Great Speckled Bird, The

DESCRIPTION: "What a beautiful thought I am thinking Concerning the great speckled bird." The bird, though attacked by other birds, "is one with the great church of God." The bird's success is promised when God comes on the bird's wings
AUTHOR: Sara Dillon? (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1936 (Aurora Advertiser)
KEYWORDS: religious Bible bird
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Abernethy-SinginTexas, p. 126, "The Greak Speckled Bird" (1 text, 1 tune)
Randolph 621, "The Great Speckled Bird" (1 texts plus a fragment, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen-OzarkFolksongs-Abridged, pp. 435-437, "The Great Speckled Bird" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 621A)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 368, "The Great Speckled Bird" (1 text)
DT, GRTSPCKL* GRTSOCK2*
Roud #7444
RECORDINGS:
Roy Acuff & his Crazy Tennesseans, "Great Speckle Bird" (Vocalion 04252/OKeh 04252/Conqueror 8740, 1936; ARC 7-01-59, 1937; Columbia 37005, c 1946; Columbia 20031, c. 1947; Columbia [Canada]C-1139, 1948; rec. 1936)
Charlie Glenn, Dianne Ward-Hicks, "Great Speckled Bird" (Fragment: Piotr-Archive #195, recorded 06/06/2022)
Hall Brothers, "The Great Speckled Boatman" (Bluebird, unissued, 1938)
Holiness Church congregation, "Great Speckled Bird" (on MMOKCD)
Jack & Leslie, "The Great Speckled Bird" (Decca 5555, 1938)
Charlie Monroe's Boys, "The Great Speckled Bird" (Bluebird B-7862, 1938)
Morris Brothers, "The Great Speckled Bird" (Bluebird B-7903, 1938)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Broken Ties (I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes)" (tune)
SAME TUNE:
Great Speckle Bird No. 2 (RECORDING: Roy Acuff & his Smoky Mountain Boys, ARC 07-06-54/Conqueror 8877, 1937; Vocalion 04374/OKeh 04374, 1938; Columbia 37007, 1946; Columbia 20003. c. 1948; rec. 1937; Columbia 20032, c. 1945)
Answer to Great Speckled Bird (RECORDING: Roy Hall & his Blue Ridge Entertainers, OKeh 4771, prob. 1939; recorded 1938; listed as Vocalion 04771/Conqueror 9184 in Lornell, _Virginia's Blues, Country & Gospel Records 1902-1943_)
NOTES [341 words]: Usually credited to Roy Acuff (who certainly popularized it); however, a 1936 printing in the Aurora, Missouri Advertiser precedes Acuff's 1937 copyright, and there is a claim that it was written around 1934 by Guy "Uncle George" Smith. And some of Randolph's informants would date the song much earlier. W. K. McNeil, editor, Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music, Routledge, 2005, p. 5, believes it was written by a West Virginia songwriter named Sara Dillon, probably in 1926.
In fact it is know that Acuff did not write it. According to McNeil, Acuff was working at a Knoxville radio station, WROL, when he heard a group called the "Black Shirts" sing it. When they prepared to leave the station, Acuff paid them to write out the words for it, then started singing it. It proved so popular that the American Record Company offered Acuff a contract on the strength of it. It also opened the doors of the Grand Ole Opry to him.
There is a significant similarity to the Carter Family's version of "Broken Ties (I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes)," which may have inspired this as well as several later important country songs.
The image of the "great speckled bird" comes from Jeremiah 12:9 in the King James Bible ("Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her"). This is not, however, a very apt translation of a difficult Hebrew original (which mentions, seemingly as a single subject, a hyena and a bird of prey; the ancient Greek version reads "My inheritance is a hyena's cave"; a few Greek manuscripts also mention bandits; the KJV translation is probably derived from the Latin "avis discolor," a multicolored bird, which looks like a wild guess by the Latin translator). Most modern versions render the verse in a way not parallel to the KJV, although John Bright in the Anchor Bible offers "speckled bird of prey." The Jewish Tanakh tries to have it both ways: "Like a bird of prey [or] a hyena," while admitting the meaning is uncertain; the brackets around "[or]" are in the Tanakh text. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: R621

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