The need for speed

Fiat S76, The Beast of Turin (Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week was the final theme-less session until we are well into November. This week's theme is Halloween. The theme is optional but songs, tunes, stories and poems of ghosts and ghouls, witches and wizards, and of course All Saints will be very welcome along with any other tenuous links you can come up with.

So back to last Friday; Colin was MC and started the evening with If It Wasn't For The 'Ouses In Between (Edgar Bateman, George Le Brunn - Roud V35719).

Simon was carefully avoiding any possibility of singing songs that might fit our upcoming themes and opened his account with All For Me Grog.

Colin's singing of Ben Backstay (Roud 21256) officially and presumably unintentionally kicked off the ad hoc theme for the evening. You see, the chorus goes:

Singing chip cho, cherry cho,
Fol de riddle ido,
Singing chip cho, cherry cho,
Fol de riddle ido.

While Colin was singing it and we were all singing along, Mike was winding him up. I don't mean he was trying to make fun of him, not on this occasion. He was making as if to crank a handle to get Colin to sing faster.

Mike explained afterwards that when he first heard that song the singer sang the chorus at breakneck speed, especially when considered against the leisurely verse tempo. The next time he heard it, the singer was Johnny Collins. Collins sang the chorus much more slowly. Mike and another person who had been present at the song's previous outing both pushed him on to sing faster, which didn't impress Johnny at all.

So, the ad hoc theme seemed set to be singing quickly. At his next turn Geoff said he can't do that but looking back at my notes he had in fact preempted the theme by giving us Snooker Loopy (Charles Nicholas "Chas" Hodges, David Victor "Dave" Peacock) which he sang to mark the recent death of Chas of Chas & Dave fame. It's not quite as fast as the same duo's Rabbit but it's good enough for this scribe.

Simon's speed demon song was Bucketful Of Mountain Dew with the lilting chorus before Derek upped the ante with his crazily fast version of Cyfri'r Geifr (the Welsh goat counting song).

Mike contributed The Herring Song (Roud 128), which also fell into the "H" songs from his 1988 song list which he is working through, having failed at the Gs, unable to remember the tune he uses for General Wolfe. Derek proposed the tune from Blood Red Roses (that's the new Rod Stewart version which was mentioned), but that apparently isn't his preferred one.

Two other songs which just about qualify might be Geoff's The Hat Dance (Allan Sherman, Lou Busch) and Simon's Strike The Bell (Roud 4190), at least the way he sings it.

As usual, if Derek can follow a theme once he can usually follow it at least a handful of times, so just as everyone else had forgotten it, he came up with The Barley Mow (Roud 944).

It fell to Colin to close the evening at a spritely but easily sung-along speed with Bristol Girls (based around a particularly old version of the chorus to Roud 486).

Here's a selection of songs sung during this session.

(Number of people present - 5, of whom 5 performed)