Cumulative song

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A cumulative song is a song whose verses are built from earlier verses, usually by adding a new stanza to the previous verse. A simple cumulative song having n verses is structured as

stanza₁

stanza₁ stanza₂

stanza₁ stanza₂ ... stanza_n

sometimes with a common chorus included with each verse. When sung, the repeated stanzas are sometimes varied or abbreviated. Cumulative songs are popular for group singing, in part because they require relatively little memorization of lyrics, and because remembering the previous verse to concatenate it to form the current verse can become a kind of game.

[edit] Examples of cumulative songs

• "Twelve Days of Christmas"
• "Green Grow the Rushes, O"
• "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly"
• "Had Gadia"

Yiddish folk music contains many prominent examples of cumulative songs, including "?װאָס װעט זײַן אַז משיח װעט קומען" and "מה אספּרה," or "What Will Happen When the Messiah Comes?" and "Who Can Recall" (a Yiddish version of the Passover song "Echad Mi Yodeia").

[edit] See also

• Round (music)