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Songs that mention species of bird (1 Viewer)

You will be aware of the fairly grisly

Alouette, gentille Alouette, je te' plumerais ...

(French, but a well-known English children's song)
At primary school we had to sing that, around 1957. Having inquisitive minds, we asked the teacher what the words meant. Her reply: "It's just nonsense". It was mildly shocking to eventually discover the translation.
 
I don't think I know any birds in songs, but there are groups called The Housemartins and The Guillemots of course ... hopefully not too generic.

There must be a few Cuckoos, Swallows and the like?

Became the Beautiful South and gave us 'Blackbird on the wire'.

'Starlings', Elbow.
 
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I should say that it's the same frontman rather than the same band and an odd name for a band from Hull I always thought, or at least Paul Heaton, the main vocalist is.


Bizarrely, I think, a main headline in BBC news this week - a generous man making a donation to the staff at Q magazine for supporting him over the years and as they had to close down over coronavirus -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54485919


(And the best bit is because as we know who it is, it can't be QAnon (just to knock any possible conspiracy theories on the head ;) ))
 
British Sea Power did quite a bit with Great Skua, The Guillemot Girls, Be You Mighty Sparrow, Birdy, Carrion (sort of avian) and Don't You Want to Be a Bird?

A lot of their stuff is nature-focused.

(edit - just called Sea Power these days)
 
"Blackbird has spoken" (Morning Has Broken - many singers, but the one I associate with this song is Cat Stevens)

"I could fly higher than an eagle" (Bette Midler - Wind Beneath My Wings)

another lyric - "If you see one bird into the wind, another one's turning" (Mike Oldfield, Islands) - though it doesn't mention any species, always reminds me of seeing terns, in singles or pairs, working over dorado in tropic seas, near tropic islands.
 

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