Kookaburra

The drawbacks of your toddler waking up for the day at 5 am are obvious.

One benefit, however – at least this morning – was that we got to hear a kookaburra, belting out his song long and loud in the darkness. Pretty cool. Naomi stopped, mid-pear, and just listened, and then laughed – she loved it. And it is a pretty fun sound to hear a kookaburra laugh. So when he was sadly “all done,” we looked up the kookaburra song.

I couldn’t quite remember the tune, but of course YouTube had a plethora of videos to jog my memory. Naomi’s unfortunate favorite:

http://youtu.be/5MrTbE-xFng

I find it a bit annoying. And, what’s with the “tweet tweet” at the beginning? This is how they sound:

KOOKABURRA (Marion Sinclair – Australian Children’s Song, 1936)

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Merry, merry king of the bush is he
Laugh, Kookaburra! Laugh, Kookaburra!
Gay your life must be

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Eating all the gum drops he can see
Stop, Kookaburra! Stop, Kookaburra!
Leave some there for me

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Counting all the monkeys he can see
Stop, Kookaburra! Stop, Kookaburra!
That’s not a monkey, that’s me!

EXTRA VERSES:
Kookaburra flies from the old gum tree
Flapping his wings for all to see
Laugh, Kookaburra! Laugh, Kookaburra!
Flying oh so free

Kookaburra lands in the old gum tree
Fluttering his wings for all to see
Laugh, Kookaburra! Laugh, Kookaburra!
Happy as can be!

Kookaburra sits on a rusty nail
Gets a boo-boo in his tail
Cry, Kookaburra! Cry, kookaburra!
Oh how life can be!

Kookaburra sits on the electric wire
Jumping up and down with his tail on fire
Ouch, Kookaburra, ouch!
Kookaburra, hot your tail must be!

PS – Aren’t those last 2 verses a little sad? I thought they were a joke at first but I don’t think they are.