Old Mac Donald Had A Farm - Early Versions

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.

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.