A cumulative song is a song with a simple verse structure modified by progressive addition so that each verse is longer than the verse before. Cumulative songs are popular for group singing, in part because they require relatively little memorization of lyrics, and because remembering the previous verse to concatenate it to form the current verse can become a kind of game.
Structure Typically, the lyrics take the form of a stanza of at least two lines. In each verse, the text of the first line introduces a new item, and the other line uses the words to begin a list which includes items from all the preceding verses. The item is typically a new phrase (simultaneously a group of words and a musical phrase) to a line in a previous stanza. The two lines are often separated by refrains. Many cumulative songs also have a chorus. A musical structure that could describe it might be: A BA CBA DCBA EDCBA . . .
Songs with two-line stanzas One of the most well-known examples of a cumulative song is the Christmas song "The Twelve Days of Christmas", which uses a two-line stanza, where the second line is cumulative, as follows:
and so on until
The first gift (the partridge) is always sung to a "coda melody" phrase. For the first four verses, the additional gifts are all sung to a repeated standard melodic phrase. In the fifth verse, a different melody, with a change of tempo, is introduced for the five gold(en) rings; and from this point on the first five gifts are always sung to a set of varied melodic phrases (with the partridge retaining its original coda phrase). Thence forward, the wording of each new gift is sung to the original standard melodic phrase before returning to the five gold(en) rings.
Songs with refrains In many songs, an item is introduced in the first line of each stanza and extends the list in another line. An example is "The Barley Mow" (Roud 944):
The second verse substitutes a larger drink measure in the first line. In the second line the new measure heads the list and is sung to the same musical phrase as pint pot.
One version of the final line and refrain is:
Alan Lomax recorded Jack French singing The Barley Mow at the Blaxhall Ship, a famous singing pub in Suffolk, in 1953. This recording is available online at the Cultural Equity website.
Songs with a chorus A chorus (often with its own refrain) may be added to the stanzas as in "The Rattlin' Bog" (Roud 129):
One version of the final line+refrain is:
Each phrase is sung to the same two-note melody. Hamish Henderson recorded William Sinclair Mitchell, Agnes Mitchell and Agnes Mitchell singing "The Rattling Bog" in 1979. The recording is available on line on the Tobar an Dualchais – Kist o Riches website. Jim Carroll and Pat McKenzie recorded Pat McNamara singing "The Bog Down in the Valley" in Kilshanny, in 1975. The recording is available online on the Clare County Library website.
Cumulative songs in languages other than English Yiddish folk music contains many prominent examples of cumulative songs, including "?װאָס װעט זײַן אַז משיח װעט קומען" and "מה אספּרה," or "What Will Happen When the Messiah Comes?" and "Who Can Recall" (a Yiddish version of the Passover song "Echad Mi Yodea").;; The Passover seder contains two cumulative songs: "Echad Mi Yodea" in Hebrew, and "Chad Gadya" in Aramaic. Italian folk Catholicism has "Le dodici parole della verita" ("From the One God to the Twelve Apostles").
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