"Old MacDonald Had a Farm" is a children's song and nursery rhyme about a farmer named MacDonald (sometimes known as "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 animal sounds from all the earlier verses added to each subsequent verse.^[1] It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 745. For example, the verse uses a cow as an animal and "moo" as the animal's sound.

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

In the 1917 book Tommy's Tunes, a collection of World War I era songs by F. T. Nettleingham,^[2] the song "Ohio" 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.

This version lists seven species of animal: some dogs (bow-wow), some hens (cluck cluck), some ducks (quack quack), some cows (moo moo), some pigs (oink oink), some cats (meow meow), and a donkey (hee-haw).^[3]

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 Geddo Ali (Grandpa Ali, Egyptian Arabic: جدو على) being the farmer character.
• The Italian version is Nella vecchia fattoria (In The Old Farm). The farmer is Zio Tobia (uncle Tobias).
• The German version is Onkel Jörg hat einen Bauernhof.^[4] An alternative version is Old MacDonald hat 'ne Farm (short for eine Farm), keeping the English name of the farmer, and translating the rest quite literally.
• In Spanish it is En la granja de Pepito, El Viejo MacDonald tenia una granja, El granjero tenía un campo or En la vieja factoría.
• In Danish it is Jens Hansen havde en bondegård (literally "Jens Hansen had a farm") and in Swedish it goes Per Olsson hade en bonnagård.
• In Portuguese, the most common version is Na quinta do tio Manel (meaning "On the farm of Uncle Manel"), with alternate versions Seu Lobato tinha um sítio or even O velho McDonald tinha uma fazenda (literally "Old MacDonald Had a Farm").
• In Polish it is Stary Donald farmę miał (meaning "Old Donald had a farm") or Pan McDonald farmę miał (meaning "Mr. McDonald had a farm").
• In French, Dans la ferme de Mathurin (literally "In Mathurin's Farm").
• In Turkish version "Ali Baba'nın Bir Çiftliği Var" (literally: "Ali Baba Has A Farm")
• In Slovene version Na kmetiji je lepo (literally: On a farm it is beautiful), it can be a children's song, a naughty song or, at least in some versions of the song, the lyrics have been made from childish into vulgar, like a drinking song.
• In Hebrew לדוד משה הייתה חווה (LaDod Moshe hayta hava) or Uncle Moshe Had a Farm. This version was translated by Avraham Broshi.
• In Chinese there are several versions of the song in same tune. The most popular is 王老先生有块地 (Wáng lǎo xiānshēng yǒu kuài dì), or Old Mr. Wang Had Some Land.
• In Japanese version ゆかいな牧場 (Yukai-na Makiba, literally: "Happy Farm"), Ichiro, Jiro and Saburo are the farmers who have animals.
• In Japanese version マックのおじさん (Makku no Ojisan, literally: "Old man Mac"), sounds playfully like the Western version.
• In Kansai Japanese, there is a parody song called 大阪うまいもんの歌 (Osaka Umaimon no Uta, literally: "Yummy foods in Osaka") made by an Osakan puppet play troupe in 1993.
• In Malay version Pak Atan Ada Ladang ( Uncle Atan Had a Farm)
• In Serbian Svako jutro jedno jaje organizmu snagu daje (One egg per day gives the strength to human organism)　has the same melody.
• In Korean version '그래 그래서' (geulae geulaeseo, literally: "So And"). Old Mr. Park had a farm and animals.
• In Finnish version "Piippolan vaarilla oli talo" (literally: "Grandpa Piippola had a house")
• In Czech it's called "Strýček Donald farmu měl" which translates to "Uncle Donald had a farm"
• In Persian version it's called "پیرمرد مهربون " meaning "kind old man" instead of Old MacDonald.

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.^[5] There have been versions by such well-known artists as Frank Sinatra (Capitol, 1960), Elvis Presley (in his movie Double Trouble), Nat King Cole, and Ella Fitzgerald (on her 1967 Verve album Whisper Not).^[6][7][8] A variant was used in a 1952 campaign ad for Adlai Stevenson II's unsuccessful campaign for President with slightly altered lyrics promoting the Stevenson campaign's appeal to farmers.^[9] The song is played (with some cast participation) in the 1951 movie The Lavender Hill Mob.^[10]

• List of animal sounds
• Mary Had a Little Lamb

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