The ToneWay® Project: helping people play music

Little Birdie [core]

Little birdie, little 5 birdie
Come and sing me your 1 song
Got a short time to 5 stay here
And a long time to be 1 gone

Rather be in some dark hollow
Where the sun don't ever shine
Than for you to be another man's darling
And to know that you'd never be mine

Little birdie, little birdie
What makes you fly so high
When you know that my true lover
Is a-waiting in the sky

I'm a long way from old Dixie
And my old Kentucky home
Got no father or mother
No place to call my home

Little birdie, little birdie
What makes your head so red
Well, after all that I been through
It's a wonder I ain't dead

Married woman, married woman
Why don't you settle down
Your heart's like the little birdie's
You're flying all around

Little birdie, little birdie
Won't you sing to me your song
You've caused me lots of trouble
You've caused me to do wrong

It’s on Strum Machine!

Play & sing along with Little Birdie (or any song you type in) in any key, at any speed, with real instrument recordings. You have to see it to believe it.

Play this song on Strum Machine

Available in these books:

Get Started Plus: Core Songs Edition
100 songs and our acclaimed play-by-ear learning method.
Big Print Songs
Over 200 songs.
Family Tradition
The reference manual, with lyrics to 330 songs.
The first two books feature large-print lyrics (20-point type) and include chords, historical info, jamming hints, and more.

...and on these CDs:

Five CDs, 100 songs. Recordings from the Abbott family and their friends.
Listen to sample tracks.

The MP3 collection has all 100 songs on one CD for a discount. See details.


A song from the The ToneWay Mountain Music Collection, which offers lyrics and free Song Clips (recordings for learning the song by ear) for nearly 400 traditional songs, many of which are often heard in bluegrass and old-time jam circles. The ToneWay Project also offers songbooks, CDs, and a free online video series for learning to play music by ear. http://ToneWay.com