One hen.

One hen, two ducks.

One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese.

One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four lyrical oysters.

One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four lyrical oysters, five corpulent porpoises.

One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four lyrical oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs of Don Alverzo's tweezers.

One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four lyrical oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs of Don Alverzo's tweezers, seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array.

One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four lyrical oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs of Don Alverzo's tweezers, seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array, eight brass monkeys from the ancient sacred crypts of Egypt.

One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four lyrical oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs of Don Alverzo's tweezers, seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array, eight brass monkeys from the ancient sacred crypts of Egypt, nine sympathetic apathetic diabetic old men on roller skates with a marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth.

One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four lyrical oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs of Don Alverzo's tweezers, seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array, eight brass monkeys from the ancient sacred crypts of Egypt, nine sympathetic apathetic diabetic old men on roller skates with a marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth, Ten lyrical, spherical, diabolical denizens of the deep who haul, stall around the corner of the quo of the quay and get queasy at the very same time.

There is a surprising variety of versions of the One Hen song. While I am a bit hazy on the details, I believe it originated as a "announcer's test" in the 1940s for radio announcers to demonstrate their reading abilities. I've seen a version with roughly the first ten lines you see here that then continued up to 20.  A friend of Jerry Lewis reportedly took this test in 1941 and eventually passed it along to him. Jerry used it as part of his act on radio, TV (most notably The Tonight Show in the 1960s) and the stage for many years.

This delightful little romp has morphed into many different versions. The most common being a camp song where the leader says each line and the poor campers have to repeat it back, sort of like a chant. Other versions have found their way into school songbooks and onto the memories of countless students.

My personally favorite version of the One Hen song is from (I believe) The Sanzini Brothers, who named their version The Tibetan Memory Trick. If you have an MP3 player, you may wish to hear their take on the old classic (rename the file extension to .mp3).
 
 

Looking at the lyrics, most of them make some weird, moronic sense, except for the shadowy Don Alverzo. Just who is he and what is the deal with his tweezers?

Digging around a bit, we find that Don Alverzo's name is associated with L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology and the Office of the Guardian (GO), whose job it was (apparently) to promote Scientology and defend it from all its enemies. Don Alverzo supposedly was a GO agent. On a sunny afternoon in October, 1974, Alverzo and two compatriots infiltrated the Chief Counsel's Office of the Washington Internal Revenue Service building to plant a bug prior to a meeting discussing litigation against Scientology. They recorded the conversation, retrieved the bug and returned back to their Los Angeles base camp.

Two years later, Alverzo returned to Washington and the same IRS building. He (along with additional GO agents) attempted to pick the lock of a file room in order to retrieve files relating to the case against the Scientology. After an hour and a half of fruitless attempts of lock-smithing, a fellow agent became exasperated and eventually forced their way in and photocopied the much sought-after documents.

So, are the tweezers mentioned in the song connected to the failed locksmithing attempt? Wiser minds than mine will have to come up with that one.

Incidentally, A Piece of a Blue Sky has quite an exhaustive history of the Church of Scientology. Be sure to check out "Part 5:  The Guardian's Office 1974-1980" from which I borrowed shamelessly.

By the by, the hen pictured above is a prime example of a Buff Orpington hen.  The original Orpington was black and was developed (don't you love that word) in the English town of Orpington in the 1880s.  They were exported to the Americas in 1890 and gained much popularity, as their meat was very excellent and highly prized.  Descendants of the original Orpinton (in addition to the Buff) are the Black, White and Blue Orpingtons.

There's no place like home!