Lyrics
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 at a glance
- Country of origin
- 🇦🇺 Australia
- Sung in
- English
- Words by
- Marion Sinclair
- First known
- 1932
- Best for ages
- 2–7
- Mood
- traditional, playful
- Last updated
- 25 July 2026
How to sing it
- Learn the short four-line tune first — it is designed to be sung as a round.
- Split into groups; the second group starts from the top when the first reaches "Merry, merry king of the bush is he."
- Add a third and fourth group for a fuller round if the singers are confident.
Meaning and origin
Most nursery songs are centuries old and authorless. This one is neither: it was written by a specific person, on a specific morning, in living memory. Marion Sinclair said the idea came to her in church one Sunday in 1932; she went home and wrote down the four lines about the laughing bird in the gum tree, and in 1934 entered it in a Girl Guides competition in Victoria, where it was first sung at a jamboree in Frankston.
The song itself is a round — its short phrases stack into harmony, so groups can start one after another and overlap, the same trick as “Frère Jacques”. The bird at its centre is real and well chosen: the kookaburra’s call is a loud cackle that genuinely sounds like laughter, so telling it to “laugh” is only asking it to do what it already does.
Its strangest chapter came long after Sinclair’s death. In 2009 the song’s publisher sued the band Men at Work, claiming the flute line in their 1981 hit “Down Under” had lifted a phrase from “Kookaburra”. An Australian court agreed in 2010, and an appeal upheld it in 2011 — turning a cheerful Guides’ round into the subject of one of the country’s most famous copyright battles.
Common questions
- Who wrote "Kookaburra"?
- Marion Sinclair (1896–1988). By her account she had the idea one Sunday morning in church in 1932 and hurried home to write the words down. She entered it in a 1934 Girl Guides competition in Victoria, where it was first performed at that year's jamboree in Frankston.
- Is "Kookaburra" a round?
- Yes. Like "Frère Jacques" or "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", its four short phrases fit together in harmony, so groups of singers can start at different points and overlap.
- What is the connection to Men at Work's "Down Under"?
- In 2009 the publisher Larrikin Music sued the band Men at Work, arguing that the flute riff in their 1981 hit "Down Under" reproduced part of "Kookaburra". In 2010 an Australian court ruled that it did, and the finding was upheld on appeal in 2011 — one of the most talked-about music copyright cases in Australian history.
- What is a kookaburra?
- An Australian bird famous for a loud call that sounds like human laughter, which is why the song tells it to "laugh". The "old gum tree" is a eucalypt, the kind of tree kookaburras perch in.
