Funky Chicken Coop Tour - Austin, Texas - March 30, 2013

By Naomi Emmerson

3/18/2012

Gallus Domesticus, the humble domestic chicken, has inspired both gourmet cuisine and fast food fare finding its way on dinner plates and between buns, filling bellies and satisfying taste buds in nations around the world. However, this bird “with no arms” does not only earn muse status for going well with rice and beans. This whimsical, flightless bird, who has lived side by side with humankind since the dawn of time, has also been the inspiration behind many a love song. Apparently, 85% of all songs ever written contain the topic of love – being in love, losing love, pining for love, hating love, searching for love, denying love - well, you get the point, and songs of love of chicken both as a dish and as “man’s second best friend” is an un-expected category in this vast discography d’amour.

Every morning upon waking, I have a song in my head. I don’t know how it gets there, but it’s there. Usually, it accompanies me down to the coop for my morning routine with my seven hens. Inevitably, the song in my head makes its way to my lips as a serenade to my girls – with alternate lyrics, of course. Call me crazy, but it seems I am not alone in my re-invented chicken melodies. Radio Show Host and song parody producer Bob Rivers wrote “When a Man Loves a Chicken” featuring alternate lyrics of obsessive fowl love to the famous melody by the 1966 Percy Sledge hit. Rivers sings with soul and gusto “…spend his last dime, buyin’ her fresh corn, down at the grain and feed.”

Bio-hazard chickens are featured in another comical send-up by Ray Stevens called “Kung Fu Chickens”, a reference to the popular animation series about turtles. Stevens and I are not alone believing that chickens have secret lives when the sun goes down. The “King of Country Music” and first living inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame (1962), Roy Acuff, fiddles and sings of discovering his flock raising the roof ‘revival style’ in the raucous song “Sixteen Chickens and a Tambourine”. Mysterious chicken antics in the hen house are featured in one of the most famous swing songs from the 40’s about chickens, Louis Jordan an his His Tympany Five’s number one single with Decca records “Ain’t Nobody Here but us Chickens”. It’s a lively jump and jive song with music and lyrics by Alex Kramer and Joan Whitney. Artists like Asleep at the Wheel revived its popularity with their version and whimsical music video from 2001. But my all time favorite performance of this song is featured in Episode 502 of The Muppet Show with a full cast of Long Island / Brooklyn accented gangster predators - raccoons, bears, snakes and rats - who have taken over Farmer Gonzo’s hen house and turned it into a juke joint, piano and all. Gonzo and his holster slingin’ Camilla and friends storm in with guns a blazzin’ to save the day and the rats’ blind-folded hostages! Texas hens for certain!

Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens – Gonzo and The Muppets

Sixteen Chickens and a Tambourine- Roy Acuff

Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens – Ray Stevens

My hens, of course, are extremely musical and are always rehearsing their next Broadway Hit. They are always trying to out-do each other in their daily auditions after each egg lay. Slim and Slam (also known as Slim Gaillard & Slam Stewart) a famous musical duo in New York in the 30’s were known for their novelty songs and could give my girls a run for their money with their bawk-bawking in “The Dirty Rooster” and in “Chicken Rhythm”. Speaking of Roosters, our proud, crowing flock guardians are often depicted as the naughty boy in clever metaphoric songs like “I Ain’t Gonna Take It Sittin’ Down” by Red Foley & Ernest Tubb where a poor hen is tired of her two timin’ roo and lays down the law with the warning, “…You know, one night while you were out / I met a movie talent scout / He loves my walk / He loves my cluck / He’s starrin’ me with Donald Duck”! Gene Autry in his 1929 “Stay Away from My Chicken House” is himself the threatening roo warning other suitors to “…Stay away from my chicken house, boys, or I’ll cut ya down Mexican style.”

I Ain’t Gonna Take It Sittin’ Down - Red Foley & Ernest Tubb

Stay away from My Hen House – Gene Autry

Dirty Rooster / Chicken Rhythm – Slim & Slam

Romance aside, many love songs about chickens are love songs about ‘chicken’. It ranks high in “Soul Food” status. Lil Ed & the Blues Imperials make your mouth water when they repeat in blues style “Chicken Gravy & Biscuits”. Comedy Hall of Famer Timmie Rogers’ soul brother alter ego named “Clark Dark” gets right down to the nitty gritty love of chicken with his 1970’s groovy homage to his favorite chicken body part. “Chickenback” is filled with horns, funky guitar and soul sister back ground vocals. In 1962, Don & Juan, on the other hand, in their early rock n’ roll song “Chicken Necks” voice their protest that “…She never cooks no collard greens / No potatas / No lima beans / Chicken heads / Chicken feet / Chicken necks is all I eat.” In Little Feat’s “Dixie Chicken” we see again how the South is closely connected to their feathered friends if not literally, but metaphorically, and if you have any doubt by now that the chicken ain’t a funky source of inspiration, check out Jaco Pastorius’s “The Chicken”. These cats obviously have seen the strut and stride of many a fowl to get this groove happening.

The Chicken - Jaco Pastorius’s

Dixie Chicken - Little Feat

Chicken Necks – Don & Juan

Chickenback - Timmie Rogers aka “Clark Dark”

Chicken Gravy & Biscuits - Lil Ed & Blues Imperials

Where there is music, there are dancers! Let us not forget the many dance crazes related to this pre-historic by-product. For the past three decades, weddings and bar mitzvahs alike have nostalgically spun “The Chicken Dance” for generations to teach to chicks newly-hatched to teach to there own. Although we sometimes think it belongs in the compost bin with the other poop, it is probably the most notable of any dance, or song for that matter, involving the chicken theme. Now exceeding 40 million records and 140 versions of the melody, it has been known by many names, but it found its final name when first introduced in the United States in 1981 during the Tulsa, Oklahoma, Oktoberfest. The band Heilbronn Band from Germany wanted to demonstrate the dance in costume, but the duck costumes they required where not available anywhere near Tulsa. At a local television station, however, a chicken costume was available which was donated for use at the festival, giving the "Chicken Dance" its name. Even before the 80’s craze had started, there already existed a popular American rhythm and blues dance in the 1950s, called “The Chicken” in which the dancers flapped their arms and kicked back their feet in an imitation of a chicken. The dance featuring lateral body movements and was a step used primarily as a change of pace while doing The Twist.

So, when you’re out there with your flock remember what Karen Carpenter sang: “Sing / Sing a song / Sing out loud / Sing out strong / Don’t worry if it’s not good enough for anyone else to hear / Just sing / Sing a song” and your hens may actually start singing along! Cab Calloway believed that “A Chicken Ain't Nothing but a Bird” but the Beatles and all of us add “And Your Bird Can Sing”. So, let’s hear them! BAWK BAWK BAWK-AU! Bravo!

“And Your Bird Can Sing” – The Beatles

A Chicken Ain't Nothing but a Bird - Cab Calloway

“Sit Right Down and Hug Myself a Chicken” – lyrics by Naomi Emmerson