The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #78094 Message #1401830
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
07-Feb-05 - 03:48 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Old McDonald / Old MacDonald Had a Farm
Subject: ADD Version: The Merry Green Fields of the Lowland
There is a piece in D'Urfey, "Pills to Purge Melancholy," 1719, II, pp. 214-216 which quotes a text and tune from the opera "Kingdom of the Birds," with these lines:
Booing here, booing there,
Here a boo, there a boo, everywhere a boo.
There also are 19th c. notes which I am tracing down, esp. in songbooks ca. 1860.
This one is a related variant; from Ozark Folksongs:
The Merry Green Fields of the Lowland
Old Massa had a very fine hog,
In the merry green fields of the lowland,
He turned him in to be seen
In the merry green fields of the lowland,
And it's oink here, and an oink there,
Naff-naff-naff and ev'rybody laugh as they go past
In the merry green fields of the lowland.
Old Massa had a very fine dog
In the merry green fields of the lowland,
He turned him in to be seen
In the merry green fields of the lowland.
And it's bow-wow here and a bow-wow there,
And here a bow, there a bow, here a bow-wow,
Oink here and an oink there,
Naff-naff-naff and everybody laugh as they go past
In the merry green fields of the lowland.
Old Massa had a very fine turkey
In the merry green fiends of the lowland,
He turned him in to be seen
In the merry green fields of the lowland.
And it's gibble-gobble here and a gibble-gobble there,
And here a gobble, there a gobble, here a gibble-gobble,
And it's bow-wow here and a bow-wow there,
And here a bow, there a bow, here a bow-wow,
And an oink here and an oink there,
Naff-naff-naff and everybody laugh as they go past
In the merry green fields of the lowland.
Ol Massa had a very fine sheep
In the merry green fields of the lowland,
He turned him in to be seen
In the merry green fields of the lowland.
And it's blib-blab here and a blib-blab there,
And it's gibble-gobble here and a gibble-gobble there,
And here a gobble, there a gobble, here a gibble-gobble,
And it's bow-wow here and a bow-wow there,
And here a bow, there a bow, here a bow-wow,
And an oink here and an oink there,
Naff-naff-naff and everybody laugh as they go past
In the merry green fields of the lowland.
This song perhaps came from a play-party dance.
With music, sung by Mr. Doney Hammondtree, Arkansas, 1942, learned about 1900, and he "thinks it is the ancestor of another build-up song known as Old MacDonald Had a Farm."
Vance Randolph, "Ozark Folksongs," vol. 3, no. 457, pp. 211-212.