Yellow Bird (song)
| "Choucoune" | |
|---|---|
| Song | |
| Language | Haitian Creole |
| English title | Yellow Bird |
| Written | 1893 |
| Composer(s) | Michel Mauléart Monton |
| Lyricist(s) | Oswald Durand |
| "Yellow Bird" | |
|---|---|
| Single by Arthur Lyman | |
| Released | 1961 |
| Length | 2:41 |
| Label | Rykodisc |
| Songwriter(s) | Alan Bergman, Marilyn Keith, Norman Luboff |
| "Don't Ever Love Me" | |
|---|---|
| Single by Harry Belafonte | |
| from the album Harry Belafonte - Mama Look At Bubu / Don't Ever Love Me | |
| A-side | "Mama Look At Bubu" |
| B-side | "Don't Ever Love Me" |
| Released | 1957 |
| Format | Vinyl, 7" |
| Genre | Calypso |
| Length | 2:45 |
| Label | RCA Victor |
| Songwriter(s) | Lord Burgess |
Choucoune is a 19th-century Haitian song composed by Michel Mauléart Monton with lyrics from a poem by Oswald Durand. It was rewritten with English lyrics in the 20th century as Yellow Bird.
One of Oswald Durand's most famous works, the 1883 Choucoune is a lyrical poem that praises the beauty of a Haitian woman of that nickname. Michel Mauléart Monton, an American-born pianist with a Haitian father and American mother composed music for the poem in 1893, appropriating some French and Caribbean fragments to create his tune. The song Choucoune was first performed in Port-au-Prince on 14 May 14, 1893. It became a popular méringue lente (slow méringue) in Haiti, and was played prominently during the bicentennial celebrations in Port-au-Prince in 1949. Choucoune was recorded by "Katherine Dunham and her Ensemble" for the Decca album "Afro-Caribbean Songs and Rhythms" released in 1946 (with the title spelled as Choucounne), and was first recorded in Haiti by Emerante (Emy) de Pradines for her "Voodoo - Authentic Music of Haiti" album (Remington R-199-151) released in the USA in 1953.
The song also appeared in the 1957 Calypso-exploitation film Calypso Heat Wave, performed by The Tarriers, sung by the group's lead singer, Alan Arkin.
The English rendering of Choucoune: Yellow Bird, first appeared on the album Calypso Holiday, a 1957 release by the Norman Luboff Choir, with Luboff having arranged the song in the calypso style that become popular in the English-speaking world in the mid-1950s. The lyrics for Yellow Bird, by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, have no connection with the narrative of the Durand poem—other than the poem features the words "ti zwazo" (little bird) in its refrain, and so the original Haitian song is sometimes called Ti Zwazo or Ti Zwezo. The song became a minor hit at #70 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the Mills Brothers in 1959. Its most successful incarnation came in the summer of 1961 when the Arthur Lyman Group reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 on the newly formed Easy Listening chart with their Hawaiian flavored instrumental version, which bested a rival instrumental single release by Lawrence Welk (#61).
...
Wikipedia