"Old McDonald Had a Farm" is a children's song about a farmer named McDonald (or MacDonald) and the various animals he keeps on his farm. Each verse of the song changes the name of the animal and its respective noise. In many versions, the song is cumulative, with the noises from all the earlier verses added to each subsequent verse.^[1]

In the version commonly sung today, the lyrics allow for a substitutable animal and its respective sound.

Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O.

And on that farm he had a [animal name], E-I-E-I-O,

With a [animal noise twice] here and a [animal noise twice] there

Here a [animal noise], there a [animal noise], everywhere a [animal noise twice]

Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O.

For example, a verse using a cow as an animal, and moo as the cow's sound would be:

Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O.

And on that 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.

In the 1917 book, Tommy's Tunes, a collection of World War I era songs by F. T. Nettleingham, the song "Ohio (Old Macdougal Had a Farm)" has quite similar lyrics--though with a slightly different farmer's name and refrain:

Old Macdougal had a farm in Ohio-i-o,

And on that farm he had some dogs in Ohio-i-o,

With a bow-wow here, and a bow-wow there,

Here a bow, there a wow, everywhere a bow-wow.

The Traditional Ballad Index consider the "Tommy's Tunes" version to be the earliest known version of "Old Macdonald Had a Farm", though it cites numerous variants, some of them much older.[1]

Two of these variants were published in Vance Randolph's Ozark Folksongs in 1980. One was "Old Missouri", sung by a Mr. H. F. Walker of Missouri in 1922, a version that names different parts of the mule rather than different animals:

Old Missouri had a mule, he-hi-he-hi-ho,

And on this mule there were two ears, he-hi-he-hi-ho.

With a flip-flop here and a flip-flop there,

And here a flop and there a flop and everywhere a flip-flop

Old Missouri had a mule, he-hi-he-hi-ho.

A British version of the song, called "The Farmyard, or The Merry Green Fields," was collected in 1908 from a 74-year-old Mrs. Goodey at Marylebone Workhouse, London, and published in Cecil Sharp's Collection of English Folk Songs.

Up was I on my fa-ther's farm

On a May day morn-ing ear-ly;

Feed-ing of my fa-ther's cows

On a May day morn-ing ear-ly,

With a moo moo here and a moo moo there,

Here a moo, there a moo, Here a pret-ty moo.

Six pret-ty maids come and gang a-long o' me

To the mer-ry green fields of the farm-yard.

Perhaps the earliest recorded member of this family of songs is a number from an opera called The Kingdom of the Birds, published in 1719-1720 in Thomas D'Urfey's Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy:

In the Fields in Frost and Snows,

Watching late and early;

There I keep my Father's Cows,

There I Milk 'em Yearly:

Booing here, Booing there,

Here a Boo, there a Boo, every where a Boo,

We defy all Care and Strife,

In a Charming Country-Life.

The lyrics have been translated into other languages and modified slightly to fit rhythmic and cultural requirements. It is still sung as a children's song to the same tune. An Egyptian Arabic version of the song exists, with Amu Ali (Uncle Ali, Egyptian Arabic: عمو على) being the farmer character. The Italian version is Nella vecchia fattoria. In Spanish it's En la granja de Pepito or En la vieja factoría.

O seu McDonald tinha um sitio, iaiao
e neste sitio ele tinha um cachorrinho, iaiao
era "au au" pra ca, "au au" pra la, iaiao

neste sitio ele tinha uma vaquinha, iaiao
era "Mu" pra ca, "Mu" pra la, iaiao

As with English, many different versions and adaptations exist. The example verse below talks of small chickens and their 'zi zi' sound. Other animals are given different sounds: geese 'gu gu', goats 'mie mie' and dogs 'wang wang'. ^{[citation needed]}

Piippolan vaarilla oli talo,
hiiala, hiiala, hei!
Vaari se hoiteli porsaitansa,
hiiala, hiiala, hei!
Nöf, nöf siellä ja nöf, nöf täällä ja
siellä nöf, täällä nöf, joka puol(el)la nöf, nöf,
hiiala, hiiala, hei!

The animals:
a pig - nöf nöf
a sheep - mää mää
a duck - kvaak kvaak
a horse - ihahahaa ihahahaa
a dog - hau hau
a cat - miau miau

Nella vecchia fattoria, ia-ia-o Quante bestie ha zio Tobia, ia-ia-o C’e il cane (bau!) cane (bau!) ca-ca-cane, cane (bau!) Quante bestie ha zio Tobia, ia-ia-o

Nella vecchia fattoria, ia-ia-o Quante bestie ha zio Tobia, ia-ia-o E il gatto (miao!) gatto (miao!) ga-ga-gatto, gatto (miao!) Quante bestie ha zio Tobia, ia-ia-o

Nella vecchia fattoria, ia-ia-o Quante bestie ha zio Tobia, ia-ia-o E la mucca (muu!) mucca (muu!) mu-mu-mucca, mucca (muu!) Quante bestie ha zio Tobia, ia-ia-o

いちろうさんの　牧場で イーアイ　イーアイ　オー
おや　ないてるのは　ひよこ イーアイ　イーアイ　オー
あら　チッチッチッ　ほら　チッチッチッ あっちもこっちも　どこでもチッチッ チッチッチッ　ほら　チッチッチッ あっちもこっちも　どこでもチッチッ
いちろうさんの　牧場で イーアイ　イーアイ　オー

Per Olsson hade en bonnagård, lia, lia, lej
Och på den gården bodde det en ko, lia, lia, lej
Å det var mu, mu, här. Å det var mu, mu där
Mu här, mu där, mu var det här
Per Olsson hade en bonnagård, lia, lia lej

A strýček Donald farmu měl híja híja hou,
a strýček Donald farmu měl a na tý farmě krávy měl híja híja ou.
Bůbů sem, bůbů tam,
bů sem, bů tam, bů na všechny strany.

A strýček Donald farmu měl híja híja hou.
...
...

The oldest version listed in The Traditional Ballad Index is the Sam Patterson Trio's "Old MacDonald Had a Farm," released on the Edison label in 1925. This was followed by a version by Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers, "Old McDonald Had a Farm" (Columbia Records, 1927) and "McDonald's Farm" by Warren Caplinger's Cumberland Mountain Entertainers (Brunswick Records, 1928). In 1954, the composition was arranged for accordion sextet and recorded for RCA Thesaurus transcriptions by John Serry, Sr. in the United States. [2] Sophie Ellis-Bextor has performed a short excerpt of the song acoustically, live. Other popular versions are by Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Flatt & Scruggs, The Three Stooges, Sesame Street cast, and Gene Autry.

• Renowned computer scientist Donald Knuth jokingly shows the song to have a complexity of in "The Complexity of Songs," attributing its source to "a Scottish farmer O. McDonald."

• On the GNU Hurd kernel, the error message Computer bought the farm has the error code EIEIO.

• The PowerPC instruction set uses the eieio mnemonic (Enforce In-order Execution of I/O) for a memory barrier instruction.

• List of animal sounds