> A.L. Lloyd > Songs > The Cuckoo
> Shirley Collins > Songs > The Cuckoo
> Anne Briggs > Songs > The Cuckoo
> Eliza Carthy > Songs > The Coo Coo Bird

The Cuckoo / The Coo Coo Bird

[ Roud 413 ; Master title: The Cuckoo ; G/D 6:1157 ; Henry H479 ; Ballad Index R049 ; VWML HAM/3/18/15 , RoudFS/S141818 ; GlosTrad Roud 413 ; Wiltshire 95 , 764 ; DT CUCKBIRD , CUKOO2 ; Mudcat 113486 ; trad.]

Jean Ritchie sang two versions of The Cuckoo in 1952 on her Elektra album Singing the Traditional Songs of Her Traditional Kentucky Mountain Family. Edward Tatnall Canby wrote in the sleeve notes:

This extremely beautiful melody is the Ritchie family version of a song that exists in dozens of variants—Jean Ritchie recorded four in a row with hardly a second thought. This comes from Hindman, Ky., where Mr Balis Ritchie was raised. Sharp gives a subtly different version collected in 1916 in the same region.

and:

Another version, to an altogether different melody. The cuckoo, of course, flies in England but not in the Appalachians.

A.L. Lloyd sang The Cuckoo in 1956 on his album The Foggy Dew and Other Traditional English Love Songs. He noted:

Spring cannot start till the cuckoo sings. Perhaps that is why the cuckoo is a magical a bird. Turn your money when you hear him first and you’ll have money in your pocket until he comes again. Whatever you’re doing when you hear him, you’ll do most often throughout the year. Especially if you’re in bed. No bird is more oracular. It can prophesy how long a man will live and a girl remain a maid. There is no better omen for love than the song of the cuckoo, the beloved bird of folklore. On the other hand, he is the sly creature who gave us the word ‘cuckold’. The flattering invocation to the cuckoo in this widespread song is perhaps in the nature of a magical safeguard for the worried lover.

Shirley Collins learnt The Cuckoo from her great grandmother. She sang it in 1959 on her first LP Sweet England. This track was also included in her anthology Within Sound.

Hobart Smith sang Cuckoo Bird on his eponymous 1964 Folk-Legacy album Hobart Smith of Saltville, Virginia which was also released in 1969 in the UK on Topic as The Old Timey Rap. George Armstrong and Fleming Brown noted:

Songs of the cuckoo are common in European folklore, the cuckoo being considered a harbinger of Spring and, hence, an omen of hope and renewal. Cuckoo bird songs in the Anglo-American tradition usually revolve around the theme of unrequited love with the verses about the bird corning in as a symbol of renewed hope.

The verses in Hobart’s short version offer some curious poetry which suggests a strong Southern Mountain influence on the older British song. The first verse appears in the song Green Grows the Laurel. The reference to the Fourth of July would appear purely American.

Hobart’s singing and playing of the song (banjo tuning: GDGCD) serves as an example 9f the exciting contrapuntal blending of voice and instrument, an art characteristic of the highest devel-opment of the musical tradition of this region. The banjo serves as far more than accompaniment, becoming an emotional extension of the performer with a statement of its own to make which is equal in importance to the sung verses. After Hobart has finished singing, the banjo takes over completely and progresses subtly into more complex rhythmic and melodic ornamentations on the basic theme.

Hobart states that he learned this piece from John Greer about fifty years ago and he describes it as his own “choice piece”.

Tom Paley and Peggy Seeger sang The Cuckoo in 1964 on their Topic LP Who’s Going to Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot?

Dave and Toni Arthur recorded The Cuckoo under the assumed name of the Strollers for a Fontana pop-folk single issued in July 1965. This single was included in 2009 on the CD reissue of their Transatlantic LP Morning Stands on Tiptoe.

Anne Briggs recorded The Cuckoo in 1971 for her album Anne Briggs. Like all tracks from this album it was reissued on her two compilations Classic Anne Briggs and A Collection; and this recording was also included in the Topic Sampler No 8, English Garland. A.L. Lloyd commented in her original album’s sleeve notes:

An ambiguous bird, herald of spring and harbinger of cuckoldry, is the hero of this most typical of all English-language lyrical songs. It too is made up of floating verses that zip equally well into a score of other songs. For some reason the song found relatively little favour in Scotland, but it has been one of the commonest of all lyrics in England, Ireland, and upland America. Anne’s set is one of several Irish versions.

Pentangle sang The Cuckoo in 1969 on their third Transatlantic album, Basket of Light.

Frankie Armstrong sang The Cuckoo, “collected from the fine Gypsy singer Queen Caroline Hughes in the 1960’s”, in 1973 on her LP Out of Love, Hope and Suffering and in 2000 on her Fellside CD The Garden of Love.

Cyril Tawney sang The Cuckoo on his 1973 Argo album of traditional love songs from South West England, I Will Give My Love. His version is from Devon.

Sally Killen sang The Cuckoo in 1975 on her and Louis Killen’s LP Bright Shining Morning. Louis Killen noted:

Here is another song of “false true love” collected by Sharp in Somerset. Its fine tune and lyrical first verse changed somewhat when it was carried to Southern Appalachia. The bird seems to have become more patriotic:

O the cuckoo, she’s a pretty bird and she sings as she flies,
And she never sings cuckoo till the Fourth day of July!

John Bowden sang Rolling Down to Old Maui, accompanied by Vic Shepherd on jew’s harp, on their 1982 album A Motty Down. They noted:

This song exists in many versions in Britain and North America. This one consists entirely of floating verses, and we’re not sure where we picked it up.

Cockersdale sang The Cuckoo with words quite similar to Anne Briggs’ in 1997 on their Fellside CD Wide Open Skies and in 2001 on the Fellside anthology Voices in Harmony. They noted:

This is one of the songs which we learnt from Sid Kipper’s “Lateral History Programme” for BBC Radio 2. The programme encouraged us to look much more closely at some of the traditional material that we all had in our own repertoires.

Pete Morton sang The Cuckoo on his 1998 Harbourtown album Trespass. He noted:

Listened to a tape of some bloke singing this but he sounded like he didn’t care much and was thinking about something else. Tried to decipher the tune—came to the conclusion there wasn’t one. So I made it up. Hard work this folk song collecting.

Tim Laycock sang The Cuckoo in 1999 on his WildGoose CD Fine Colours. He noted:

From the singing of Charlie Phillips of Symondsbury, Dorset [VWML RoudFS/S141818] . “Cuckoo in April, cuckoo in May, cuckoo in June, and July flies away.”

Sharron Kraus and electronic musician David Muddyman recorded The Cuckoo in 2002-3. This was finally released in 2023 on their download album, Birdloom.

Coope Boyes & Simpson recorded The Cuckoo in 2005 for their CD Triple Echo: Songs collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams, George Butterworth and Percy Grainger. They noted:

Sung by Mr Bill Wix of Billingshurst, Sussex to George Butterworth in summer 1909. Butterworth often returned to Sussex and re-visited people he collected from, but in Mr Wix’s case, he seems only to have been once, when he notated The Lads of Kilkenny, It’s of an Old Miser in London Did Dwell and The Cuckoo—a song found in many versions here and in North America. We don’t, however, have Mr Wix to thank for this beautiful lyric but another resident of Billingshurst. The words to which the tune was sung was of inferior quality, Butterworth complained, and I have substituted these verses which were given to me by Mrs Cranstone. But Mr Wix’s tune came through in the end—in 1912, Butterworth included The Cuckoo in his eleven piano settings of Folk Songs From Sussex.

The cuckoo’s call is a harbinger of Summer in England, but in all the versions of this traditional song it’s linked with melancholy warnings of the fickleness of love.

The Devil’s Interval sang the English The Cuckoo and Jean Ritchie sang the American version The Cuckoo in 2005 on the anthology Song Links 2: A Celebration of English Traditional Songs and Their American Variants, and The Devil’s Interval (Lauren McCormick, Emily Portman, and Jim Causley) did it a year later on their own CD Blood and Honey. Lauren McCormick returned to the song in 2012 on her album On Bluestockings. She noted:

An original English Blues. We were asked to sing The Cuckoo for Martyn Wyndham-Read’s Song Links 2 project, which linked English traditional songs with their American variants. We chose the Dorset traveller Queen Caroline Hughes’ version and have it on her authority that this song is “the oldest song in the world.”

And Jean Ritchie wrote in her book Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians:

My family had always known this song, it seems. It is fairly similar to the variants found in and around Hindman in Knott County, where my father’s folks lived. It is one of the saddest and loveliest songs I know.

An older American version called The Coo Coo Bird was sung by Clarence ‘Tom’ Ashley in 1929 in Johnson City, Tennessee, and published on Columbia 15489D. This recording was included in 1952 on Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music on the Folkways label. Greil Marcus describes it as a folk-lyric tune made up of verbal fragments that had no direct or logical relationship to each other.

Richard Thompson sang The Coo Coo Bird, accompanied by himself on guitar and by Eliza Carthy playing fiddle, on 25 April 2001 at the Harry Smith Project concert in UCLA’s Royce Hall, Los Angeles. It was finally released in 2006 on The Harry Smith Project: Anthology of American Folk Music Revisited.

Back to English versions, Maddy Prior sang The Cuckoo in 2008 on her CD Seven for Old England. She noted:

This is one of those lyrical, pastoral ballads of which I am so fond and it springs from the deep memory.

Jon Boden sang The Cuckoo with lyrics similar to Anne Briggs’ ones as the 21 January 2011 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day, and Fay Hield sang The Cuckoo in 2012 on her CD with the Hurricane Party, Orfeo. She noted:

The cuckoo is a bird which has attracted a number of folkloric associations. Its call is used as a signal heralding spring, and the number of times it is heard during the season can translate to the number of years until a death of marriage. From the bird’s practice of laying eggs in other’s nests comes the analogy of the cuckolded husband rearing another’s child, and being ‘cuckoo’ remains a common term for craziness. I got this version from Anne Briggs’ extraordinary self-titled, mainly a cappella, album.

James Findlay sang The Cuckoo in 2012 on his Fellside album Another Day Another Story. He noted:

A popular folk song of false love that has travelled far with many versions found across England and North America. I have known this song for as long as I can remember, but when I first heard Tim Laycock’s version with this chorus I fell in love with it. Tim’s version comes from Folk Songs of Britain and Ireland by Peter Kennedy. Peter collected this version from Charley Phillips of Symondsbury, Dorset.

You Are Wolf (Kerry Andrew) sang both My Bonny Cuckoo and The Cuckoo in 2014 on their album Hawk to the Hunting Gone. They noted:

A combination of two traditional English cuckoo songs: the lyrics to My Bonny Cuckoo from the Shirley Collins version, and some lyrics from the oft-recorded The Cuckoo or The Coo-Coo Bird. The cuckoo, with its distinctive appearance and striking nest-usurping behaviour, features heavily in folklore, and is seen as the bringer of spring.

Some of the vocal sounds on the album are inspired by the sounds of a regional word for particular birds, as gleaned from the book All the Birds of the Air by Francesca Greenoak; a cuckoo used to sometimes be called a ‘Welsh ambassador’!

The girls at the beginning were a Norwegian school group that I, along with composers, Larry Goves, Adam Gorb and Björn Eriksson, came upon in the nature reserve of Saltögården in Sweden in 2010. I asked them if I knew any songs, and this is what they sang… as recorded by Björn in the woods, and then expanded with my vocals by Larry.

The Rheingans Sisters (Rowan and Anna) sang and played Cuckoo on their 2015 album Already Home. This video shows them live at Shakespeare’s, Sheffield, in December 2014:

Rosie Hodgson sang The Cuckoo on her 2016 CD Rise Aurora. She noted:

After deciding there were far too many songs about “inconstant lovers”, Rowan [Piggott] decided to write a few new verses to this beautiful tune. His Grandma worked many years as an ornithologist, so it was a natural choice to feature more avian stories, whether they be Oscar Wilde fables, English nursery rhymes or references to the obscure Piggott tradition of Wren Day in Dingle!

Kim Lowings & the Greenwood sang The Cuckoo in 2017 on their CD Wild & Wicked Youth.

June Tabor sang The Cuckoo, “collated, largely from the singing of Queen Caroline Hughes, Dorset gypsy”, on Quercus’ 2017 CD Nightfall.

Lisa Knapp sang The Cuckoo, on her 2018 EP The Summer Draws Near (A Branch of May Chapter Two). She noted:

Printed in Folk Songs of The Upper Thames by Alfred Williams who collected this song from Elijah Iles in Inglesham, Wiltshire. The cuckoo is long heralded as a bringer of spring; with its er unmistakable call and predatory behaviour it has quite a legacy in terms of folklore. I first heard one of my favourite folk singers, Anne Briggs, singing a version of The Cuckoo and have loved these songs ever since.

Nick Dow sang The Cuckoo on his 2020 album of love songs from the British Tradition, In a Garden Grove. He noted:

Collected by Henry Hammond from Mrs. R. Gale of Powerstock, Dorset, May 1906 [VWML HAM/3/18/15] . Hammond remarked: “I like this tune very much.” I am pleased to be the first to have sung this version since he collected it. Most collected versions seem to stem from the 1802 printed publication The Forsaken Nymph, however the song was widespread prior to this date, and always seemed to carry a handsome tune.

In this video The Auldeners (Iona Fyfe, Callum Morton-Teng, Ellen Gira) perform The Cuckoo in a BBC Scotland Quay session, probably in early 2020:

Megan Wisdom sang The Cuckoo in 2022 on her and Mossy Christian’s Live Sampler EP.

Will Page sang The Cuckoo on his 2024 album Still Standing.

Nadine Shaw sang The Cuckoo in 2024 on Ben Nicholl’s Hudson album Duets.

Lyrics

Shirley Collins sings The Cuckoo

The cuckoo she’s a pretty bird, she sings as she flies.
She bringeth us good tidings, she telleth us no lies.
She sucketh white flowers to keep her voice clear,
And everytime she singeth “cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo”,
Then the springtime draweth near.

The cuckoo she’s a pretty bird, no other is as she.
She flits across the meadow and sings from every tree.
She loves the summer sunshine, she hates the wind and rain,
And everytime she singeth “cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo”,
Then the springtime comes again.

The Strollers (Dave and Toni Arthur) sing The Cuckoo

Well the cuckoo is a pretty bird and she warbles as she flies.
And she never holler “cuckoo!” till the Fourth of July.

Well I’ve played cards in England and I’ve played cards in Spain,
And I’ll bet you five dollars that I’ll win you next game.

Jack of Diamonds, Jack of Diamonds, I know you of old;
You robbed my poor pockets of my silver and gold.

Well the cuckoo is a pretty bird and she warbles as she flies.
And she never holler “cuckoo” till the Fourth of July.

Anne Briggs sings The Cuckoo

The cuckoo’s a pretty bird, she sings as she flies.
She brings us good tidings, tells us no lies.
She sucks the little birds’ eggs to keep her voice clear,
And when she sings “cuckoo!” the summer draws near.

As I walked down by the side of a bush
I heard two birds whistling, the blackbird and the thrush.
I asked them the reason so merry they be,
And the answer they gave me, we are single and we are free.

A-walking, a-talking, a-walking was I,
To meet my true lover, he’ll come by and by,
To meet him in the meadows is all my delight,
A-walking and talking from morning till night.

Meeting is pleasure but parting is a grief
And an inconstant lover is worse than a thief.
A thief can but rob me and take all I have,
But an inconstant lover sends me to my grave.

And the grave, it will rot me and bring me to dust,
An inconstant lover no maiden can trust,
They’ll court you and kiss you and vow they’ll be true
And the very next moment they’ll bid you adieu.

The cuckoo’s a pretty bird, she sings as she flies,
She brings us glad tidings, tells us no lies,
And when her time is come, her voice we don’t hear,
And where she goes we do not know until another year.

Frankie Armstrong sings The Cuckoo

Oh it’s night-o after night love
I do lay on me bed
With a feathery pillow all under my head
Neither waking nor sleeping
No rest can I find
For the thoughts of that young man
He still troubles my mind.

I will rise up and meet him
As the evening draws nigh
I will meet him as the evening,
As the evening draws nigh
And if you love another, your mind for to ease
Oh why can’t you love the old one
Til the young’s learned to please?

It’s like the flowers all in your garden
When their beauty’s all gone.
Can’t you see what I’ve come to
By your loving that one?
Oh the grave he will rot you
He will turn you to dust.
There’s not one young man out of twenty
That a poor girl can trust.

Oh the cuckoo ain’t she a merry bird
Don’t she sing as she flies
She brings us glad tidings
And she tells us no lies
She sucks the small birds’ eggs
For to keep her voice clear
And whenever she hollers “Cuckoo”
Don’t the summer draw near.

Cyril Tawney sings The Cuckoo

O the cuckoo is a pretty bird, she singeth as she flies,
She bringeth good tidings she telleth no lies.
She sucketh sweet flowers to keep her voice clear
And when she sings “cuckoo!” the summer draweth near.

O meeting is pleasure but parting is grief,
An inconstant lover is worse than a thief.
A thief can but rob you of all that you have
But an inconstant lover will send you to the grave.

The grave will receive you and bring you to the dust,
An inconstant lover no maiden can trust.
They’ll court you and kiss you, poor maids to deceive,
There’s not one in twenty that one may believe.

Come all you fair maidens, wherever you be,
Don’t hang your poor hearts on the sycamore tree.
The leaf it will wither, and the roots will decay
And if you’re forsaken you’ll perish away.

Cockersdale sing The Cuckoo

The cuckoo she’s a pretty bird, she sings as she flies.
She brings us good tidings, she tells us no lies.
She sucks little birds’ eggs to make her voice clear,
And when she sings “cuckoo!” the summer draws near.

As I walked down by the side of a bush
I heard two birds whistling, the blackbird and the thrush.
I asked them the reason so merry they be,
And the answer they gave me, we are single and free.

A-walking, and a-talking, and a-walking was I,
To meet my true lover, he’ll be there by and by,
To meet him in the meadow is all my delight,
From lark rise in the morning to owl call at night.

Oh, meeting is pleasure but parting is a grief
And a false-hearted lover is worse than a thief.
A thief can but rob you and take all you have,
But an false-hearted lover sends you to your grave.

The grave, it will rot you and bring you to dust,
For a false-hearted lover no maiden can trust,
They’ll court you and kiss you and vow they’ll be true
But like the swallow in the autumn they’ll bid you adieu.

The cuckoo she’s a pretty bird, she sings as she flies.
She brings us good tidings, she tells us no lies.
And when her time’s come, her voice we don’t hear,
And where she goes we don’t know until another year.

Coope Boyes & Simpson sing The Cuckoo

The cuckoo is a merry bird, she sings as she flies;
She brings us glad tidings and tells us no lies.
She sucks the sweet flowers to make her sing clear
And she never sings “cuckoo” till summer is near.

Oh, meeting is pleasure but parting a grief,
An inconstant lover is worse than a thief.
For a thief will but rob you and take all you have,
But an inconstant lover will bring you to the grave.

The grave, it will rot you and bring you to dust,
There is not one in twenty young men girls can trust.
They will kiss you and court you and swear to be true
And the very next moment they’ll bid you adieu.

Come all you young women wherever you be,
Build never your nest in the top of a tree.
For the leaves they will wither, the branches decay
And the beauty of fair maids will soon fade away.

(repeat first verse)

The Devil’s Interval sing The Cuckoo

O, it’s night after night, love, I do lay on my bed,
With the pillows, the feathers all under my head;
Neither sleeping nor waking, oh no rest can I take,
But the thought of that young man, he still troubles my mind.

I will rise then, I will meet him, love, as the evening draws nigh;
I will meet him in the evening as the evening draws nigh;
Well if you think you love a little girl, oh, your mind for to ease,
Then why can’t you love the old one till the new one comes on?

It’s like the flowers all in your garden when the beauty’s all gone
Can’t you see what I’m come to by loving that one?
Oh, your grave he will rot you, he will rot you all away,
There’s not one young man out of twenty a young man can you trust.

So, I’ll take my week’s wages, unto an alehouse I’II go,
And it’s there I’ll sit drinking till my money’s all gone;
Here’s my wife and little family all at home starving too,
And there’s me in this alehouse, oh, a-spending all I earn.

Oh, the cuckoo she’s called a merry bird, love, don’t she sing as she flies,
And she brings us good tidings and she tells us no lies;
And she sucks all small birds’ eggs for to keep her voice clear,
And every time she hollers “cuckoo!”, don’t the summer draw nigh?

Jean Ritchie sings The Cuckoo

O the cuckoo she’s a pretty bird, she sings as she flies;
She brings us glad tidings and she tells us no lies.
She sucks all the pretty flowers to make her voice clear
And she never sings “cuckoo” till the spring of the year.

Come all you young women, take warning by me,
Never place your affection on the love of a man.
For the roots they will wither, the branches decay,
He’ll turn his back on you and he’ll walk square away.

If you do forsake me I’ll not be forsworn
And they’ll all be mistaken if they think that I’ll mourn;
For I’ll get myself up in some higher degree
And I’ll walk as light by him as he can by me.

(repeat first verse)

Richard Thompson sings The Coo Coo Bird

Yeah, the coo coo she’s a pretty bird
Oh, she warbles as she flies
And she never cries coo coo
Till the fourth day of July

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

Well, I’ve played cards in England
And I’ve played cards in Spain
And I’ll bet you ten dollars
That I’ll win the next game

Jack of diamonds, oh, Jack of diamonds
I’ve known you of old
You robbed my poor pockets
Of the silver and his gold

(repeat first verse)

Hmm, hmm-hmm, …

Maddy Prior sings The Cuckoo

O the cuckoo she’s a pretty bird and she singeth as she flies
She brings us good tidings and she tells us no lies
She sucks the small bird’s eggs to keep her voice clear
And the more she singeth cuckoo the summer draws near

And when I have found out my joy and delight
I’ll welcome him kindly by day and by night
For the bells shall be a-ringing and the drums make a noise
For to welcome in my true love with ten thousand joys

In the middle of the ocean there grows a myrtle tree
And the green leaves will whither and the branches shall die
The leaves will whither and the roots they will decay
And a false-hearted lover will soon fade away

For it’s meeting is pleasure and parting is grief
And an inconstant lover is worse than any thief
For a thief he will rob you and take all you have
But a false-hearted lover will lead you to the grave

But now I have found him my own heart’s delight
I will be true to my love by day and by night
I will be as true to him as the little turtle dove
Nor I never shall, no never, prove false to my love

Jon Boden sings The Cuckoo

The cuckoo she’s a pretty bird and she sings as she flies.
She brings us glad tidings and she tells us no lies.
She sucks upon the wild birds’ eggs for to keep her voice clear,
And when she sings “cuckoo” the summer draws near.

A-walking and a-talking, a-walking was I,
To meet my true lover, he’ll be there by and by,
To meet him in the meadow it was all my delight,
A-walking and a-talking from morning until night.

For meeting is a pleasure but parting it is a grief
An inconstant lover is worse than a thief.
For a thief he will but rob you, take all you have,
But an inconstant lover will send you to the grave.

And the grave, it will rot you and turn you into dust,
There is not one in twenty pretty maidens can trust,
They will kiss you and embrace you and swear they’ll prove true
But the very next moments they will bid you adieu.

So come all you fair and tender maids and a warning take by me,
And never try and build your nest at the top of a tall tree.
For the green leaves they will wither and the branches decay,
And the fair looks of a pretty young maid will soon fade away.

Fay Hield sings The Cuckoo

The cuckoo she’s a pretty bird, she sings as she flies.
She brings us glad tidings and tells us no lies.
She sucks on the wild birds’ eggs to keep her voice clear,
And when she sings “cuckoo” the summer draws near.

As I was walking by the side of a bush
I heard two birds whistling, the blackbird and the thrush.
I asked them the reason so happy they be,
And the answer that they gave me: “We are single and we are free.”

A-walking and a-talking, a-walking was I
To meet my true lover, he’ll be there by and by.
To meet him in the meadow is all my delight,
A-walking and a-talking from morning till night.

For meeting it is a pleasure but parting it is a grief
And an inconstant lover is far worse than a thief.
A thief he will but rob you and steal all you have,
But an inconstant lover will send you to the grave.

And the grave, it will rot you and turn you into dust,
An inconstant lover no maiden can trust,
He’ll court you and kiss you and vow he’ll be true
And the very next moments he’ll bid you adieu.

So all you young and tender maids come take a warning by me,
Never set your heart on a sycamore tree.
His green leaves they will wither, his roots they will decay,
And the fair looks of a pretty young maid will soon fade away.

The cuckoo she’s a pretty bird, she sings as she flies.
She brings us glad tidings and tells us no lies.
When her time has come her voice we don’t hear
And where she goes we do not know until another year.

June Tabor sings The Cuckoo

As I was a-walking by the side of yon bush
I heard two birds whistling, the blackbird and the thrush,
I asked them the reason so merry they be
And the answer they gave me, “We are single and free.”

It’s night after night, love, as I lay on my bed,
The feathery pillows all under my head.
Neither sleeping nor waking, no rest can I find
But the thought of that young man still troubles my mind.

There’s me and my baby, contented we’ll be
And I’ll try to forget you as you’ve forgotten me.
For the grave he will rot you and turn you to dust,
Not one young man in twenty can a poor girl trust.

The cuckoo she’s a pretty bird, she sings as she flies,
She brings us good tidings, she tells us no lies.
She sucks the small birds’ eggs for to keep her voice clear
And the more she cries “cuckoo”, don’t she summer draw near.