Birdie Song: how a Swiss wrote the ‘most annoying song of all time’ 

The biggest Swiss musical hit of all time didn't emerge from the pond, but from the mountains of Graubünden. Keystone/DPA/Christoph Schmidt

Swiss accordionist Werner Thomas composed the tune for The Birdie Song in the 1950s to liven up the après-ski in eastern Switzerland. It went on to become Switzerland's biggest international hit.

If you thought The Birdie Song – also called the Chicken Dance and many other less printable things – had been consigned to a musical graveyard for kitsch novelty tunes, think again.

The avian anthem has made its nest on streaming platforms, and it still seems to appeal to a young audience, a sign that it may outlive us all.

Just about everyone remembers this staple of drunken parties of the 1980s. Few, however, know that it originated decades earlier – in the Swiss mountains.

It all began 70 years ago. Werner Thomas, a young accordionist from Thurgau, was performing as a background musician in the pubs of Graubünden. He composed the catchy melody of what was to become The Birdie Song (Der Ententanz – duck dance – in German) in the mid-1950s, originally to announce the interludes. Year after year, audiences kept coming back for more.

Fast-forward to the early 1970s. Belgian producer Louis van Rijmenant is on holiday in Davos. Obsessed by Thomas’s little jingle, he signed him up, sensing a golden goose.

In 1973, the very first instrumental version hit record stores under the title Tchip Tchip, which already evoked the chirping of birds. The Belgian group Cash & Carry made an electronic version using the latest synthesiser technology.

The nasal sound – more Donald Duck than Kraftwerk – was not at all to Werner Thomas’s taste. “When I first heard it, I was disappointed, because it wasn’t the sound I’d imagined,” he later told a German TV programme.

But he soon changed his mind – when Tchip Tchip soared to the top of the charts in Belgium and Switzerland and stayed there for several weeks.

Global domination

Meanwhile, Louis van Rijmenant wanted to spread his wings. He presented Tchip Tchip at MIDEM in Cannes, a major event in the world music industry.

According to the Belgian news website dhnet, the tune caught the attention of American producer Stanley Mills, who decided to take it to the United States.

The cover of a Werner Thomas album released in 1982.

In 1981 British band The Tweets got to number two in the UK charts with a version titled The Birdie Song. Their appearance on chart show Top of the Pops – dressed as birds and backed by the Top of the Pops dance troupe Legs & Co – popularised the dance, which we also owe to Werner Thomas! He says he was partly inspired by birds, but also by the bending of the legs of the skiers he worked with in the resorts.

While this was the most successful version, not everyone was a fan. “It didn’t even have any lyrics but The Birdie Song – the maddening tune which prompted displays of appalling dancing throughout the 1980s – has been voted the most annoying song of all time,” the BBC wroteExternal link in 2000 following the publication of a poll. “The irritating classic by The Tweets, which went to number two in 1981, fought off stiff competition from the Teletubbies and Aqua to claim the top spot.”

Other international hits by Swiss acts in the 1980s

Yello had major international hits with Oh Yeah (1985) and The Race (1988).

Another Swiss act, Double, scored a massive international success in 1985 with The Captain of Her Heart, which was a Top 10 hit in the UK and reached #16 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Words don’t come easy

In Germany, Dance Little Bird, the cover version by Dutch group Electronica’s, became a summer hit, topping the charts, staying in the top ten for 21 weeks and becoming the best-selling single of 1981.

By the early 1980s, the instrumental version was already relatively well-known. All that was missing were some lyrics.

In the French-speaking world, it was some Belgians – again – who took up the challenge. J.J. Lionel’s interpretation went on to become one of the biggest French-language hits of the 1980s.

In 1983, La Danse des Canards entered the Guinness Book of Records, selling 2.5 million copies in France. To date, sales stand at 3.5 million – the second best-selling single of all time in France (after Tino Rossi’s Petit Papa Noël). What’s more, these figures don’t include streaming.

In Germany, Frank Zander released the song Ja, Wenn Wir alle Englein wären (If we were all little angels) under the alias Fred Sonnenschein in 1981. It went gold in Germany and topped the Swiss charts for several weeks.

But it’s impossible to list all 400 or so versions, which have multiplied over the years. In 2023 a tragi-comic cover by young French singer Léman went viral on TikTok. A heavy metal version was released this year.

>> Festive? Not for French singer Léman:

In all, the song has sold over 50 million copies in more than 40 countries. It is by far the most popular and exported Swiss song.

Werner Thomas on the German programme Damals War’s (Those were the days).

Werner Thomas, now 96, is reported to be living out his days in a luxury retirement home in Ticino. He never revealed how big of a nest egg his composition brought him, but he always said he was very proud of it.

In his last interview, given to Blick in 2018, the composer of Switzerland’s biggest hit explained that he simply wanted to “enjoy a steak tartare and a glass of Prosecco in peace”.

As for you, get ready to be bird-brained for a while!

Edited by Samuel Jaberg. Adapted from French by Thomas Stephens