A rooster flapped his wings and crowed
A merrysome cockadoodledoo,
As out of the west a cowboy rode
To the land where the peach and the clapboard grew,
Humming a gentle tralalaloo.
"O insect with the gilded wing,"
The cowboy cried, "Pray tell me true
Why do you crane your neck and sing
That wearisome cockadoodledoo?
Would you like to learn the tralalaloo?"
Now the rooster squawked an impudent word
Whereat the angered cowboy threw
His lariat at the haughty bird
And choked him until his gills were blue
And his eyes hung out an inch or two.
"Now hear me sing," the cowboy cried;
"It ain't no cockadoodledoo—
It's a song we sing on the prairies wide—
The simple song of tralalaloo,
Which is cowboy slang for 12 to 2."