A delightfully evocative noun that suggests neatness and cosiness, this obscure 17th-century word from the Latin means nest and the building of, which can be connected not just to birds, but animals and even humans. Nests are remarkable structures whether they are built by birds on tree or water, by bees or wasps, or by mammals in the undergrowth or underground. Nests are the external womb of nurture, fabulous pieces of natural architecture built by a hardwired instinct to survive, protect and cherish. They are of course practical, but also have emotional and artistic associations.
But where does the word, or its meaning, find a perch or place in song? Not so much the actual word, but nests and their association do end up in a number songs. First up, a literal nest, in the repetitive and gradually speeding up image-within-image traditional song by the folk-country-bluegrass band Irish Descendants, Rattlin’ Bog. Egg, nest, bird … you get the idea, and the cycle.
In that egg there was a bird
A rare bird and a rattlin' bird
And the bird on the egg
And the egg on the bird
And the bird in the nest
And the nest on the limb
And the limb on the branch
And the branch on the tree
And the tree in the bog
And the hole in the bog
And the bog down in the valley-o
The Dubliners meanwhile use the nest as a romantic, gently sexual image in another traditional number, The Lark In The Morning:
The lark in the morning she rises off her nest
She goes home in the evening with the dew all on her breast
And like the jolly ploughboy she whistles and she sings
She goes home in the evening with the dew all on her wings
The Cramps go into a more intimate and explicit nest, one that a far more directly sexual context to go with their dirty, rockin’ sound, and a possibly invasive one too, in the song Nest Of The Cuckoo Bird, from the 1994 album Flamejob.
In the nest of the cuckoo bird
You wanna get her tail until she purrs.
Run your fingers thru her fur …
Blur meanwhile take a nest with imagery of sexual frustration in their obscure song Peach, from the 2012 reissue of their early album Modern Life Is Rubbish, originally from 1993.
A gun in your pocket
And hair in a locket
Around your neck
From the girl you once loved
Where is she now, you've gone crazy
You've got a gaping hole in your head
I'd let the birds nest there instead
Young Fathers take the nest theme into more of a psycho-emotional home comfort, mothering, fathering, baby, family context in the song Nest from 2015’s album White Men Are Black Men Too.
A rather more ethereal context there is the instrumental number by Peter Gabriel, poetically titled The Nest That Sailed The Sky, from his album OVO:
So then, any other nest-related songs nuzzling in the nooks and crannies of your collection or collective memories? Please feel free to share any further examples in songs, instrumentals, on albums, film, art or other contexts in comments below.
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