
It’s time for a brighter post to thaw the cold. Let’s talk about “Yellow Bird”, originally a “Choucoune”, or lyrical poem that praises the beauty of a Haitian woman with the same nickname. It became a popular merengue lente (slow merengue) in Haiti,and was played prominently during celebrations at Port-Au-Prince in 1949.
It is one of Haitian poet Oswald Durand’s’ most famous works. There is a great in depth article here that tells the story of the poem and links to the original. Michel Mauleart Morton, an America-born pianist with a Haitian father and American mother, composed music for the poem in 1893. Naturally, it combines some French and Caribbean fragments to create a tune, but the lyrics for YB have no connection with the narrative of the poem. It became a minor hit on Billboard Hot 100 for the Mills Brothers in 1959, and continues to be popularly associated with Calypso and the Caribbean. It is often performed by steel-pan bands, but some versions such as Chris Isaacks show a Hawaiian influence.
American Lyrics ::
Yellow bird, up high in banana tree.
Yellow bird, you sit all alone like me.
Did your lady friend leave the nest again?
That is very sad, makes me feel so bad.
You can fly away, in the sky away.
You’re more lucky than me.
I also had a pretty girl, she’s not with me today.
They’re all the same those pretty girls.
Take tenderness, then they fly away.
Yellow bird, yellow bird.
Did your lady friend leave the nest again?
That is very sad, makes me feel so bad.
You can fly away, in the sky away.
You’re more lucky than me.
Wish that I were a yellow bird, I’d fly away with you.
But I am not a yellow bird, so here I sit.
Nothing I can do.
Yellow bird, yellow bird.