Old MacDonald Had a Farm

{{short description|Children's song}} {{about|the song|the science fiction story by Mike Resnick|Old MacDonald Had a Farm (short story)|the 1945 Noveltoons film|Old MacDonald Had a Farm (film)}} {{Infobox song | name = Old MacDonald Had a Farm | cover = | alt = | type = Nursery rhyme | written = 1906 (*as far as we can tell*) | published = 1906 | recorded = 1917 (modern version) | writer = Unknown | lyricist =  }}  "'''Old MacDonald Had a Farm'''" (sometimes shortened to '''Old MacDonald''') is a traditional children's song and nursery rhyme about a farmer and the various animals he keeps. Each verse of the song changes the name of the animal and its respective noise. For example, if the verse uses a cow as the animal, then "moo" would be used as the animal's sound. In many versions, the song is cumulative, with the animal sounds from all the earlier verses added to each subsequent verse.<ref name=Index>{{cite web|url=http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/R457.html|title=Old MacDonald Had a Farm|website=www.csufresno.edu|access-date=2007-08-01|archive-date=2016-05-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160512160804/http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/R457.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The song is attributed to Thomas d'Urfey for an opera in 1706, before existing as a folk song in Great Britain, Ireland, and North America for hundreds of years in various forms then finally being standardised in the twentieth century. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 745.

==Modern lyrics== The lyrics to the standard version begin as follows, with the animal and its sound changing with each verse:

{{poemquote|Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O! And on his farm he had a cow, E-I-E-I-O! With a moo-moo here and a moo-moo there, Here a moo, there a moo, Everywhere a moo-moo, Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!}}

==History== thumb|Thomas d'Urfey (1653–1723)

===Thomas d'Urfey=== The earliest variant of the song is "In the Fields in Frost and Snow" from a 1706 opera called ''The Kingdom of the Birds'' or ''Wonders of the Sun'' written by the English writer and composer Thomas d'Urfey. This version begins:<blockquote>In the Fields in Frost and Snows, Watching late and early; There I keep my Father's Cows, There I Milk 'em Yearly: Booing here, Booing there, Here a Boo, there a Boo, every where a Boo, We defy all Care and Strife, In a Charming Country-Life.</blockquote> It is unknown whether this was the origin of the song, or if his version of the song was based on a traditional song already in existence. Like modern versions, the animals change from verse to verse and the rhythm is very similar, but it uses a different minor key melody.

D'Urfey's opera was largely unsuccessful, but the song was recycled, being expanded and printed in d'Urfey's own ''Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy'', vol. 2 (1719) and appearing in several operas throughout the eighteenth century such as John Gay and Johann Christoph Pepusch's Polly (1729). It also appeared on song sheets for decades, so it was presumably popular among ordinary English people in the eighteenth century whether it originated from the opera or not.

===Traditional English versions=== thumb|St. Marylebone Workhouse, 1867

Several versions were collected in England in around the turn of the twentieth century by folklorists, such as one called "The Farmyard Song" taken from a John Lloyd of Manchester in the 1880s by Anne Gilchrist, and another called "Father's Wood I O" collected in 1906 in Scotter, Lincolnshire by Percy Grainger; both of the original transcriptions of these versions are available via the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Farmyard Song (Harry Albino Manuscript Collection HHA/21/1)|url=https://www.vwml.org/record/HHA/21/1|access-date=2021-02-27|website=The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library|language=en-gb|archive-date=2021-07-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210710122432/https://www.vwml.org/record/HHA/21/1|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Father's Wood I O (Percy Grainger Manuscript Collection PG/5/155)|url=https://www.vwml.org/record/PG/5/155|access-date=2021-02-27|website=The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library|language=en-gb|archive-date=2021-07-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210710122432/https://www.vwml.org/record/PG/5/155|url-status=live}}</ref>

The famous folk song collector Cecil Sharp collected a version called "The Farmyard" in 1908 from a 74-year-old named Mrs. Goodey at Marylebone Workhouse, London;<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Farmyard (Cecil Sharp Manuscript Collection (at Clare College, Cambridge) CJS2/10/1984)|url=https://www.vwml.org/record/CJS2/10/1984|access-date=2021-02-27|website=The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library|language=en-gb}}</ref> and the lyrics began with the following verse: <blockquote>Up was I on my father's farm On a May day morning early; Feeding of my father's cows On a May day morning early, With a moo moo here and a moo moo there, Here a moo, there a moo, Here a pretty moo. Six pretty maids come and gang a-long o' me To the merry green fields of the farm-yard. </blockquote>

Frederick Thomas Nettleingham's 1917 book ''Tommy's Tunes'', a collection of World War I era songs,<ref>{{cite web |last=Nettleingham |first=Frederick Thomas |title=Tommy's tunes: a comprehensive collection of soldiers' songs, marching melodies, rude rhymes, and popular parodies |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005894433 |access-date=25 June 2016 |website=Catalog.hathitrust.org |publisher=E. Macdonald |publication-place=London |publication-date=1917 |archive-date=16 August 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160816032934/https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005894433 |url-status=live }}</ref> includes a variant of the song called "Ohio" which lists nine species: horse (neigh-neigh), dog (bow-wow/woof woof/ruff ruff), hen (cluck cluck), duck (quack quack), goose (honk honk), cow (moo moo), pig (grunt grunt), cat (meow meow), sheep/goat (baa baa) and donkey/mule (hee-haw).<ref>{{cite book |section=89. Ohio |title=Tommy's Tunes |author=F. T. Nettleingham |location=London |publisher=Erskine Macdonald, Ltd. |date=October 1917 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=spNQAAAAYAAJ&q=Ohio |pages=84–85}}</ref> Although the reference on page 84-85 only lists dogs, hens, ducks, cows, pigs, cats and an ass. The farmer is called "Old Macdougal", unlike in most other traditional versions where the farmer is unnamed. <blockquote>Old Macdougal had a farm, E-I-E-I-O And on that farm he had some dogs, E-I-E-I-O With a bow-wow here, and a bow-wow there, Here a bow, there a bow, everywhere a bow-wow. </blockquote>

===Traditional Ozark versions=== [[File:TheSkilletLickers.jpg|thumb|The Skillet Lickers, c.1926]]

The song seems to have been particularly popular in the Ozark region of the United States before being standardised. A version was published in Vance Randolph's ''Ozark Folksongs'' (1980) called "Old Missouri", sung by a Mr. H. F. Walker of Missouri in 1922. This version names different parts of the mule rather than different animals: <blockquote>Old Missouri had a mule, he-hi-he-hi-ho, And on this mule there were two ears, he-hi-he-hi-ho. With a flip-flop here and a flip-flop there, And here a flop and there a flop and everywhere a flip-flop Old Missouri had a mule, he-hi-he-hi-ho.</blockquote> Several traditional Ozark versions which differ significantly from the standard version were recorded in the 1950s and 60s by different collectors; these recordings are available on the University of Arkansas online digital collection.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Grandfather's hogs|url=https://digitalcollections.uark.edu/digital/collection/OzarkFolkSong/id/1633|access-date=2021-02-27|website=digitalcollections.uark.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Green fields of the lowland|url=https://digitalcollections.uark.edu/digital/collection/OzarkFolkSong/id/3687|access-date=2021-02-27|website=digitalcollections.uark.edu|archive-date=2026-01-16|archive-url=https://archive.today/20260116035250/https://digitalcollections.uark.edu/digital/collection/OzarkFolkSong/id/3687|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Green fields of Arlow|url=https://digitalcollections.uark.edu/digital/collection/OzarkFolkSong/id/292|access-date=2021-02-27|website=digitalcollections.uark.edu|archive-date=2021-07-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210710122434/https://digitalcollections.uark.edu/digital/collection/OzarkFolkSong/id/292|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Green fields of Arlow (Transcription)|url=https://digitalcollections.uark.edu/digital/collection/OzarkFolkSong/id/4838|access-date=2021-02-27|website=digitalcollections.uark.edu|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Early recordings== The oldest version listed in The Traditional Ballad Index, is the Sam Patterson Trio's "Old MacDonald Had a Farm," released on the Edison label in 1925, followed by a version recorded by Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers in 1927. These recordings may be the first known versions to use the now standard tune, and the first to name the farmer "Old MacDonald". It is unknown what the traditional source of these iconic elements was, but the American versions seem most similar, with their E-I-E-I-O refrains and "old" farmers mentioned in the first line.

==See also== {{Portal|Children's literature}} *List of animal sounds *Little Boy Blue *Mary Had a Little Lamb

==References== {{Commons category|Old MacDonald Had a Farm}} {{Reflist}}

==External links== *[https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:In_the_Fields_in_Frost_and_Snow In the Fields in Frost and Snow] at The Traditional Tune Archive.

Category:1917 songs Category:American children's songs Category:American folk songs Category:American nursery rhymes Category:Cumulative songs Category:Elvis Presley songs Category:Fictional farmers Category:Fictional farms Category:Frank Sinatra songs Category:Songs about animals Category:Songs about farmers Category:Songs about fictional male characters Category:Traditional children's songs Category:Nuclear energy