August 2024: The Cuckoo

Submitted by Julie Henigan

For August’s Song of the Month, I’ve chosen Clarence Ashley’s version of “The Cuckoo,” or, as he called it, “The Coo Coo Bird.” This song has strayed a long way from its British broadside roots in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in which the song was a collection of so-called “floating verses” about unprosperous love.

In this country, one of the versions closest to the British originals is Jean Ritchie’s “The Cuckoo,” which she learned from her father’s side of the family. Other well-known American versions are those performed by Hobart Smith and his sister Texas Gladden.

Like Hobart Smith, Ashley included a banjo approximation of the cuckoo’s call in his accompaniment. His verses have more in common with “Jack of Diamonds” than with Jean Ritchie’s or the broadside versions, but it is identifiable by the inclusion of the verse about the cuckoo which never “hollers cuckoo till the fourth day of July”—the date being a clear expression of American patriotism, since in England the cuckoo doesn’t sing until “the summer draws near.” I myself heard a cuckoo in Cornwall in early May.

I learned this song by osmosis, so that when on a recent song Zoom my friend Mimi Wright sang Texas Gladden’s version, I grabbed my banjo and played an approximation of Clarence Ashley’s rendition. Here’s a link to one of the British broadsides.

Listen to Clarence Ashley singing “The Cuckoo:”

Lyrics

Gonna build me a log cabin
On a mountain so high,
So I can see Willie
As he goes on by.

Hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm-hmm, etc.

Oh, the coo-coo is a pretty bird,
She warbles as she flies.
She never hollers coo-coo
Till the fourth day of July.



I’ve played cards in England,
I’ve played cards in Spain;
I’ll bet you ten dollars
I beat you next game.

Jack-a-Diamonds, Jack-a-Diamonds,
I’ve known you from old;
Now, you’ve robbed my poor pocket
Of my silver and my gold.

Hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm-hmm, etc.

I’ve played cards in England,
I’ve played cards in Spain;
I’ll bet you ten dollars
I beat you next game.

Oh, the coo-coo is a pretty bird
She warbles as she flies
She never hollers coo-coo
Till the fourth day of July.

Julie Henigan writes: I grew up in the Missouri Ozarks, and I’ve been playing and singing traditional American, English, and Irish songs since I was about ten years old. I play guitar, 5-string banjo, lap dulcimer, and fiddle, which I use for instrumentals and song accompaniments. I have a CD (American Stranger) and two books on DADGAD guitar with Mel Bay to my credit. I am also a song scholar; for further details, see my website.