Origins: Little Bird, Little Bird / Bluebird

Subject: Lyr Add: Little Bird, Little Bird
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Nov 15 - 06:55 PM

This has been mentioned a couple of times here, but there hadn't been a thread on it. I know it as "Bluebird, Bluebird" or more commonly "Little Bird, Little Bird." Here are the lyrics I came up with for the Rise Again Songbook:

LITTLE BIRD, LITTLE BIRD

Little bird, little bird fly through my window (3x)
And buy molasses candy

Fly thru my window my sugar lump (2x)
And buy molasses candy

insert: chickadee, jaybird, whippoorwill, robin, bluebird, crow,
bobwhite, hummingbird

——trad. (Amer. play party song)

Players join hands in a circle & raise their joined hands to form windows. One or more birds in the center go in & out the
windows. At "buy molasses candy" bird stops at another player, who then goes to the center.

In American Folk Songs for Children (Ruth Crawford Seeger). On Pete Seeger Birds, Beasts, Bugs, & Little Fishes (as "Fly thru My Window") & Eliz Mitchell You Are My Little Bird.

Subject: RE: Origins: Little Bird, Little Bird
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Nov 15 - 06:56 PM

Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry for this song:

Bluebird

DESCRIPTION: "Here comes a [blue]bird through my window, Oh, Johnny, I'm tired! [or "Hey, diddle, hi dum, day"] ... Take a little dancer and hop through the garden ... Take a little partner, and pat him on the shoulder"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1903 (Newell-GamesAndSongsOfAmericanChildren)
KEYWORDS: playparty bird
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland) US(Ap,MW,SE)
REFERENCES (11 citations):
Wolford-ThePlayPartyInIndiana, pp. 39-40=Wolford/Richmond/Tillson-PlayPartyInIndiana, p. 228, "Down in Jay Bird Town" (1 text, 2 tunes)
Lomax/Lomax-OurSingingCountry, "Little Bird, Go Through My Window" (1 text, 1 tune)
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 97, "Bluebird" (1 text, 1 tune)
Newell-GamesAndSongsOfAmericanChildren, #51. "Blue-birds and Yellow-Birds" (1 text)
Spurgeon-WaltzTheHall-AmericanPlayParty, p. 72, "Bluebird"; p. 101, "Fly Little Bluebird" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Skean-CircleLeft-FolkPlayOfKentuckyMountains, p. 7, "Bluebird, Bluebird" (1 text, 1 tune)
Abrahams-JumpRopeRhymes, #176, "Here comes a little bird through the window"; #537, Take a little bird and hop in the corner" (2 texts, both possibly this but too short to properly identify)
Seeger-FolkSongsOfPeggySeeger, p. 90, "Little Bird, Little Bird" (1 text, 1 tune)
JournalOfAmericanFolklore, Emelyn E. Gardner, "Some Play-Party Games in Michigan"," Vol. XXXIII, No. 128 (Apr 1920), #4 pp. 94-95, "Bluebird" (1 text, 1 tune)
JournalOfAmericanFolklore, Leah Rachel Clara Yoffie, "Three Generations of Children's Singing Games in St. Louis," Vol. LX, No. 235 (Jan 1947), #49 p. 43 ("Here comes a bluebird through my window") (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Robert Ford, Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories (Paisley, 1904 (2nd edition, "Digitized by Google")), p. 78, "The Blue Bird" (1 text)
Roud #7700
RECORDINGS:
Lorraine Hammond, "Little Bird, Little Bird " (Fragment: Piotr-Archive #690, recorded 10/01/2023)
Stanley Hicks, "Here Goes a Bluebird" (on OldTrad2, FarMtns2)
NOTES [65 words]: This seems to have become relatively well-known from a recording by Elizabeth Mitchell on Folkways which begins
Little bird, little bird, fly through my window.
Little bird, little bird, fly through my window.
Little bird, little bird, fly through my window
And find molasses candy.
(It may be repeated with other birds instead of "little bird.") Did this arise organically? I don't know. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.1
File: OpGa097

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Subject: RE: Origins: Little Bird, Little Bird / Bluebird
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Nov 15 - 11:05 PM

I have this by Pete Seeger on one of his children's albums. Lovely song.

Subject: RE: Origins: Little Bird, Little Bird / Bluebird
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jul 26 - 08:28 PM

My mother sang this song to me when I was small. She was born in 1908,.
I can't remember much, but"little bird, when you hop, hop. Hop, won't you please stop, stop, stop, ad let me sprinkle a little salt on your tail