# Old MacDonald Had a Farm

"Old MacDonald Had a Farm" is a cumulative farmyard song whose ancestors go back to a 1706 stage song; each verse adds an animal and its sound, and the modern tune and words were fixed in the early 20th century.

## At a glance

| | |
|---|---|
| Country of origin | United States |
| Sung in | English |
| Words by | Traditional |
| First known | ancestors from 1706; modern form c. 1917 |
| Best for ages | 2–7 |
| Mood | playful, traditional, educational |
| Page | https://littlesongbook.com/songs/old-macdonald-had-a-farm/ |

## Lyrics

### Verse 1 (en)

Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
And on his farm he had a cow, E-I-E-I-O!
With a moo-moo here and a moo-moo there,
Here a moo, there a moo, everywhere a moo-moo.
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!

## How to sing it

1. Pick an animal for each verse and make its sound together — moo, baa, oink, quack.
2. Keep every earlier animal's sound and add the new one on top each time, so the song grows.
3. Let a different child choose the next animal each round.

## Common questions

**How old is "Old MacDonald"?**

Older than it looks. A song with the same shape — "In the Fields in Frost and Snow" — appears in Thomas d'Urfey's stage work of 1706 and his "Wit and Mirth" of 1719. Folk collectors wrote down farmyard versions across England around 1900, and the modern tune and the name "MacDonald" settled in by the 1917 collection "Tommy's Tunes" and 1920s recordings.

**What is a "cumulative" song?**

One that grows as it goes. Each new verse of "Old MacDonald" adds another animal and its sound, and you repeat all the earlier sounds too — so the song gets longer and sillier with every animal, which is half the fun.

**What does "E-I-E-I-O" mean?**

Nothing in particular — it is a nonsense refrain that carries the tune between verses. Older versions had different filler words entirely; the "E-I-E-I-O" we sing is simply the one that stuck.

## Sources

- [Wikipedia — Old MacDonald Had a Farm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_MacDonald_Had_a_Farm)
- https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q860184