Farmyard Song

The "Farmyard Song" (Roud number 544) is a cumulative song about farm animals, originating in the British Isles and also known in North America.

It is known by various titles, such as:

  • "I Bought Me a Cat"
  • "I Love My Rooster"
  • "I Bought Me a Horse"
  • "My Cock Crew"
  • "The Green Tree"[1]
  • "The Barnyard Song"[2][3]
  • "There Was An Old Man of Tobago"

Summary

In the first verse, the narrator tells of buying or having a rooster, cat, horse or other animal, feeding them under a tree, and the call the animal makes. Each subsequent verse introduces a new animal, then repeats the calls of the animals from previous verses.

Versions

There were several versions known in the Thames Valley in the early part of the 20th century.[4] A version collected in Bampton, Oxfordshire around 1916 began as follows:

The very first thing my mother bought me,
It was a hen, you may plainly see;
And every time I fed my hen,
I fed her under the tree.

My hen went chick-chack,
My cock went cock-a-te-too;
Here's luck to all my cocks and hens,
And my cock-a-doodle-do.[4]

Musicologists Loraine Wyman and Howard Brockway collected "The Barnyard Song" in Kentucky in 1916.[5]:5[2] This version began,

I had a cat and the cat pleased me,
I fed my cat under yonder tree.
Cat goes fiddle-i-fee.[2]

Some American variants are not cumulative, but instead group all the animal calls together at the end of the song.[3]

Adaptations and recordings
This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

References
  1. "The Green Tree". The Max Hunter Folk Song Collection. Missouri State University. Retrieved 2016-03-18.
  2. Wyman, Loraine; Brockway, Howard (1916). Lonesome Tunes: Folk Songs from the Kentucky Mountains. H.W. Gray Company. p. 13.
  3. "Barnyard Song". The Max Hunter Folk Song Collection. Missouri State University. Retrieved 2016-03-18.
  4. Chris Wildridge, ed. (2010). "Here's luck to all my cocks and hens". Wiltshire Community History. Wiltshire Council.
  5. Ralph Lee Smith; Madeline MacNeil (24 February 2011). Folk Songs of Old Kentucky. Mel Bay Publications. ISBN 978-1-60974-264-5.
  6. "Down on Barney's Farm". Barney & Friends. Season 1. Episode 10. The Lyons Group. 1992.
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