☘ THE RATTLIN' BOG ☘
FAN SHRINE

Right lads, settling this once and for all. Which verse is the best verse?

For me it's the flea on the feather. By that point everyone's singing at about 200mph and the whole room is falling apart. The flea is the CLIMAX of the song. The pinnacle. The summit.

Fight me.

Nah the bird on the egg is the turning point. Before that you're just building up, it's all trees and branches. But the BIRD. That's when it starts getting interesting. That's when you think "right this is going somewhere mad."

the egg in the nest!!! idk why but there's something so satisfying about "a rare egg, a rattlin egg" like. an egg!!! in a nest!!! on a twig!!! on a branch!!! it's just so GOOD

also the way everyone speeds up at that point is hilarious

I know this is controversial but I actually love the first verse best. "Now in this bog there was a tree, a rare tree, a rattlin' tree." Just the simplicity of it. A bog. A tree. That's it. Everything else grows from there. It's like... the whole song is contained in that first verse if you think about it. The bog holds everything.

late to this but: the HAIR on the FLEA. if your version goes that far. it's pure chaos. nobody can keep up. everyone's just shouting. it's the best moment in music.

ok so basically I taught the rattlin bog to my class during music hour right? and the teacher was like "oh what a lovely folk song" and let us sing it. and then at lunch EVERYONE was singing it. and then by the end of the day the ENTIRE SCHOOL was singing it and the principal came on the intercom to ask people to please stop singing about the bog

my mam got a phone call home. i regret nothing

Aoife you are a HERO. This is exactly what the song is for. It's unstoppable. Once it gets going it spreads like wildfire. Your principal never stood a chance.

I once started singing it on a bus from Limerick to Dublin and by Portlaoise the whole bus was singing along. The driver joined in. True story.

This song is a memetic virus and I mean that as a compliment. Once you hear it you WILL sing it within 24 hours. That's just science.

Aoife please tell me you taught them all the verses in the right order. I will not have children learning the feather before the bird. There is a SEQUENCE and it matters.

ok i can never remember whether the nest comes before or after the twig. and is it a branch or a bough?? and does anyone do the one with the hair on the flea?? every time i sing this at a session someone tells me i have the order wrong and i want to get it RIGHT once and for all

RattlinFan99 you have come to the right place!! I've put the COMPLETE lyrics on the Lyrics page of this very site. Fully written out, every verse, every cumulative repetition. No abbreviations. I spent an embarrassing amount of time getting this right.

The order (in the version I learned): tree, limb, branch, twig, nest, egg, bird, feather, flea, hair. Some people do "branch" instead of "limb" and skip straight to "twig" but I think the limb/branch distinction is important. And yes, some versions go further than the flea but the hair is a good stopping point.

Also: it's a folk song. There IS no single "correct" version. But mine is correct. ☘

BogLord you're a legend. printing these out and laminating them. next session i will NOT be corrected. i'll have PROOF.

Happy St Patrick's Day to all the fellow Rattlin' Bog fans out there!! ☘☘☘

I hope everyone sings the bog at least three times today. It's what St Patrick would have wanted.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh go léir!!

LADS. LADS. LADS.

I am shaking as I type this. Someone has uploaded a BRILLIANT recording of The Rattlin' Bog to a website called YouTube. I had never heard of it before today but apparently you can watch videos on the internet now??? For FREE???

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QO8bWGNPyo

I have watched it fourteen times already today. I am not exaggerating. The ENERGY. The HARMONIES. The way the whole room joins in. I have genuinely shed tears. This is everything I have wanted for this site.

I've added it to the home page as well. This is the biggest update since the site launched.

OH MY GOD. BogLord. I just watched this and I am BEAMING. the way they speed up!! the way everyone knows the words!! this is exactly what it's like at sessions and I've never been able to show people who haven't been to one what it's like and NOW I CAN. I'm sending this to everyone I know.

also "YouTube"?? what a name. do you think it'll catch on?

This is class. Fair play to whoever uploaded it. I tried to download it so I can watch it offline but my computer keeps freezing. Probably need more RAM. Does anyone know if you can save YouTube videos?

The performance is quality though. Real session energy. You can tell those are people who love the song.

the future is NOW. video of the rattlin bog on the internet. what a time to be alive. i showed my da and he said "that's grand" which from him is basically a standing ovation

thanks BogLord for finding this. this site really is the best thing on the internet