a powder puff!

(spoken)

Same song second verse,
Could be better, but it's gonna be worse.

Wabbits got no tails at all
Tails at all,
Tails at all;...

How long can you stand to listen to the kids do this one?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: Little Robyn
Date: 07 Jun 08 - 04:45 PM

Then there's the Maori version of Run Rabbit, Oma räpeti.

Oma räpeti, oma räpeti
Oma, oma, oma
Oma räpeti, oma räpeti
Pühia te kaiako

Pako pako pako
Ko te tangi ö te pü
Oma räpeti, oma räpeti
Oma, oma, oma         

Run rabbit, run rabbit
Run, run, run
Run rabbit, run rabbit
Shoot the teacher

Bang, bang, bang
goes the farmer's gun
Run rabbit, run rabbit
Run, run, run


I don't know about the 'shoot the teacher' bit - that's from the NZ Folk
site.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,David Ingerson
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 04:07 AM

I suppose it is technically off-subject, but there is the Irish (Co. Tyrone) song,

The Creggan White Hare,

which tells of the hare successfully eluding at least three sets of hunters.

I just got back from three weeks in Ireland where I heard a version with about five additional verses to the version I know. I'll have to find the recording among the scores of songs I recorded, but I'll transcribe the extra verses and post them in a day or two.

Cheers,

David

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,Arkansas Red
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 02:40 PM

The song, "When The Blues Chase Up A Rabbit" can be found on an LP album by Charlotte Daniels and Pat Webb. It's out of print, but you might get lucky. I borrowed the album about forty years ago and learned the song. You might be able to find the Judy Henske version on Amazon.com

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: Young Buchan
Date: 08 Jun 10 - 04:52 PM

Somewhere at the back of my mind is a verse from an old Suffolk singer along the lines of:
The foxes and the hares are busy making lairs;
The little birds are nesting in the trees;
And all the little rabbits are engaged in dirty habits
'Cos they've all got a wife but me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 18 Sep 20 - 07:03 AM

Q
",,, wondering about the origin of bunny ,,,"

A
"Alas, it’s not there largely because we don’t know. Bun was an English dialect word, recorded from the sixteenth century, which was used for a squirrel or rabbit. It seems that the word turned into the endearment bunny in the following century, and only later was it transferred back to the rabbit.
There is a suggestion that the word may have originally referred to the small tail of the rabbit, in the same way that a tight coil of hair at the back of the neck was also called a bun, because both were roughly the shape and size of the cake. Others argue that the origin was the Gaelic word bun that meant a stump or root, and which could refer to the tail of a hare.
But neither origin explains why it was applied to a squirrel, whose tail looks rather different. But then, we don’t know for sure where the word bun in the sense of the cake comes from either, so it’s all quite obscure."
https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bun1.htm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: Susan of DT
Date: 18 Sep 20 - 07:12 AM

I just posted this one on the girl scout thread yesterday:

In the woods there stands a house [draw a square]
I looked from my window out [shade your eyes]
Saw a rabbit in distress [rabbit ears?]
Running in alarm [hands make little running motions]
Help me, help me, sir, he cried [fling hands out]
From the hunter I must hide [cringe down?]
Keep me safe and warm [one hand pets the other]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: Rex
Date: 18 Sep 20 - 02:00 PM

Wayland The Rabbit - Seals & Crofts

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Sep 20 - 04:15 AM

On the Isle of Portland (UK). You're not supposed to mention rabbits, as the quarrymen for Portland stone believed the rabbits digging to be a cause of rockfalls.

i wrote this song about it

https://soundcloud.com/denise_whittle/on-portland

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,Roderick A. Warner
Date: 19 Sep 20 - 07:05 AM

https://youtu.be/qAZWFafX6o8

Cottontail... Duke Ellington, 1940. Interesting run over the ‘I Got Rythm’ changes... Classic ‘jazz’ from 60 years ago...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,Roderick A. Warner
Date: 19 Sep 20 - 07:21 AM

https://youtu.be/9jHG5qsbfpI
Cottontail encore...
With lyrics (featuring the late Annie Ross with Jon Hendricks, who wrote the words, Dave Lambert)... not the original lyrics that Duke wrote but a later embellishment which captures the essence of the song imo...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GerryM
Date: 19 Sep 20 - 08:29 AM

Space Rabbits of Brocklevoons, by Kate Rowe.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 19 Sep 20 - 10:37 AM

There the fox and the hare, the badger and the bear
and the birds' on the green-wood tree,
there's the pretty little rabbits all engaging in their habits
and they've all got a mate but me.

From the Bob and Jacqueline Patten Collection
Collected in Rockliffe / Wreay, Cumbria, England, UK

John O'Connell from Baile Mhuirne, Co. Cork gave me the song, originally an English folk song and published in The Oxford Book of Traditional Verse. (Jimmy Crowley, notes 'Uncorked!')

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,henryp5
Date: 19 Sep 20 - 10:49 AM

From: Rowan Date: 06 Jun 08 - 07:28 PM

Just to clear up a couple of misconceptions in this thread:
Rabbits and Hares are not Rodents - they both belong to the species Lagomorph - which also includes the mountain hare.

Well, almost right; they're lagomorphs, which is the colloquial name for the family, equivalent to "rodents". I'm in the middle of transporting a workplace from one building to another and my references are packed away but the scientific binomial (genus and specific epithet), for the rabbit that has gone feral in Oz, is Oryctolagus cuniculus

Cheers, Rowan

The lagomorphs are the members of the taxonomic order Lagomorpha, of which there are two living families: the Leporidae (hares and rabbits) and the Ochotonidae (pikas).

Lagomorphs and rodents form the clade or grandorder Glires. Despite the evolutionary relationship between lagomorphs and rodents, the two orders have some major differences.

Wikipedia, of course.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,MNJoe
Date: 19 Sep 20 - 01:28 PM

At Camp Ajawah in MN, a counselor taught a song in the 1980s which has been popular among the girls ever since. I was (mildly) surprised to learn that it was a song under copyright, a novelty tune that was cowritten by Milton Berle!

Check it out here:

https://archive.org/details/78_i-wuv-a-wabbit_dick-two-ton-baker-and-his-music-makers-baker-berle-drake-martell_gbia0105368a

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Sep 20 - 02:55 PM

Really? Nobody has mentioned Mr. Rabbit?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Sep 20 - 03:03 PM

You didn't want Aussie ones about rabbits getting trapped, which is why I didn't include Stan Wakefield's song from the Great Depression - 'The Rabbiters'.

Doug Jenner

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 20 Sep 20 - 04:30 PM

Ralph McTell Alphabet Zoo

The Rabbit Song

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: GUEST,LarryTheRadioGuy
Date: 22 Sep 20 - 12:31 AM

Rabbit's Run by Happy and Artie Traum (from the first album).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: Monique
Date: 22 Sep 20 - 02:45 AM

In a Cabin in a Wood, a slightly different version from Susan's on Sept 18th. It's sung in several languages. A Greek children's song (Little Rabbit).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits.
From: SummerCampSongs
Date: 22 Sep 20 - 09:48 AM

Mrrzy, someone did post Mr Rabbit upthread (Feb 2007). I'll take this opportunity to share this version of the song by the Replacements' Paul Westerberg: Mr Rabbit