Songs with / about animals

vogelcommando

vogelcommando

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
Songs normaly are about love and that kind of stuff but also quite a number of songs have animals in their title, mentioned in the song or the singer / band is called after an animal.
I came to this because I heared the song "Rudolph the red-nosed Reindeer" in the radio ( strange, but this is played only in December ??;) ) and started to think which other songs are "connected" with animals.
For bands I came up with the Eagles and examples of titlles I came up with ( for example ) the Eye of the tiger, the Elephant-song and The lion sleeps tonight.
A song in which animals are mentioned is for example Roar.
Any other songs, titles or singers / groups with animals ?
 
Have to google that one, never heared of it ! ( BTW the Beatles are ofcourse also an "animal-group"! )
 
Groups/singers include: Camel, Goriillaz and Terry Dactyl and the Dinosaurs, Steppenwolf, Boomtown Rats, Seal
Songs/Tunes include: 'Albatross (Fleetwood Mac); Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport (Rolf Harris); Boris the Spider (Who); Nellie the Elephant (Mandy Miller); Rat Trap (Boomtown Rats); Caterpillar (Cure); Five Little Ducks; The Ugly Duckling; The Lion, The Lion; I'm A Gnu & The Hippopotamus Song (Flanders & Swann); Eric the Half a Bee (Monty Python); The Bee Song (Arthur Askey); A Frog he would a'wooing go; The Butterfly Ball; Run Rabbit; Fly Like an Eagle (Steve Miller Band), The Fly (U2)
Albums include: Rattus Norvegicus (Stranglers), Snow Goose (Camel), Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (David Bowie)

There must be many more, but I haven't used the internet to find any yeat
 
when I was a child in the 1960's we used to sing 'we're all going to the zoo tomorrow', I'm not sure if it was a real song or not, as we also sang one about Tarzan climbing a monkey puzzle tree, which we found out years later my father had made up, and I mean later 30+ years later.
 
I myself had some new ones coming up my mind :
See you later Alligator
There's a rat in the kitchen
 
This subject can be endless.
There is already a thread on zoochat about music that mention zoos with Simon and Garfunkel ¨s classic "At the zoo" coming to mind.
Now animals can be symbols for other things in many songs.
Take Monkeys. "Shock the monkey" by Peter Gabriel and "Eveyone has something to hide Except me and my monkey" by Lennon and Mccartney come to mind. But are they talking about primates? Peter Gabriel maybe, but the beatle song does not fit. But then remember that monkey was a counterculture slang term for an addiction. But many possiblities are open.
From latin america many songs come to mind, but the all time classic is the lovely andean huayno " El Condor Pasa" by Los Incas to which Paul Simon put english lyrics.
 
dean said:
when I was a child in the 1960's we used to sing 'we're all going to the zoo tomorrow', I'm not sure if it was a real song or not, as we also sang one about Tarzan climbing a monkey puzzle tree, which we found out years later my father had made up, and I mean later 30+ years later.
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Ha ha, We're all going the zoo tomorrow was a real song for us too when children on zoo trips in the 70's. "See the elephant with his big trunk swinging" ..we're all going to the zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow we can stay all day!! you could go on forever about that song just mentioning a different animal between the chorus. I remember crocodiles had a big mouth snapping, chimps were scratch scatch scratching.

Imagine some of the Zoo Chatters lyrics to this song... See the Panthera tigris altaica - most commonly referred to as the Amur or Siberian tiger which is the largest living sub species of Panthera... with its big teeth yawning....

:D
 
Groups: Animals, Byrds, Monkees
Songs/Music: 'Octopussy's Garden (Beatles) , Alexander Beetle, Ben (Michael Jackson's song about a rat), most tracks from Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens
 
As a jazz fan, I'd like to add a few little numbers.
Sleepy John Estes's 'Diving Duck Blues' which is in Taj Mahal's repertoire; I love the live version by his band with 3 tuba players :D
A classic instrumental is Duke Ellington's 'Cottontail' from the Blanton-Webster period of the Orchestra. Ben Webster played the tenor solo.
One of the oldest of all jazz numbers is 'Tiger Rag' first recorded in 1917 by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band: but I strongly recommend Art Tatum's version from 1933, which scared piano players around the world ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib_3iZHIaqA

I have assembled a pretty good band to play these tunes. The sax section will be exceptional, obviously Bird will be on alto together with Mr Rabbit (Johnny Hodges) plus Gato Barbieri and The Frog (the aforementioned Ben Webster) on tenors. In the brass will be Cat Anderson on trumpet and Miff Mole on trombone. I'd like Dodo Marmorosa on piano (if he's disqualified by extinction, it will have to be Jay McShann instead as I think Willie the Lion Smith was really a solo player). Donald Duck Dunn and Chick Webb will play bass and drums :)

Alan
 
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Found again some songs and a group with animals in it :
Sex with ducks - Garfunkel and Oates
Alien Ant Farm ( a group )
Butterfly - Crazy Town
Horse with no name - America
 
Some personal favourites of mine include:

- Hyena, Bird of Prey and Two-Hearted Spider - all by The Editors
- Moth's Wings - by Passion Pit

And I guess it would be cheating to include the two volumes of Imagine Africa by Sean Frew, which are essentially a series of instrumental themes for many different African animals, such as Rhino Theme, Buffalo Theme, Leopard Theme, Wild Dog, Hippo Theme, Giraffe Theme, Wildebeest Theme and Antelope Theme, among many others
 
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