Remembrance 2023

Thumper and Vera (Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session was our annual remembrance theme. We now have a couple of weeks' hiatus in the theme season before it returns with St Andrew's Day on 1st December (the actual day is 30th November). Meanwhile though we can always manufacture unofficial themes. This Friday, 17th November, is for example BBC Children in Need, and next week, Friday 24th, is the closest Dragon session to Lancashire Day which is on 27th.

Back to last week, we had many offerings on or close to the remembrance theme. I won't pick them out for fear of missing some or misidentifying others. You can listen to the YouTube playlist linked from "a selection" below and make up your own mind. I will however mention those, identified with an asterisk (*), which are new to the Dragon database if not necessarily to the club.

Colin was the MC as usual and started us off with Salonika (roud 10513).

Roger's emotional first song, despite being by popular American singer songwriter, Don McLean, was new to most of us with the simple title of 1967 (*). Roger dedicated it to a former police colleague killed in the line of duty.

Chris gave us Pete Seeger's anti-war song, Where have all the flowers gone. It was Joe Hickerson who added to the lyrics to give it a circular theme.

Denny sang one of those old songs where the chorus is several hundred times more well known than the verses, and therefore keeps its light under a bushel until we get there, appropriately in the case of Keep the home fires burning (roud 25763 - Ivor Novello, Lena Guilbert Ford *).

Simon had come prepared with two more anniversaries which he wanted to get out of the way first. He brought the first rotation to a close with The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Gordon Lightfoot), about the ship of that name which sank in Lake Superior on 10th November 1975. His second anniversary was the 80th birthday of Joni Mitchell on 7th November, which he marked by singing her 1969 song Woodstock.

The remaining songs new to the database were:

• Roger - Roses of Picardy (roud 25454 - Frederick Weatherly, Haydn Wood)
• Colin - As if he knows (Eric Bogle)
• Roger - Kohima Epitaph (John Maxwell Edmonds), more correctly labelled as For a British graveyard in France. Roger combined this with The last post on the harmonica.
• Colin - The Malvinas (Dave Rogers)
• Colin - Full moon over Mozambique (Garth Hewitt) - the only song performed that arenisn't in the "a selection" playlist
• Colin - War without bangs (Geoff Pearson)
• Denny - The shores of old Blighty (Graeme Miles)
• Colin - The sun is burning (Ian Campbell)

Simon completed the evening with Phil Ochs' There but for fortune.

Now listen to a selection of songs sung during this session.

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