the cuckoo (1700s)

folk, USA/UK.

as performed by Ella Jenkins.

key: A aeolian
mode: A B C D E F G
melody: M S l t d
form: strophic
meter: duple

English function names: tonic dominant
Tagg (modified):        home  counterpoise (away)
Riemann:                t     d
Scale degrees:          i     v
Chords:                 Am    Em

Am                 Em       Am
|/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / |
Am                 Em       Am
|/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / |/ / / / |

I first heard a real cuckoo one May, late afternoon, sitting on my friend’s balcony in Erlangen. After the clock struck about 30 o’clock, it dawned on me that I was hearing the real thing, not some neighbor’s wall-mounted time-keeping device. There are plenty of German songs featuring the cuckoo, and plenty of clocks featuring the cuckoo, yet this is an American version of an old English song. Are there cuckoos in the good ol’ USA? Sure are! Apparently, the black-billed cuckoo breeds here in New England, but its call sounds nothing like the European cuckoo we associate with the clocks.¹

black-billed cuckoo:

Shriek of the week’s feature on the common cuckoo:²

Shriek of the Week: Cuckoo

Jenkins recorded several versions of this song over the years, in different keys, with different harmonizations, which you can hear below. A list of who has recorded the song is here.

This song exists in so many variants, but I picked this one, as I so often do, for teaching ukulele. There are not many i-v songs³ as I mentioned in a previous post and this recording in this key is a good match for beginning ukulele. It’s also a good beginning guitar key. The open chords on a guitar are much more limited, so I’m always excited to find a recording in a key that works. I’m also fond of the simplicity of this version, with its two verses and harmonica ritornello. It’s a fantastic model to use for songwriting.

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other recordings:

Jean Ritchie. Singing the Traditional Songs of Her Kentucky Mountain Family. Rhino. C# aeolian. The melodic pitch-set here is an interesting pentatonic scale that has no third up from the tonic, yet still has a minor-feel to it: DO re mi sol la do re’ (more on pentatonics here.)

Ella Jenkins. Rhythms of Childhood. Smithsonian Folkways. D minor. This is a recording from 1963. Here she harmonizes the song mainly with i, VII, and v, but as the song goes on, it often cadences III-v-i.

Ella Jenkins. This A Way That A Way. Smithsonian Folkways. D minor. This recording is from 1973. It uses i-V7 to harmonize the song.

Clarence Ashley. American Epic: The Collection. Columbia. Ab minor. Harmonized with i-VII. Lyrically quite different from the others — it becomes about a card game! — but melodically much closer to what Jenkins performs.

1. It also doesn’t lay its eggs in other birds’ nests. As much. https://lovethebirds.com/american-cuckoos/

2. I still want a replica of this man to cover the birds of New England in a substack, same format, same title, just different birds.

3. In comparison to i-V or I-V or I-IV songs. There are hundreds of those. I’ve got plenty of material to work with and not enough hours in the day to work with it!