Origins: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill

Subject: Mockingbird Hill--need lyrics please
From:
Date: 08 Apr 99 - 01:53 PM

This wonderful old song has started going through my head but I don't remember all the words. Please help.

Subject: Lyr Add: MOCKINGBIRD HILL
From: musicman
Date: 08 Apr 99 - 02:00 PM

1. When the sun in the morning peeps over the hill,
And kisses the roses on my windowsill,
Then my heart fills with gladness when I hear the trill,
Of the birds in the treetops on Mockingbird Hill.

CHORUS: Tra-la-la, twiddle-le-de-de, it gives me a thrill,
To wake up in the morning to the mockingbird's trill.
Tra-la-la, twiddle-le-de-de, there's peace and good will.
You're welcome as the flowers on Mockingbird Hill.

2. Got a three-cornered plow and an acre to till,
And a mule that I bought for a ten-dollar bill.
Got a tumble-down shack and a rusty old mill,
But it's my home sweet home up on Mockingbird Hill.

3. When it's late in the evening I climb up the hill,
And survey my kingdom while everything's still,
Only me and the sky and an old whippoorwill,
Singing songs in the moonlight on Mockingbird Hill.


enjoy

Subject: RE: Mockingbird Hill--need lyrics please
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Apr 99 - 02:19 PM

Click here for a thread that has some interesting information about the song.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Mockingbird Hill--need lyrics please
From: Gene
Date: 08 Apr 99 - 03:07 PM

Lyrics are in the DATABASE - MOCKIN' BIRD HILL

Subject: RE: Mockingbird Hill--need lyrics please
From: Arkie
Date: 08 Apr 99 - 06:51 PM

The other Thread mentions a Finnish title for the tune. The Enlish translation is Life in the Finland Woods, or so I was told by a distinguished Folklorist. Boy is he going to be surprised when he learns that Mockingbird Hill was written in 1929.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Nov 08 - 11:22 PM

This was my Great Grandpa's favorite song that all of us kids had to learn!

When it's late in the evening I climb up the hill, and survey all my kingdom while everything's still. Only me and the sky, and an old whipperwhil, singing songs in the evening on Mockingbird Hill.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: Azizi
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 03:41 PM

For what it's worth, some of those the lyrics from the "Mockingbird Hill" reminds me of the lyrics of the Rock n' Roll song "Rockin Robin" wjich wasfirst recorded in 1959 by Bobby Day and later recorded in 1972 by Michael Jackson. I'm specifically referring to these words from the "Mockingbird Hill" song:

"Of the birds in the treetops on Mockingbird Hill ...twiddle-le-de-de...the mockingbirds trill, Tralala, twiddle-le-de-de" .

-snip-

There may be no way of confirming whether "Mockingbird Hill" was part of the inspiration for "Rockin Robin". However, I want to note the close similarities in some of the words to those two songs.

Also, for what it's worth, thanks to the Michael Jackson version of "Rockin Robin", that song lives on in a children's handclap rhyme called "Tweeleelee" or some similar sounding title. Some verses of "Tweeleelee" are definitely raunchy, but here's a relatively clean excerpt of that rhyme:

Tweedleelee
(Treetop)
Tweedleelee
(My Prop)
Tweedleelee
Popsicle, popsicle
Your butt stinks

He rocks in the tree top
all day long
huffin and ah puffin
and ah singin his song.
All the little birds on Jay Bird street
Love to hear the bird go
Tweet Tweet Tweet!

Rockin Robin
Tweet Tweetdalee
Rockin Robin
Tweet Tweetdalee

-snip-

Note the similarities between these words and the words that are lifted from "Rockin Robin" song, particularly its chorus.

I think they are very similar to some of the words from "Mockingbird Hill."

For a couple of complete versions of "Tweeleelee", visit the handclap rhymes page at www.cocojams.com

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 05:55 PM

"Mockin' Bird Hill" (Mockingbird Hill) was written in 1949 by Vaughan Horton and first recorded in 1950 by the Pinetoppers, and in 1951 by Patti Page (who wil be 80 if she is still alive). It drove people up the wall for 2-3 years. Haven't heard Rocking Robin.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 07:03 PM

Patti Page is alive and well, living north of me in north San Diego County. She is still active and sings on occasion. We have had a number of noted singers and musicians in our area. Among them, The Romero Family of the guitar, fiddler-violinist-composer Mark O'Connor, the late Frankie Laine (Mule Train & Blazing Saddles), the recently departed Nick Reynolds, Joe Walsh (Eagles)and others who live here but keep a low profile. It must be the weather....and the relative proximity to L.A., where much of the work is.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: Joybell
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 08:08 PM

Can't hear a connection with Rockin' Robin, Azzizi -- but the children's rhyme sounds similiar. I used "Rockin' Robin" in a musical a while back with little kids dressed as birds. I often sing "Mocking Bird Hill" in nursing homes.

Interestingly though -- if you take "Mocking Bird Hill" out of waltz time and turn it into a rock number using the "Rockin' Robin" tune you might get a strange hybrid. You'd have to do away with the fake-yodel/waltz though. Hmmmmm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 09:54 PM

I remember hearing Mockingbird Hill on the radio when I was a preschooler in Florida. I liked the song because I could understand it. (There were mockingbirds around.) There was one thing I couldn't understand, though. One day I said to my mother, "Mama, what's a hill?"

That was in Florida, remember.

I think that the popularity of Mockingbird Hill had a lot to do with the fact that people were finally getting back to normal life after the terrible wars and disasters of 1914-45. It is a song of peace and of being back home.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Nov 08 - 10:43 PM

A better fit is "the terrible wars and disasters" of 1939-1945. But I do remember 1950-1960 as very good years.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: Joybell
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 01:24 AM

Funny -- we don't have mockingbirds but the song was just as popular here.
I did hear one once in New Mexico. Our friend said they are fun for a while but by mid Summer they outlive their welcome. Always going over and over a song without resolving the phrase. Drives him crazy.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 12:11 PM

Probably not a mockingbird. That just doesn't sound like mockingbird behavior.

By the way, there are other birds that are mimics. One autumn I had a starling in my yard which imitated a meadowlark. It gave me the oddest feeling to be standing in my urban kitchen and to hear the sound of the open prairie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: Leadbelly
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 09:34 AM

Know this song performed by McGil Five. Jumped into the british charts in 1964. Has had a fine rhythm.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: Azizi
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 09:40 AM

Here are hyperlinks to the Rock'n' Roll songs Rockin Robin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCy63R2KKFU
Bobby Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4VCUbL7jsc&feature=related
Jackson 5

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: semi-submersible
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 08:57 AM

The original Swedish tune and Vaughan Horton's aren't identical, but they're so close that one evening in the 1980s I heard a radio station DJ blithely announce "That was 'Life in the Finland Woods,'" after he'd played an instrumental arrangement of "Mockingbird Hill" (complete with bird trills and a background voice partway through remarking something like "Hear that mockingbird!") I had been singing along, and the notes had exactly matched the syllables in every verse.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 11:44 AM

I have yet to see any convincing evidence that the melody was Scandinavian. American culture goes far and wide.

I remember crossing a beautiful fjord in Iceland on a ferry where a crummy American situation comedy blasted out of the TV. I think American music was on the PA at the same time, but I can't be sure.

I remember sitting in nice French restaurants where Robert Flack sang on the PA. (Does she EVER modify volume or timbre, even for one syllable?)

I think we heard 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' three times while in Paris a few days.

We were in a fine restaurant in Chartres that was playing ugly American music too loudly. I don't speak French, and I pondered what to do. Finally, I caught the busboy's eye and said, 'Monsieur, la musique Americaine' - and made a throat-cutting gesture. He nodded, and they turned off the music.

It probably helped that the request came from an American.

So, if 'Mockingbird Hill' became a hit, it is quite likely that someone in Europe heard the tune and borrowed it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: fat B****rd
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 01:00 PM

My parents had Mockin Bird Hill on a 78 rpm by Ronnie Ronalde.
I'm grateful for this thread because I've got to read one of my short stories at college and this song features in it.
I may have to yodel !!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: open mike
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 02:09 PM

I was interested in this song as i was reminded of it from a discussion of another Mocking bird song...

but this one has very different roots...

possibly Swedish or finnskogen...Finns who came to swedish forest
in 1500-1600's

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: GUEST,sandi in Oakland
Date: 12 Jun 19 - 04:18 PM

I remember Mockingbird Hill done by Peggy Lee & by Les Paul & Mary Ford. It was on the "Hit Parade" for week after week in 1950. btw: it was not a time of peace. We were imeshed in the Korean Conflict, McCarthy was in full sway, the Rosenbergs were on trial.
Not a peaceful time at all. A wonderful song then and my music students like it very much now.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: leeneia
Date: 12 Jun 19 - 06:39 PM

I was a little girl living in Florida then, and I remembering asking my mother what a hill was. If you have even been to Florida, you would understand.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 03:47 AM

Calle Jularbo wrote "Life in the Finnish Woods" in 1915. It was an international hit and set his career up for life. No mystery at all about it getting to America.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Jun 22 - 11:32 PM

joe - do cleanup

Subject: RE: Origins: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: leeneia
Date: 11 Jun 22 - 04:03 PM

Yeah, I repeated myself about the hill and I typed Robert when I meant Roberta.

Subject: RE: Origins: Mockin' Bird Hill / Mockingbird Hill
From: leeneia
Date: 11 Jun 22 - 04:09 PM

Okay, I'm convinced. Once I found "Life in the Finnish Woods", I could hear the similarity. Here it is on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPJTIuTi9pw