Y9W11 White-eyed Vireo

Greetings to Y'All
My husband and I are on the road this week, driving from the Florida Keys where we spent the winter (balmy!) back to the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina (still brrr!), so I've done two old assignments ahead of time and will post them from a motel along the way.

White-eyed Vireo is a wild one - the bird is a 'lifer' for us this winter and therefore merits a position in my growing repertoire of lyrics - but it still is wild. I'm wearing my bulletproof vest so you can fire away at me and I won't be wounded. I've even put a jumping-around tune to this one. About a hundred years ago someone wrote a song about a red red robin and, if you know it, you'll have some idea how the tune gets going. Wilhelmina

Y9W11 - Topic: a song about a song

When the white-eyed vireo
sings its cheery old
s - o - o - ng, its song.
You won't see it sitting,
It always is flitting
al - o - o - ng, along.

It - sings - its . . .
'poopa chittle-do peep',
There's - just - a . . .
cry and a chortle and cheep,
but it never will stay very long.
It utters its thing,
then flutters a wing
and is gone.

When - the . . .
toast is burning,
your stomach is churning
and everything seems wrong,

it's - time - to . . . .
jump up and dance and sing,
dress up and have a fling,
find brass bell to ring,
get busy with anything!

and . . .
be like the vireo,
singing its cheery old
song.

Just - when - you're . . .
settling down to weep,
you'll - hear - that . . .
'poopa chittle-do peep'.
It's - time - to . . .
get out your fiddle and leap . . .
in - the - air.

and . . .
be like the vireo,
singing its cheery old
song.

Yes . . .
(tune should slow a bit here)
you can be little, too,
do what a kid'll do,
life is no riddle to
you . . .

Be - like - the . . .
(speed up again)
white-eyed vireo,
singing its ch- e- e - e -ry old
song.

Yes,
be like the vireo,
singing its cheery old
song.