Choucoune (Haitian Creole: Choukoun) is a 19th-century Haitian song composed by Michel Mauléart Monton with lyrics from a poem by Oswald Durand. It was rewritten with English lyrics in the 20th century as Yellow Bird.
The English rendering of Choucoune: Yellow Bird, first appeared on the album Calypso Holiday, a 1957 release by the Norman Luboff Choir, Norman Luboff having arranged the song in the calypso style that become popular in the English-speaking world in the mid-1950s. The lyrics for Yellow Bird, by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, have no connection with the narrative of the Durand poem—other than the poem features the words "ti zwazo" (little birds) in its refrain, and so the original Haitian song is sometimes called Ti Zwazo or Ti Zwezo. The song became a minor hit at #70 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the Mills Brothers in 1959. Its most successful incarnation came in the summer of 1961 when the Arthur Lyman Group reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 on the newly formed Easy Listening chart with their Hawaiian flavored instrumental version, which bested a rival instrumental single release by Lawrence Welk (#61).
Here is my instrumental version of this lovely tune (recorded over Christmas week). I hope you like it. Dave.
p.s. Just noticed that I forgot to add the title to the video...appologies!

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