Cuckoo’s Nest is one of those tunes that is commonly heard among fiddler’s of many different traditions. Truly, it may be one of the first “crossover tunes”. I don’t know if it’s ever been played with Indian Tabla (drums), before this recording, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

When I got an email from my fiddle friend, Sandra Wong, saying that she and Ty Burhoe (an awesomely cool Tabla player who lives in Boulder, and spends much of his time traveling the globe performing) would be playing a house concert in Fort Collins, I couldn’t miss it. They are super talented and super nice, and I really had a blast playing my fiddle tune a day with them. CAVEAT: There is a thumb in the video, and the video got cut off midway (when we were still getting warmed up), so you won’t get to hear the coolest stuff we did, but such is technology, and I apologize. We will do better on the video next time.

The Cuckoo’s Nest according to the Fiddler’s Companion

*** WARNING: Content may not be suitable for children ***

CUCKOO’S NEST [14] (Nead na Cuaiche” or “Nead an Cuaic”). See “Cuckoo Hornpipe.” AKA and see “All Around,” “Captain Moss’s,” “Come Ashore,” “Come Ashore, Jolly Tar, with Your Trousers/Trowsers On,” “Coo Coo’s Nest,” “Cuckold’s Nest,” “I do confess thou(gh) art sae fair,” “Jacky Tar” (Hornpipe), “The Mower,” “The Mountain Top [3],” “An Spealadoir” (The Mower), “The Trousers On,” “The Yellow Heifer [1].” British Isles, Old-Time, Bluegrass; Hornpipe, Reel, Breakdown. D Major (Barnes, Brody, Carlin {setting #1}, Kerr, Moylan, Phillips/1995 {setting #1}, Silberberg): D Dorian (Roche, 1st setting): G Major (Harding, Harker/Rafferty, Merryweather & Seattle, Mulvihill, O’Neill/Krassen & 1001, Phillips/1995 {setting #2}, Roche {setting 2}: E Aeolian (O’Neill/Krassen -1st setting): A Dorian (Phillips): A Major (Carlin/setting #2, O’Malley). Standard tuning. AB (Begin, Silberberg): AABB (Brody, Harding, Kerr, Moylan, Phillips, Roche, O’Neill, Phillips and Carlin {1st settings}): AABC (Mulvihill): AABBCC (Barnes, Kennedy, Merryweather & Seattle, O’Neill/Krassen, 1001 & 1915, Roche, and Carlin {2nd settings}): AA’BBCC’ (Harker/Rafferty): AA’BB’CC’ (O’Malley).

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An extremely popular English melody known throughout the British Isles and British North America whose title, the ‘cuckoo’s nest,’ commonly referred to female pubic hair and accompanying anatomy. It dates to at least the early 18th century. James Aird’s printing in his Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 1 (1782, pg. 66) includes an interesting fourth strain, not found in other sources. Matt Seattle (1987, 1994) believes the tune to originally have been a Scots Measure in D Minor with the title “Come Ashore Jolly Tar (with) Your Trousers On,” but notes that many versions of this tune exist, with quite substantial variation between them, in major and minor keys (he remarks that the Northumbrian William Vicker’s late 18th century setting is evidently minor, despite the key signature). The title appears in numerous 18th and 19th century dance collections, and made Henry Robson’s list of popular Northumbrian song and dance tunes, which he published c. 1800. In Jacobite Relics (1819) James Hogg prints a song to the melody, commenting: “It must have been a great favourite in the last age, for about the time when I first began to know one tune from another, all the old people that could sing at all, could sing “The cuckoo is a bonny bird.”  He prints the following words to the tune:

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The cuckoo’s a bonny bird when he comes home,

The cuckoo’s a bonny bird when he comes home;

He’ll fley away the wild birds that hank about the throne,

My bonny cuckoo when he comes home.

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Poet John Clare (1793-1864) is highly regarded for his body of work inspired by the English countryside and rural life of the early 18^th century. He was born in the village of Helpston, Northamptonshire, the son of an agricultural laborer and singer of local reputation, and became a fiddler and collector of songs and tunes of southern England.  He recalled, ”Both my parents was illiterate to the last degree. [My father] was likewise fond of Ballads, & I have heard him make a boast of it over his horn of ale with his merry companions, that he could sing or recite above a hundred; he had a tolerable good voice, & was often calld upon to sing at those convivials of bacchanalian merry makings.” Clare collected:

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Now some likes a girl that is pretty in the face,
And others likes a girl that is slender in the waist
But give me the girl with a wriggle and twist
That is pleasant and good-tempered with a cuckoo’s nest.

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The Cuckoo’s Nest is also the name of a Scottish country dance, which, though increasingly rare, was danced in parts of the country (e.g. West Berwickshire) through the 19th century.

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The 18th century Munster poet Eoghan Rua O Suilleabhain used the tune for his poem “An Spealadoir.” Doolin, north County Clare tin whistle player Micho Russell also associated the tune with a ‘spailpin,’ or wandering harvest laborer (he called the tune “The Man that cuts the hay with the Scythe”). Bayard (1944) and Breathnach (1985) both cite the collector Father Henebry (A Handbook of Irish Music, pgs. 170-1) who was convinced that the third part of the Irish versions was modern (i.e. in his time, c. 1900), and “was tastelessly added to the original two parts or the air.” Breathnach (1985) also notes that many songs were written to the air, and gives a verse from Seán Ó Dálaigh’s collection of a rural love ballad popular in Munster:

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Tá páircín bheag agamsa

de bhán, mhín, réidh;

Gan claí, gan fál, gan falla léi,

ach a haghaidh ar an saol;

Spealodóir do ghlacfainnse,

Ar task na d’réir an acara,

Bé acu sud do b’fhearr leis,

nó páigh in aghaidh an lae.

(Literal translation by Paul de Grae:)

I have a small little field

white, smooth, ready;

without fence, without hedge, without wall,

but its face to the world:

I’d take a mower

on a task or by the acre,

whichever he’d prefer,

or paid by the day.

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Breathnach thinks the “An Spealdoir” (by which it is commonly known in Ireland) title stems from this verse.

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In America, the melody was included in New Windsor, Connecticut, musician Giles Gibbs’ MS collection of 1777, Henry Beck’s flute manuscript of 1785 (pg. 56), and Clement Weeks’ collection of dances made in 1783. It was even preserved in a chime clock of the period manufactured by New Windsor, Connecticut, clockmaker Daniel Burnap. The tune remains a popular staple at New England contra dances to this day. In other American traditions, the title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, published in 1954. Similarly, in modern times in the United States the tune has been assumed into Texas fiddling tradition, probably derived from Canadian or Midwestern sources (Guthrie Meade & Mark Wilson).

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