Old MacDonald Had a Farm

The song as recorded in 1927. Click icon to listen.

"Old MacDonald Had a Farm" is a children's song and nursery rhyme about a farmer named MacDonald (or McDonald, Macdonald) and the various animals he keeps on his farm. Each verse of the song changes the name of the animal and its respective noise. In many versions, the song is cumulative, with the noises from all the earlier verses added to each subsequent verse.^[1] It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 745.

Early versions

In the 1917 book Tommy's Tunes, a collection of World War I era songs by F. T. Nettleingham, the song "Ohio (Old Macdougal Had a Farm)" has quite similar lyrics—though with a slightly different farmer's name and refrain:

Old Macdougal had a farm in Ohio-i-o,

And on that farm he had some dogs in Ohio-i-o,

With a bow-wow here, and a bow-wow there,

Here a bow, there a wow, everywhere a bow-wow.

The Traditional Ballad Index consider the "Tommy's Tunes" version to be the earliest known version of "Old Macdonald Had a Farm", though it cites numerous variants, some of them much older.^[1]

Two of these variants were published in Vance Randolph's Ozark Folksongs in 1980. One was "Old Missouri", sung by a Mr. H. F. Walker of Missouri in 1922, a version that names different parts of the mule rather than different animals:

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.

A British version of the song, called "The Farmyard, or The Merry Green Fields," was collected in 1908 from a 74-year-old Mrs. Goodey at Marylebone Workhouse, London, and published in Cecil Sharp's Collection of English Folk Songs.

Up was I on my fa-ther's farm

On a May day morn-ing ear-ly;

Feed-ing of my fa-ther's cows

On a May day morn-ing ear-ly,

With a moo moo here and a moo moo there,

Here a moo, there a moo, Here a pret-ty moo.

Six pret-ty maids come and gang a-long o' me

To the mer-ry green fields of the farm-yard.

Perhaps the earliest recorded member of this family of songs is a number from an opera called The Kingdom of the Birds, published in 1719-1720 in Thomas D'Urfey's Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy:

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.

Translations

The lyrics have been translated into other languages and modified slightly to fit rhythmic and cultural requirements. It is still sung as a children's song to the same tune.

• An Egyptian Arabic version of the song exists, with Geddo Ali (Grandpa Ali, Egyptian Arabic: جدو على) being the farmer character.
• The Italian version is Nella vecchia fattoria (In The Old Farm). The farmer is Zio Tobia (uncle Tobias).
• The German version is Old MacDonald hat 'ne Farm (short for eine Farm), keeping the English name of the farmer, and translating the rest quite literally.
• In Spanish it is En la granja de Pepito or En la vieja factoría.
• In Danish it is Jens Hansen havde en bondegård (literally "Jens Hansen had a farm") and in Swedish it goes Per Olsson hade en bonnagård.
• In Portuguese, the most common version is Na quinta do tio Manel (meaning "On the farm of Uncle Manel"), with alternate versions Seu Lobato tinha um sítio or even O velho McDonald tinha uma fazenda (literally "Old MacDonald Had a Farm").
• In Polish it is Stary Donald farmę miał (meaning "Old Donald had a farm") or Pan McDonald farmę miał (meaning "Mr. McDonald had a farm").
• In French, La Ferme à Mathurin (literally "Mathurin's Farm").
• In Turkish version "Ali Baba'nın Bir Çiftliği Var" (literally: "Ali Baba Has A Farm")
• In Slovene version Na kmetiji je lepo (literally: On a farm it is beautiful), it can be a children's song, a naughty song or, at least in some versions of the song, the lyrics have been made from childish into vulgar, like a drinking song.
• In Hebrew לדוד משה הייתה חווה (LaDod Moshe hayta hava) or Uncle Moshe Had a Farm. This version was translated by Avraham Broshi.
• In Chinese there are several versions of the song in same tune. The most popular is 王老先生有块地 (Wáng lǎo xiānshēng yǒu kuài dì), or Old Mr. Wang Had Some Land.
• In Japanese version ゆかいな牧場 (Yukai-na Makiba, literally: "Happy Farm"), Ichiro, Jiro and Saburo are the farmers who have animals.
• In Japanese version マックのおじさん (Makku no Ojisan, literally: "Old man Mac"), sounds playfully like the Western version.
• In Kansai Japanese, there is a parody song called 大阪うまいもんの歌 (Osaka Umaimon no Uta, literally: "Yummy foods in Osaka") made by an Osakan puppet play troupe in 1993.
• In Serbian Svako jutro jedno jaje organizmu snagu daje (One egg per day gives the strength to human organism)　has the same melody.
• In Korean version '그래 그래서' (geulae geulaeseo, literally: "So And"). Old Mr. Park had a farm and animals.
• In Finnish version "Piippolan vaarilla oli talo" (literally: "Grandpa Piippola had a house")
• In Czech it's called "Strýček Donald farmu měl" which translates to "Uncle Donald had a farm"

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. This was followed by a version by Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers, "Old McDonald Had a Farm" (Columbia Records, 1927) and "McDonald's Farm" by Warren Caplinger's Cumberland Mountain Entertainers (Brunswick Records, 1928). In 1954, the composition was arranged for accordion sextet and recorded for RCA Thesaurus transcriptions by John Serry, Sr. in the United States.

Other popular versions are by Frank Sinatra (Capitol, 1960), Harry Connick Jr., Elvis Presley (in his movie Double Trouble), Nat King Cole, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Ella Fitzgerald (on her 1967 Verve album Whisper Not)., Flatt & Scruggs, Spike Jones and his City Slickers,^[2] The Three Stooges, Sesame Street cast, Gene Autry, The Kelly Family^[3] and Nikki Yanofsky.^[4]

The multi-platinum selling Kidsongs recorded "A Day At Old MacDonald's Farm" for video and CD release in 1985.^[5] The Australian children's television show Play School recorded a version of this song on the album, There's A Bear In There. A rock music version was recorded by the Isley Brothers in the 1950s, and in 1961 an instrumental version was recorded by the Piltdown Men as "McDonald's Cave."

A variant was used in a 1952 campaign ad for Adlai Stevenson II's unsuccessful campaign for President with slightly altered lyrics promoting the Stevenson campaign's appeal to farmers.^[6]

See also

• List of animal sounds
• Mary Had a Little Lamb

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Old MacDonald Had a Farm.

Nursery rhymes (list) "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" "Did You Ever See a Lassie?" "Hey Diddle Diddle" "Hickory Dickory Dock" "Hot Cross Buns" "Humpty Dumpty" "I'm a Little Teapot" "It's Raining, It's Pouring" "Jack and Jill" "Little Boy Blue" "Mary Had a Little Lamb" "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" "Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" "Poor Mary" "Pop Goes the Weasel" "Pretty Little Dutch Girl" "Roses are Red" "Sticks and Stones" "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" "Rub-a-dub-dub" Clapping "A Sailor Went to Sea" "Down Down Baby" "Mary Mack" "Miss Susie" "Miss Lucy" "Pat-a-cake" "Pease Porridge Hot" Counting "Duck, duck, goose" "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" "One, Two, Three, Four, Five" "This Old Man" "Tinker, Tailor" Finger- plays "Five Little Monkeys" "Itsy Bitsy Spider" "Little Robin Redbreast" "Round and round the garden" "This Little Piggy" Games "London Bridge" "The Muffin Man" "Mulberry Bush" "Oranges and Lemons" "Ring a Ring o' Roses" "The Farmer in the Dell" Lullabies "Hush, Little Baby" "Rock-a-bye Baby" Rounds "Ding Dong Bell" "Frère Jacques" "Kookaburra" "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" "Scotland's Burning" "Three Blind Mice"