Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree

Subject: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: GUEST,Eclipse
Date: 17 May 02 - 01:25 PM

Hello, I'm looking for a song that has the line: "If you want to find a cuckoo's nest it's best you climb a tree"

It's about a man who is trying to get a women to his bed using all the old colloquialisms for sex... and she keeps refusing.

Any leads would be great. Thanks. -Eclipse

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: Sorcha
Date: 17 May 02 - 01:34 PM

If you will go to the handy Digitrad and Forum Search (white box, lower left) on the main forum page and type in cuckoo's nest you will find several. Perhaps one if them is what you want.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: GUEST,Eclipse
Date: 17 May 02 - 01:54 PM

Thank you, I tried that first :) I also did a search of other sites on a few search engines.... saddly I didn't find the song I'm looking for.

Cuckoo's Nest is a fairly old (pre-1600's???) bawdy song IIRC. Using the term "Cuckoo's Nest" has been probably been around for longer then the song listed in the database... The one I'm interested in is probably not called Cuckoo's Nest and uses a lot of quotes from other ballads/songs.

I recall comming across the song a long time ago - I just can't figure out where.... I thought I was imagining it until the line "If you want to find a cuckoo's nest it's best you climb a tree" came up in a seminar I attended last week. I asked the lecturer about it and she said she, also, remembered the song but didn't have the lyrics.

Thanks. :) -Eclipse

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: Sorcha
Date: 17 May 02 - 02:01 PM

OK, I'll try again for you.......BRB.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: Sorcha
Date: 17 May 02 - 02:05 PM

Hmmm, you're right, none of the ones in the DT have the "climb a tree", and unfortunately, GoogleGod was no help either. Masato? Malcolm? Help!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 May 02 - 02:21 PM

No idea, I'm afraid; sounds like a modern song to me. The Cuckoo's Nest, incidentally, is unlikely to be older than the early 19th century; late 18th at a pinch, perhaps.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 17 May 02 - 02:36 PM

well there are plenty of references for a version going back to 16th c. The one this person is hunting is obviously a riposte, and as you say, malcolm, probably pretty recent

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: GUEST,Eclipse
Date: 17 May 02 - 03:05 PM

The one I'm searching for is quite likely modern-ish. Thanks to everyone who's looking. :)

-Eclipse

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: lamarca
Date: 17 May 02 - 04:44 PM

Just to clarify, what you're looking for is a (probably) modern humorous song where the man uses all the euphemisms for sex that abound in folk song - "shooting the bonny black hare", "rumpling up the cuckoo's nest", "play the Game of All Fours", "boarding her foc'sle", etc, and the woman puts him off by deliberately taking the phrases literally rather than figuratively...?

Don't know the song, but boy, would I like to!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 May 02 - 05:01 PM

Bill:  I was forgetting the Bonny Brier Bush, of course; both Burns and Lady Nairne set lyrics to it in the closing years of the 18th century, and it seems reasonable to suppose that it had carried a bawdy text for some time before that, though I don't know of any specific evidence. The tune is likely to be older than the song, and certainly appeared in dance collections (sometimes under that title, it seems, but often under others) during the second half of the 18th century; it was earlier known as Come Ashore Jolly Tar [with] Your Trousers [Trowsers]On, among other things.

I don't know of any evidence that would take the Cuckoo's Nest song back much before the mid-18th, though. let alone the 16th: if you know of any, (especially if there's plenty!) I'd be most interested.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: GUEST,Dagenham Doc
Date: 17 May 02 - 10:40 PM

T is for Thomas is not about 'nests' but does talk about climbing trees > "oh I'll go and climb a higher tree than that"

best thing I can think of

Doc

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: GUEST,firínne
Date: 18 May 02 - 07:59 PM

In an irish song called 'The Verdant Braes of Skreen' there is a verse which goes.....'and I will climb a high, high tree, and rob a wild bird's nest.....and I'll bring back what I find there, to the arms that I love best, she said, to the arms that I love best'. But the problem is that that this is a woman singing!!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 18 May 02 - 08:15 PM

That's a "floating" verse, which turns up in songs throughout England, Scotland and Ireland. I think we'd probably best ignore it for now, as it isn't directly relevant to Eclipse's question, and if everybody lists the examples they know we'll wind up with a pretty long thread; and none the wiser!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: Snuffy
Date: 19 May 02 - 11:32 AM

I have vague memories of a song from the Kipper Family which might be the one you're looking for. It seemed to list various circumlocutions, but the damsel always took it literally.

Haven't a clue about its title, though. Sorry.

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: GUEST,Eclipse
Date: 21 May 02 - 11:46 AM

-Sorry for the delay... I was away. Thanks all :) I'll start looking through Kipper family stuff. And what lamarca described is what I'm looking for.

-Eclipse

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 21 May 02 - 11:55 AM

Just for comparison, here are the songs in the Database:

CUCKOOS NEST - No source given. A story of a courtship and marriage ending with the line "And he often claps his hand on her cuckoo's nest."

CUCKOO'S NEST, recorded by Jean Redpath. It starts, "There is a thornbush in oor kailyard" and ends "I left her wi' the makings of a young cuckoo."

THE CUCKOO'S NEST by (John Shiels). This version plays with big words: "If experienced in ontology, relate without tautology/The pristine aestheology of my cuckoo's nest."

THE CUCKOO's NEST (2) begins "There's a pombush in the garden where the lads and lassies meet"

THE CUCKOO'S NEST (3), a bawdy cowboy version beginning, "Some like a girl that's pretty in the face"

THE MAGPIE 2, an Irish version from Peter Kennedy's book, "Folksongs of Britain and Ireland." With the refrain "I will l'ave you down to rest in the magpies's nest.

None of these seems to be the song Eclipse is looking for. I also searched the Forum for "Cuckoo's Nest," and everything I found there seems irrelevant. Also, using "cuckoo's nest" + "climb * tree" came up with nothing relevant from Google.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 21 May 02 - 12:06 PM

The first example appears to have been transcribed from the record Morris On (essentially an Albion Band job), originally released in 1972. No traditional source was named.

The second was taken from Norman Buchan and Peter Hall's book The Scottish Folksinger (1973) and is a transcription of a traditional version from the repertoire of Jeannie Robertson.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: Snuffy
Date: 24 May 02 - 09:00 AM

I think the Kipper Song may be The Bonny Spotted Cuckoo, from their album In the 'Family Way', which I no longer have.

As I recall there were verses about bonny black hair, cuckoo's nest, guns and ramrods, and fiddles. That one ended something like "But Sir since you carry no baggage at all, Then the fiddle you have, it must be wondrous small".

Sound familiar?

WassaiL! V

btw - see this thread for more Kipper lyrics.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: GUEST,eclipse
Date: 24 May 02 - 02:49 PM

Awesome. Thanks. Now... to find the lyrics. -Eclipse

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: GUEST,Eoin O'Buadhaigh
Date: 24 May 02 - 09:56 PM

Smutty or what? I have heard John Moulden sing a version of this song on a few occasions 'in the past'. I doubt very much if he will post his version here but it's worth a try - Eh, John what about it? It is a cracker of a song!! Hope he does!

Eoin

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Cuckoo's nest - climb a tree
From: GUEST,Eclipse
Date: 25 May 02 - 05:43 PM

I'd really appreciate it if he (or anyone else) did, and I will if I find them through other sources.

-Eclipse