Songs about chickens

Subject: Songs about chickens
From:
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 08:13 PM

[Many song titles in this thread have been converted to links by a Mudelf.]

Hi I am trying to create a list of songs about chickens for an imaginary CD compilation: if you know any songs about chickens please help add to the list, I admit there are a few by Louis Jordan, but that the reason the quest started.

Charlie Parker: YARDBIRD SUITE
Louis Jordan: AIN'T NOBODY HERE BUT US CHICKENS, THAT CHICK'S TOO YOUNG TO FRY, A CHICKEN AIN'T NOTHIN' BUT A BIRD, COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO.
Dr Alimantado: THE BEST DRESSED CHICKEN IN TOWN
Jaco Pastorius (although he didn't write it): SOUL INTRO/THE CHICKEN
Amon Tobin: LIKE REGULAR CHICKENS
Rufus Thomas: FRIED CHICKEN
THE CHICKEN DANCE (horrible song played at weddings)
Jimmy Smith: BACK AT THE CHICKEN SHACK.


Well all is good,
Stay cool,
BergR

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 08:56 PM

there was the spitting image song - wave a chicken in the air, which was number one in England

LITTLE RED ROOSTER

there was a roy rogers song [MY CHICKASHAY GAL] that went, got a slick chick a-waiting in a chikasay home, from a chickasay girl I'll never more roam

there was the wartime classic - HEY LITTLE HEN, tell me when when when, will you lay me an egg for my tea

and as the chinese ventriloquist said, fancy a click cluck?

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 09:13 PM

CHICKEN IS NICE -- sung by Dave Van Ronk

C-H-I-C-K-E-N Blues -- sung by Mississippi John Hurt? (I heard Geoff Muldaur sing it)

LITTLE RED ROOSTER -- sung by Big Mama Willie Mae Thornton and also Mick Jagger

Something about chickens who weren't laying eggs. Last lines are:
"They're laying eggs now
just like they used too
Since that rooster
came in our yard."

I Had a Little Rooster by the Barnyard Gate
And that little rooster was my playmate...

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Joybell
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 09:31 PM

"The Chicken Reel" can have words if you do chicken noises to it.
Also "Water Bound" starts with "Chickens crowin' in the old cornfield..." Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Ferrara
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 09:46 PM

(All the Little ) Chickens in the Garden, see DT for more info

"Turkey in the Straw" has chicken verses. My mother sang:

"Oh, we had a little chicken and she had a wooden leg,
'Twas the best little hen that ever laid an egg,
It was the finest little hen we ever had around the farm,
And another little drink wouldn't do me any harm."

Bill's family sang this verse to Turkey in the Straw:

"Oh, we had a little chicken and it had a wooden leg,
So we poured hot water up and down its leg,
Oh the little chicken hollered and the little chicken begged,
And the little chicken laid a hard boiled egg."

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Ferrara
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 09:51 PM

We had some chickens, no eggs would they lay,
We had some chickens, no eggs would they lay;
One day a rooster came into our yard,
He caught those chickens right off their guard.
They're laying eggs now, just like they used ter,
Ever since that rooster came into our yard (repeat)

We had a cow, no milk would she give (repeat)
One day that rooster came into our yard,
He caught that cow right off her guard.
She's giving egg nog, like she never used ter,
Ever since that rooster came into our yard (repeat)

We had a dog, no pups would she give (repeat)
One day that rooster, etc
She's laying pooched eggs, like she never used ter,
Ever since that rooster came into our yard (repeat)

Have forgotten the rest, maybe Bill will add some verses. Or Dick Greenhaus, he's bound to know more....

Rita

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: KT
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 09:55 PM

Ghost Chickens in the Sky

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: The Walrus
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 09:56 PM

CHICK, CHICK, CHICK, CHICK, CHICKEN (LAY A LITTLE EGG FOR ME)

If you want to stretch a point, you could include "The Birdie Song" (species not given).

W

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 10:04 PM

Ferrara, that's The Rooster, which is in the Digital Tradition. In another thread, somebody posted this verse:

We had a rooster, no love would he give.
We had a rooster, no love would he give.
One day another rooster came into our yard
and caught that rooster right off of his guard.

He's laying hens now, just like he used to . . .

-Joe Offer-

---

Some of these are listed above, but here's what I see listed in the Digital Tradition:

CHICKEN

CHICKEN ON A RAFT

THE CHICKENS ARE INTO THE TOMATOES

CHICKENS IN THE GARDEN

FISHIN' FOR CHICKENS

GHOST CHICKENS IN THE SKY

THE LITTLE RED ROOSTER

THE ROOSTER

THE BANTAM COCK

There are other "cock" songs, but maybe we shouldn't get into them...

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Janie
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 10:43 PM

In the DT also "WHO BROKE THE LOCK ON THE HENHOUSE DOOR

Riley Puckett's version is probably the best known.

Janie

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 10:53 PM

"CHICKEN CORDON BLEUS" -Steve Goodman

"Thus Cacked Henrietta" Ray Stevens ["Also Sprach Zarathustra" done with chicken sounds]

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 11:01 PM

GALLO DEL CIELO (Tom Russell)

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 11:07 PM

CLUCK OLD HEN - Tom Ashley, Frank Profitt, Wayfaring Strangers & others

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: starfishian
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 11:47 PM

Willie and the Poor Boys (a Jimmy Page/Bill Wyman project) - "Chicken Shack Boogie". I can find it if you need it.

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Bard Judith
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 12:12 AM

"And we'll kill the old red rooster when she comes,
And we'll kill the old red rooster when she comes,
And we'll kill the old red rooster, we'll kill the old red rooster,
We'll kill the old red rooster when she comes...."

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Goose Gander
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 12:13 AM

"Chicken in a Graveyard" by the Thingz

Fine-feathered friend in a long black veil,
Fowl intentions leave me pale.

Chicken in a graveyard got his eyes on you.

Beady little eyes as cold as death,
Finger-lickin' claws choke away your breath.

Chicken in a graveyard got his eyes on you.

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: GUEST,Fullerton
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 01:21 PM

Chicken Reel - Les Paul

(Take Your Elbow Out Of The Soup) You're Sitting On The Chicken - By Ian Dury

Evidently Chickentown - John Cooper-Clarke. (OK so it's a poem but it's got musical accompaniment and its funny)

Dirty Rooster. - Slim Gaillard. A very strange record indeed. It consists of two vocalists, almost certainly intoxicated, doing chicken noises over a groovy jazz rhythm section.

BUT

Listen more carefully and they are clear singing.....

"F**k off, F**k off, F**k off, F**k off, F**k off, F**k off" etc ad lib ad inf.

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: ranger1
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 01:30 PM

There's also "Dixie Chicken", a song that I only remember because I hate it so much. Covered by Little Feat and Garth Brooks.

Subject: RE: Hens Forth,Songs about chickens
From: Severn
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 01:43 PM

The original hit version of "Chicken Shack Boogie" was by Amos Milburn.

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: GUEST,Laurent
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 02:12 PM

Let's try a French one, sung by French singer Jacques Dutronc. I don't know whether he wrote it but it really sound like a traditionnal lively marching song. It's really up to date.

Ma poule n'a plus qu'vingt-neuf poulets (twice)
Elle en avait trente, la poule a (nomally, an accent is needed) ma tante.
Allongeons la jambe, la jambe car la route est longue.

Ma poule n'a plus qu'vingt-huit poulets...

And so on until only one remains.

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens to recoop your losses
From: Severn
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 02:13 PM

Companion verses to add to Bill D. verse to "Turkey In The Straw" that ferrara gave:


Well, I had a little chicken and it wouldn't lay an egg
So I poured hot chocolate up and down its leg
And the pour chicken cried and the poor chicken begged
And the poor little chicken laid an Easter Egg

Well I had a little chicken and it wouldn't lay an egg
So I poured some soy sauce up and down its leg
And the poor chicken cried and the poor chicken begged
And the poor little chicken laid an Egg Foo Young.

(collected in the field from three young American ladies my friends and I tried to pick up in Mexico City years ago, but that's another story....)

"Crow Black Chicken"-Originally recorded by The Leake County Revellers on a 78, it was later covered by The New Lost City Ramblers on the Folkways LP "Volume 4", and in a slide guitar based version by Ry Cooder on "Boomer's Story" on Reprise.

"Lock On The Chicken Coop Door" came from The shelor Family and was recorded on an LP by Half Shaved on "Downhome Homemade Old Time Music" on Flying Crow Records.

"Run Chicken Run"-an old Link Wray instrumental hit

Dave Swarbrick recorded the fiddle tune "The Hens March Through The Midden" a number of times.

NRBQ recorded an instrumental called "Trouble at the Henhouse"

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Susan of DT
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 02:36 PM

Search the DT for chicken, hen, cock, and rooster. You will get some extraneous hits, but there are plenty. One of the song circles we go to has chicken as the topic of the next sing, so I ran the searches for chicken and cock - you get many pages.

Subject: Lyr Add: ROBERT'S ROOSTER + HERBERT (J Rasmussen)
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 02:39 PM

ROBERT'S ROOSTER
By Jerry Rasmussen

CHORUS: Robert's Rooster is Red and his dog Jack is black
And they never talk back to their Mother
And when it would rain, they would never complain
They would sit and they'd play by the hour

1. Sometimes they would sail on the stormy sea
And the wind it would roar and howl
Jack would cover his eyes, and the rooster would hide
While Robert stood watch on the bow

2. Sometimes they would play at the big parade
And they'd march all around the room
Robert carried the fowl and the dog he would howl
And the rooster would carry the tune

3. And when they got tired of playing
The dog would curl up on the floor
And Robert would lie with his rooster beside
And Jack would look happy and snore


HERBERT
by Jerry Rasmussen

1. He came a-riding into town in a great big Cadillac
With the windows all rolled down, tied in a gunny sack
But the sack was for potatoes, and hot for Herbert's kind
And with his spurs as sharp as razors, he cut the ties that bind

CHORUS: And Herbert was a terror of the local countryside
Sometimes he'd flag the neighbor's cat, and he'd take him for a ride
And there never was a man or beast who could make him miss a step
And you can bet your bottom dollar, he hasn't met one yet

2. When Herbert strolled the neighborhood, the squirrels stayed in their nests
The dogs would look the other way, and the cats would genuflect
And the pigeons in my Dad's garage got up to bar the door
For those who messed with Herbert, were never seen no more

3. We took him to my Uncle's farm when I had to move away
The roosters met him at the gate, just to have a little play
But when he rode them 'round the Farm, their enthusiasm waned
And I swear he'd jump them through a hoop he had them so well trained


Robert's Rooster was written many years ago for my son, Gideon when he was a little boy. Herbert was a banty rooster. My friend Earl sold him to me with a Harley David Motorcycle for $90. I kept him a year until I went away to college and had to take him to my Uncle's farm. He did indeed ride on the back of the neighbor's cat when the cat was foolish enough to enter our yard.

And then, if we're talking about chicken songs, there's always Coward Of The County.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Roosters & Roasters For The Roster
From: Severn
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 03:33 PM

"The Chicken and the Hawk" on "Joe Turner's Greatest Hits" on Atlantic
and by The Nighthawks on "Trouble" on Powerhouse.

Rooster Blues - Lightnin' Slim on "Sound of the Swamp: The Best of Excello Records" on Rhino as well as other places.

Old Hen Cackle-Coleman & Harper on "Down In The Basement-Joe Bussard's Treasure Trove of Vintage 78s, 1926-1937" on Old Hat

"Chicken You Can Roost Behind The Moon"-Beale Street Sheiks on the Biograph LP "Mississippi & Beale Street Sheiks 1927-1932"

Didn't Rufus Thomas also do "Do The Funky Chicken"?

....And one final question...

That "Chicken In The Graveyard" Michael Morris cited a few posts back WAS a "Poultry-Geist", wasn't it?

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 03:39 PM

There's also a wonderful poem about a chicken who is swept off the deck of a full-rigged ship in the Sunda Strait and is happily rescued. It's called "Hen Overboard."

Nautical singer Bob Webb [& Craig Edwards & Helen Richmond Webb] recorded an entire CD of chicken-related songs ["Cluck Old Hen: Celebrating 150 Years of the Rhode Island Red"] just recently [2004] but failed to include the one above.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Goose Gander
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 04:21 PM

Yes, indeed, a poultry-geist. I received a whole chicken in a can for my birthday last month (from my brother, who gives me nothing but gag gifts). So now a song screams to be written....

"Chicken in a Can-Can"

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: KT
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 04:33 PM

Walks like a chicken, talks like a chicken, but it ain't no armadillo!!!

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Big Jim from Jackson
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 04:47 PM

Paul Stamler at KDHX in St. Louis has compiled a CD of chicken songs.
Our own Seamus Kennedy has a GREAT song called "Fishin' For Chickens"

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 05:03 PM

Is there a song that went along with the dance, the Funky Chicken?

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 09:29 PM

eric taylor - chicken Pie
Ry Cooder- ever since the big crap game, I been living on chicken and wine
I'm a leader of society, since I got mine

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 09:59 PM

The klezmer band, Kapelye, did a song about Chicken on one of their
albums, sorry I don't remember any details.

Subject: Lyr Add: CHICKEN SONG (Jay Ungar)
From: GUEST,Henryp
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 08:09 AM

Two, different, songs from Jeff Warner and Jeff Davis

"C-H-I-C-K-E-N," Jeff Warner & Jeff Davis on TWO LITTLE BOYS WD 102(self-released)

CHICKEN SONG Jay Ungar (c) 1986 Swinging Door Music BMI sung by Jeff Warner & Jeff Davis on Old Time Songs For Kids, WD 101

In these inflationary times some folks got lots of bread,
But we're still paying through the nose just to keep our family fed.
We tried to change our diet and get something cheaper to eat,
We're eatin' lots more chicken now, and a whole lot less red meat.

CHORUS:
Chicken, chicken, put 'em in a pot,
Cook 'em up most any way,
Tell you what you got: [What?]
Chicken in a pot.

When you go to a butcher just to get yourself that bird,
Make sure you got the whole thing, 'cause you can use it all, I've heard.
You can cook the eggs, and gnaw the bones, and eat up all of that meat,
Stuff a pillow with the feathers, and make a soup out of the feet.

Well, eatin' all these chickens, I'm sure that it's a sin.
It seems their lives have just begun before we do them in.
I been doin' a little calculatin' and I'll tell you right now,
It takes 543 chickens just to make up one old cow.

Well, I've had 'em fried, broiled, braised, curried, baked, and creamed,
Cordon bleu'd, and barbecued. I can see them in my dreams:
Croquette, cutlet, almondine, paprikash, and fricassee.
It's time to switch to tofu and set your chicken free.

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Splott Man
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 08:46 AM

All Birds Look Like Chickens To Me
by Irving Jones published 1899.
Still popular with jazz bands around south Wales

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: moongoddess
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 09:28 AM

Bob Webb has a CD out called "Cluck Old Hen" - Celebrating 150 years of the Rhode Island Red. Some of the songs were already mentioned, but here is the whole list:

Cacklin' Hen
Who Broke the Lock
I'll Rise When the Rooster Crows
Waterbound
Cluck Old Hen
Banty Rooster
Banty Rooster Blues
Ragtime Joe (C-H-I-C-K-E-N)
Mornin' Blues
Soldier's Joy
Pullet Surprise(Chicken Reel)
Pretty Crowing Chicken
Mister Chicken
Crow Black Chicken
Free Little Bird


A great CD! My favorite is Ragtime Joe.

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Wayne Mitchell
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 01:08 PM

Run, Run, Chicken Run, sung by The Serendipity Singers on their We Belong Together album (1966?), attributed to Galbraith/Teifer/Marens, (possibly related to the Link Wray instrumental which Severn mentioned?)

An Peata Circe (The Pet Hen)

For just a mention of chickens:
Sourwood Mountain
It Ain't Gonna Rain No More
Egg-suckin' Dog

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: GUEST,bbc at work
Date: 01 Nov 05 - 11:21 AM

My very favorite is Fishin' for Chickens, already mentioned as being in the DT. It was brought to my attention by our own Dharmabum, sung by him at a past Old Songs Festival. Great memory, that!

best,

bbc

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 08:09 AM

not a song, but a great fiddle tune

Jenny's Chickens

http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/756


Very often played before Bonnie Kate, the pairing being popularised by Michael Coleman

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: GUEST,Robin Madge
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 08:26 AM

I did write a tune called "Pullet and see" to go with "The hens march to the midden" when I was performing with Hen's Teeth.

Robin Madge

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Snuffy
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 08:53 AM

PICKIN' A CHICKEN (Paddy Roberts / Derek Bernfield / Garfield De Mortimer). Recorded by Eve Boswell 1955, and Jim Reeves - 1956.

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Steve-o
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 12:28 PM

There's a great blues song done by Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan called "Chicken-a-la-Blues".

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: curmudgeon
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 04:15 PM

The aforementioned Bob Webb chicken CD is available   here.

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Artful Codger
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 05:01 PM

Might have been mentioned before: "Chicken on a Raft", recorded on the eponymous album of sea shanties by The Young Tradition.

The Watersons' "I Went to Market". Not just about chickens, but the hen and cock figure predominantly.

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: open mike
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 01:10 AM

there is a great kids song called chickens for peace
it is by..Peter Alsop...see: www.peteralsop.com

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Celtaddict
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 01:31 AM

The talking chicken round has been mentioned on another thread.
Sandra Boynton (yes, the one who makes the hippo greeting cards) wrote a musical, never produced but available in a truly funny book-and-CD set, called "The Philadelphia Chickens."

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 11:59 PM

yes indeed The watersons - all the little chickens in your garden , or something like that from the pence and Spicey Ale album - Mike Waterson - or maybe my memoriy is leaking

Subject: Lyr Add: CHICK, CHICK, CHICK, CHICK, CHICKEN (LAY
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 08:31 AM

Transcribed from the sound file at http://www.aardvarkmastering.com/edison.htm :

CHICK, CHICK, CHICK, CHICK, CHICKEN (LAY A LITTLE EGG FOR ME)
Fred Holt, Thos. McGhee & Irving King
[As recorded by Earl Oliver's Jazz Babies on Edison Diamond Disk #51745-R.]

1. Now good old farmer Haystack (?) is the cleverest of men.
He cuts a rasher off a pig and then shouts to a hen:

CHORUS: Oh, chick, chick, chick, chick, chicken, lay a little egg for me.
Chick, chick, chick, chick, chicken, I want one for my tea.
Oh, I haven't had an egg since Easter, and now it's half past three,
So, chick, chick, chick, chick, chicken, lay a little egg for me.

2. Now, Rip Van Winkle woke up after twenty years or more.
He found a bird's nest in his beard and shouted out, "Oh, Lor'!"

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From: sharyn
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 03:00 PM

Carol Denney has a song called "Roll Chickens Roll."

The chorus is

"Roll, chickens, roll.
Fry, chickens, fry.
I hang around the deli
And it helps the time go by.
Roll, chickens, roll
Fry, chickens, fry
Nothing's been the same here
Since the day you said goodbye."

Subject: RE: Songs about chickens
From:
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 04:41 PM

So many songs about chickens, i truly am amazed,
thanks to all the peoples for their help, and i am working through the list slowly.
stay Cool, BergR

Subject: Lyr Add: BETSY BRENNAN'S BLUE HEN
From: GEST
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 09:39 PM

BETSY BRENNAN'S BLUE HEN
See also: Blue Hen

From the widow McKenny I bought for a penny,
To lay a few eggs when the berries are ripe;
But some dirty crawler from the hen house did haul her,
My beautiful little blue hen did swipe.

May his whiskers turn green when he eats a crubeen,
And may pork fat and beans nearly make him insane;
May two dogs and a crackie eat all his tobaccy.
The villain who stole my little blue hen.

Oh, this hen she had dozens of nephews and cousins,
The world 'round I would roam for her sake;
But some wicked savage, to grease his white cabbage,
Walked off with my hen and my beautiful drake.

May her stockings fall down when she goes out of town,
May the hair on her crown she can't bob it, and then;
May the girls from the Nor'ard stick pins in her forehead,
The villain who lifted my little blue hen.

I bought from Port Saunders that hen and two ganders,
But some dirty clown from my hen house did steal;
My beautiful chicken I would have for pickin',
On Christmas Day for to have a fine meal.

May the ravenous baste burst her blouse at the waist,
May she not get a taste of a dumplin' or cake;
May a man from Freshwater go back on her daughter,
That lifted my hen and my beautiful drake.

I would search the seas over from Boston to Dover,
To find out the rover and wouldn't stop then;
I would walk to Trepassey to collar the lassie,
Who pilfered my dear little beautiful hen.

May the measles and gout when he chance to go out,
On his double chin mouth, shove him down in the pen;
By the curse of Belleoram may he never stop roarin',
The villain who lifted my little blue hen.

May his pipe never smoke, may his tea pot be broke,
And to add to the joke, may his kettle not boil;
May he burst on cauld tay when he drinks any day,
And his ton of fox whiskers may soon go to soil.

May his clothes be in rags and his trousers bread bags,
May he stagger from jags if he goes 'round the lake;
And may he have bunions as big as small onions,
The scoundrel who lifted my beautiful drake.

####.... Johnny Burke (1851-1930) as published by Gerald S Doyle Ltd. in Old-Time Songs And Poetry Of Newfoundland (1927); 4th edition, p.76 (1966); 5th edition, p.58 (1978) ....####

From the Dictionary Of Newfoundland English:
Crubeen - Pickled pig's foot;
Crackie - Small, noisy mongrel dog.

Archived at GEST Songs Of Newfoundland And Labrador

Subject: Lyr Add: THE ROOSTER FROM KITCHUSIS
From: GEST
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 09:50 PM

THE ROOSTER FROM KITCHUSIS

Come all ye good people I'll sing you a song,
Of men that were known the world over,
And made themselves famous in ballad and tale,
With their love for a roll in the clover.
You may think Casanova and Romeo, too,
Are the best that our history produces,
But the world's greatest lover was no man at all,
But a rooster that came from Kitchusis.

For it's cock-a-lie-doodle and cock-a-lie-diddle,
And cock-a-lie-doodle and then,
When everyone else is knocked out on the floor,
Sure, I'll cock-a-lie-doodle again.

His owner would swear that he stood five feet tall,
With a comb like a red flannel blanket,
And a tail so grand that the peacocks of old,
Would be hard put to outrank it.
While his beady great eyes searched the earth and the skies,
For some creature to put to his uses,
Some virginal thing he would have for a fling,
When the dark of the night struck Kitchusis.

For it's cock-a-lie-doodle and cock-a-lie-diddle,
And cock-a-lie-doodle and then,
When everyone else is knocked out on the floor,
Sure, I'll cock-a-lie-doodle again.

Now, when he was a baby, a bare six weeks old,
The first hen he tackled, is said,
Was dragged to the henhouse a Leg Horn White,
And came back a Rhode Island Red.
Then a cow had a calf with three legs and a half,
And horns that resembled a moose's,
Instead of a moo it yelled cock-a-lie-do,
Like that dirty old bird from Kitchusis.

For it's cock-a-lie-doodle and cock-a-lie-diddle,
And cock-a-lie-doodle and then,
When everyone else is knocked out on the floor,
Sure, I'll cock-a-lie-doodle again.

Then the farmer's poor wife who went out for the eggs,
To the henhouse in all kinds of weather,
Had twins in the Spring that the neighbours all said,
Were born with a head full of feathers.
The doctor explained it was caused by some pills,
And gave out with other excuses,
But everyone knew it was time to get rid,
Of that dirty old bird from Kitchusis.

For it's cock-a-lie-doodle and cock-a-lie-diddle,
And cock-a-lie-doodle and then,
When everyone else is knocked out on the floor,
Sure, I'll cock-a-lie-doodle again.

Now, Kitchusis it sits in Conception Bay,
Like a pearl in a jewellery store,
And the people still talk of that wonderful bird,
That lived in their town by the shore.
Forgot were the hard times they had in the past,
The hunger, and cold, and abuses,
But they'll always remember that rooster of old,
That dirty great bird from Kitchuses.

For it's cock-a-lie-doodle and cock-a-lie-diddle,
And cock-a-lie-doodle and then,
When everyone else is knocked out on the floor,
Sure, I'll cock-a-lie-doodle again.

For it's cock-a-lie-doodle and cock-a-lie-diddle,
And cock-a-lie-doodle and then,
When everyone else is knocked out on the floor,
Sure, I'll cock-a-lie-doodle again.

Spoken:

Well, I tell you if you don't get that rooster outta here,
I'm gonna have a nervous breakdown,
We're gonna have to lock up grandmother.
Tell you what we could do is take that rooster,
And trade that rooster in on a dog and shoot the dog,
'Cause we just gotta get rid of that dirty old rooster!

####.... Dick Nolan (Welcome Aboard, Boot BTM 2008, Maritime Series, 1984) ....####

Archived at GEST Songs Of Newfoundland And Labrador