Kookaburra

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Merry, merry king of the bush is he
Laugh kookaburra, laugh
Kookaburra, gay your life must be

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Eating all the gumdrops that he can see
Stop, kookaburra, stop
Kookaburra, leave some there for me

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Chasing all the monkeys he can see
Stop, kookaburra, stop
Kookaburra, that's not a monkey, that's me!

"Kookaburra" (also known by its first line: "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree") is a popular Australian nursery rhyme and round about the Kookaburra (an Australian Kingfisher), written by Marion Sinclair (b.1895/6/7 - 1988).[1]

Marion Sinclair was a music teacher at Toorak College, a girls' school in Melbourne which she had attended as a boarder. In 1920, she began working with the school's Girl Guides company.
One Sunday morning in church, in 1932, Marion Sinclair had a sudden inspiration, and dashed home to write the words down. "Kookaburra" was entered in 1934 into a competition run by the Girl Guides Association of Victoria, with the rights of the winning song to be sold to raise money for the purchase of a camping ground, eventually chosen as Britannia Park. The song was performed for the first time in 1934, at the annual Jamboree in Frankston, Victoria at which the Baden-Powells, founders of the Scouting and Guiding movements were present.[1]
Despite its particular "Australian-ness", the song is well-known and performed around the world, particularly in the United States and United Kingdom, where the Girl Guide movements in those countries have adopted it as a traditional song.
The first verse of the Kookaburra song is:
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Merry merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh, Kookaburra,
Gay your life must be!
The tune similar to the Welsh folk song "A Ei Di'r 'Deryn Du"[dubious – discuss] or "Dacw ti yn eistedd, y 'deryn du" (English translation "There you are sitting, black bird."). The syllables and themes are almost identical in pattern to those in "Kookaburra". [2]