The Great Speckled Bird (song)
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"The Great Speckled Bird" | |
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Song by Roy Acuff | |
Recorded | 1936 |
Songwriter(s) | Charlie Swain |
"The Great Speckled Bird" is a hymn from the southern United States whose lyrics were written by the Reverend Guy Smith, and transcribed by singer Charlie Swain. It is an allegory referencing fundamentalist self-perception during the
The tune is the same apparently traditional melody used in the songs "Thrills That I Can't Forget," recorded by Welby Toomey and Edgar Boaz for Gennett in 1925, and the song "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes," originally recorded by the Carter Family for Victor in 1929. The same melody was later used in the 1952 country hit "The Wild Side of Life," sung by Hank Thompson, and the even more successful "answer song" performed by Kitty Wells called "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" in the same year. A notable instrumental version is found on the Grammy Award-Nominated album 20th Century Gospel by Nokie Edwards and The Light Crust Doughboys on Greenhaw Records.[2]
The connection between these songs is noted in the David Allan Coe song "If That Ain't Country" that ends with the lyrics "I'm thinking tonight of my blue eyes/ Concerning a great speckled bird/ I didn't know God made honky-tonk angels/ and went back to the wild side of life."
The song is also referenced, and portions of the melody-line are used, in "When the Silver Eagle Meets the Great Speckled Bird" by Porter Wagoner.
Billy Joe Shaver mentions the song in his hymn "Jesus Christ, What a Man."
"Something to Love", by
Both the song "The Great Speckled Bird" and the passage from Jeremiah may be a poetic description of
See Also
References
- ^ See "Radio: Opry Night," Time, Monday, Jan. 29, 1940. and Russell Moore, The Cross and the Jukebox: The Great Speckled Bird Archived 2011-10-06 at the Wayback Machine, Feb. 5, 2011.
- ^ "Art Greenhaw Music CD's & Cassettes". Theconnextion.com. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
- ^ JA Emerton (1969). "Notes on Jeremiah 12 9 and on some suggestions of J. D. Michaelis about the Hebrew words naḥā, 'abrā, and ja jadă". Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. 81 (2): 182–191.