The text was inspired by a newspaper article on October 31st, 2005 about scientists' findings that the utterances of the male mice are actually songs. Here is an excerpt from the article: " In the literature, there's a hierarchy of different definitions for what qualifies as a song, but there are usually two main properties," says lead author Timothy E. Holy, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurobiology and anatomy. "One is that there should be some syllabic diversity—recognisably distinct categories of sound, instead of just one sound repeated over and over. And there should be some temporal regularity—motifs and themes that recur from time to time, like the melodic hook in a catchy tune." The new study shows that mouse song has both qualities, although Holy notes that the ability of lab mice to craft motifs and themes isn't quite on a par with that of master songsmiths like birds. " The lyrics for this piece are just the three words, 'La Souris Couine'.

Text Authorship:

• by Anonymous / Unidentified Author [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Bushra El-Turk (b. 1982), "La Souris Couine", 2006 [ voice and piano ], from Four Songs, no. 3, Composers Edition
      Publisher: Composers Edition [external link]  [sung text checked 1 time]

This text was added to the website: 2026-08-08
Line count: 1
Word count: 3