Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo

Subject: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: Paul Burke
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 11:13 AM

This request on the Guardian Notes and Queries webpage looks like one for Catters:

My grandmother used to recite a rhyme whose origin and meaning has always puzzled me:
"That bird must have grown
When they built the tower of Babel,
And was fed by Cain and Abel
All the shots that were fired,
On the field of Waterloo
Could not penetrate nor dislocate,
That elongated Armour plated
Double breasted Iron chested
Cock a doodle doo"

Does it refer to Napoleon, given the reference to Waterloo, and who wrote it? My grandmother was born in 1877.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 12:41 PM

Can't believe it has any significance. Building the tower of Babel came after Cain & Abel.

I recall (from my childhood)
"Cock a doodle doo,
My dame has lost her shoe,
My master's lost his fiddling stick
And doesn't know what to do"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 21 Oct 08 - 05:34 AM

My aunt used to sing the following at family parties, I guess there were verses but all I can remember is the chorus;

Cock-a-Doodle Doo
It's nothing to do with you
Leave it alone and play with your own
Cock-a-Doodle Doo

I suspect it is related to the above posting from Nigel.

I would be interested if anyone knows more.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: GUEST,Suffolk Miracle
Date: 21 Oct 08 - 08:14 AM

"I suspect it is related to the above posting from Nigel.

I would be interested if anyone knows more."

I doubt if it is related in anyway, but for Hootenanny's benefit:

Last Saturday night I went to take a walk
Down to Petticoat Lane to hear the people talk.
A fellow was selling birds; he had a remarkable stock.
I gave the fellow half a crown and he gave me his ...
CHO Cock-a-Doodle Doo. It's nothing to do with you.
It's a very small cock, but it's all that I've got
And it's nothing to do with you.

I put it under my coat and I began to walk.
I hadn't got very far when it began to squawk.
A lady was passing by and she gave me a hell of a shock:
She said, 'Young man if you don't watch out you're going to lose your ...CHO

I put it in a pen along with my old hen.
Oh what a how do you do. Oh what a hulabaloo.
I rushed out to see, when the bird began to squawk
Before I got there that dozzy old hen had bitten a lump off my ...CHO

And now my song is done I can no longer stay.
No point in staying here. I must be on my way.
Just one more thing to ask before I take a walk.
Is there any young woman in the room who would like to handle my ...CHO

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 21 Oct 08 - 08:16 AM

Suffolk Miracle, can you tell me where that song comes from? A friend of mine sings a version...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: Mr Happy
Date: 21 Oct 08 - 08:47 AM

There's another song I vaguely recall from the mists of time, of which the chorus went like this;

'Oh me cock went cackle cack-cock, cack cock, cock-a-doodle-doo
And after every farmers cock, my cock crew'

Anyone know it, have rest of words?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: Snuffy
Date: 21 Oct 08 - 09:01 AM

It's Roud 3464 and is also on Put a Bit of Powder on it, Father (MT CD 305 & 306), Musical Traditions double CD of Walter Pardon miscellanea. The sleeve notes are available on that site and include full lyrics of each track.

They also comment The fact that there are only eight Roud entries for this salacious morsel might well indicate that it has been ignored by earlier British collectors, since many country singers, and particularly Travellers, know it - if they can be persuaded to sing it (and if the company is appropriate). It could, of course, be a quite recently-composed song. George Spicer's version is on the Veteran Tapes Ripest Apples (VT107).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: Snuffy
Date: 21 Oct 08 - 09:02 AM

My reply above is to Ruth Archer's question, not to Mr Happy's

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 21 Oct 08 - 09:11 AM

That's interesting - my friend who sings the song is a Traveller.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 21 Oct 08 - 09:37 AM

Obviously there are a lot of rhymes and/or songs that have 'cock a doodle doo' somewhere in them (the nursery rhyme being the most widely known, I should think). This tends to lead to questions that mention the phrase rapidly going off topic.

'Hootenanny's' is number 3464 in the Roud Folk Song Index; if your aunt had sung the rest of it you wouldn't think it was in any way related to the nursery rhyme! See also

Me Cock's Me Own [sic]  text collated from various sources.

Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo  text and tune from Walter Pardon (Knapton, Norfolk); text from George McWilliam (Elgin).

The song 'Mr Happy' mentions can be seen at http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/watersons/songs/iwenttomarket.html. Related songs without that particular line have been posted in the Forum from time to time.

Of the 'Guardian' rhyme I know nothing, though there does seem to be something familiar about it. It's unlikely to be any more 'about' Napoleon that it's 'about' Cain and Abel or the Tower of Babel, of course; those are just images. If we can keep off unrelated topics for a little, perhaps someone will be able to help.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: pavane
Date: 21 Oct 08 - 09:43 AM

Rhyme is from

Bombay Ducks: An Account of Some of the Every-day Birds and Beasts Found in a Naturalist's Eldorado
By Douglas Dewar, Frederick Durand Stirling Fayrer
Published by J. Lane, 1906

see Google books
here

(but it only shows the first line)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: Mr Happy
Date: 21 Oct 08 - 09:48 AM

Malcolm Douglas,

Thanks for the link

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: Paul Burke
Date: 21 Oct 08 - 09:53 AM

Thanks pavane: I've found the full text of Douglas Dewar's book online thanks to that. Sadly, it doesn't have any more of the song in it!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 21 Oct 08 - 10:24 AM

Fortunately, the Internet Archive doesn't withhold from UK users the content of out-of-copyright UK books: they have two freely available copies of Dewar's book. The passage appears on pages 162-3:


'The fowl, alas ! has now fallen from his high estate, especially in India. In this country, although it is the true home of gallinaceous birds, the murghi is a very degenerate creature. Natives do not understand the art of breeding, as their miserably undersized cattle, horses, and donkeys, and their mongrel pigeons, demonstrate. Indian poultry, however, are worse than undersized ; they exhibit a strong leaning towards pachydermism - a fatal creed for a table bird. This the traveller is able to verify for himself at any dâk bungalow, for murghi will inevitably appear on the table, and the would-be diner, after many ineffectual attempts to get his degenerate teeth into the bird sacrificed to him, is obliged to console himself for his unsatisfied appetite by singing gently :-

"That bird must have crowed when they built
the Tower of Babel,
'Twas fed by Cain and Abel,
And lived in Noah's stable,
All the shots that were fired on the field
of Waterloo
Couldn't penetrate or dislocate
That elongated, armour-plated,
Double-breasted, iron-chested.
Cock-a-doodle-doo."'


Whether Dewar made it up or whether he quoted it from elsewhere I have no idea, though I suspect the latter.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 21 Oct 08 - 11:04 AM

In short, this bird which graces our table is somewhat old & tough!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: GUEST,Suffolk Miracle
Date: 22 Oct 08 - 06:56 AM

"Suffolk Miracle, can you tell me where that song comes from? A friend of mine sings a version... "

Without my lips even moving, other people have mentioned the recordings of George Spicer and Wally Pardon. There are others. It was recorded from George Edworthy and released on the tape Sing Up George. Also there is a recording of Sugar Bailey on Who's Going To Hold My Horse, collected by Neil Langham, who also published a recording of it on Comic Songs of the Stour Valley, but I cannot remember the name of the singer. Likewise there is a recording of it on the tape Gin Ale And Whiskey which was collected by the Dows in Lancashire. My version is likely to be a composite of all those!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 22 Oct 08 - 11:35 AM

Re Malcolm Douglas's comment above.
Did I say I thought it was related to a nursery rhyme?

It was obvious even at my young age at the time that it was anything but. It was back in the 1940's when I heard my aunt singing it.

Thank you to the Suffolk Miracle for those words. Petticoat Lane was a regular Sunday mrning hangout for us at the time but being pedantic I would point out that birds were not sold in Petticoat Lane but just a short distance away in Sclater Street just off Brick Lane an equally famous Sunday morning market

Wally Pardon?? I visited Walter on several occasions and never at any time did I hear anyone cak him anything other Walter.

H.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: pavane
Date: 22 Oct 08 - 12:05 PM

I used to be taken to Petticoat lane and also the animal market (Club Row, I seem to recall) as a child in the 1950's.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 22 Oct 08 - 04:04 PM

Yes it was also generally known as Club Row. Club Row is/was off Brick Lane north of Bethnal Green Road but the bird and animal market was mainly in Sclater Street south of Bethnal Green Road. The pub where all the bird fanceir would gather was on the north side of Bethnal Green Road but like so many pubs closed down and is now a fancy restaurant which seems to cater for the City yuppies.

H

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: GUEST,barbara
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 07:20 PM

My Grandpa used to sing a song with this as the chorus. It began:
"Killarney bought a chicken just to give his friends a [treat/thrill??]
and continues with lines I can not remember except for "The things they had to eat it was a knife and fork and spoon, But when they wnet to carve it up they could not get it in" or something like that. We called it Killarney's Chicken" not "Cock-a-doodle-do"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 09:58 AM

Going back to the original request by Paul Burke--

The song is DELANEY'S CHICKEN and it has been posted in another thread: Lyr Add: Delaney's Chicken (Sweeney, Barrett).

Despite the similarity of the title, it doesn't seem to be the same song that Barbara referred to.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 10 Aug 13 - 06:27 PM

My old dad back in the early 1950's sang something like.

We all got into the boat
and it began to rock
when all of a sudden
what do you think
a fish got hold of my
cockadoodle doo
whats it to do with you
leave it alone
play with your own
cockadoodle doo

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: GUEST,Padraig
Date: 09 Oct 21 - 12:20 PM

My father (Irish lived and loved England) had a version As follows:
Deleany from the market bought a fowl a week ago
If he finds the man who sold it he will kill him with a blow
He said it was a chicken of a fine and tender breed
But of a more deceitful bird
You’ll never hear or eat

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 09 Oct 21 - 01:12 PM

According to the above, We collected this in Lancashire, it actual fact I collected it twice in Dorset. See BL website. Both had good tunes.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cock a doodle doo
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Oct 21 - 11:49 AM

Unfortunately not part of my collection, but Cock-a-Doodle-Doo (My dame etc.) appears in the Autumn 1949 "Singing Together" according to Steve Gardham