Nose to tail

(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Thanks to serious traffic disruption we didn't attain our full strength until well after half way through the evening, nevertheless a total of forty two songs were sung. Second-timer Heather ran out of songs she had prepared but valiantly sang with the help of words found on her mobile phone for the rest of the evening without missing a beat.

Don't forget that this Friday (31st October) is our Halloween-themed session. As always, themes are optional, but it's nice to come up with something appropriate, however tenuously. Watch out for more upcoming themes.

MC Colin was first up with The nutting girl (roud 509).

Heather introduced the club to Scarlet ribbons (for her hair) (* roud 45048 - Jack Segal, Evelyn Danzig), and Simon completed the first rotation with John Conolly's The Punch and Judy man using Tony Capstick's version of the chorus.

Here are some more performances which need to be mentioned.

Heather sang Blanket on the ground (* Roger Bowling) which was first recorded by Billie Jo Spears and Grandfather's clock (* roud 4326 - Henry Clay Work). Heather's friend Hazel was not there to sing, but it was noted that she joined in enthusiastically with the "tick-tocks".

The Oxford English Dictionary says that the song Grandfather's clock, written in 1876, was the origin of the term "grandfather clock" for a long-case clock. It is said that the clock in the George Hotel, Piercebridge near Darlington inspired Work to write the song. The tradition was that the clock had been owned by two brothers named Jenkins. When one brother died, the clock began losing time, and it stopped for ever upon the death of the other.

Colin found what must have been a low hanging fruit to add to the Dragon database in Foggy foggy dew (* roud 558, laws O03).

Heather contributed Crazy (* Willie Nelson), made famous by Patsy Cline and that was soon followed by Colin with Reynard the fox (* roud 1868, 358).

After a couple more songs Paul and Denny made their entrance. While they are our most distant regulars, it doesn't usually take them anywhere near the two and a half hours to reach The Bridge for a session that it did last week due it seems to two road closures: one maybe for an accident and one for the planned replacement of a bridge. Anyway, arrive they did and Paul was immediately invited to sing. His first song was Bold Riley (roud 18160) and Denny followed that with The forsaken mermaid (roud 466, laws K17). And with that our complement was complete for the rest of the evening.

Helen channelled her inner Louis Armstrong for What a wonderful world (* Bob Thield (as George Douglas), George David Weiss).

Colin sang The Liverpool barrow boy (*), a song written, we are told, by Mollie Armstrong whose job it was to collect money at the door of The Spinners' Folk Club.

Heather had us singing along to Time after time (* Cyndi Lauper, Rob Hyman).

We were also able to sing along with Paul although I don't think any of us had previously heard Keith Donnelly's shanty parody Lever Johnny lever (*).

It fell to Simon to close the session with Nancy whisky (roud 883).

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

(Number of people present - 6 of whom 5 performed)

In the above report songs new to the Dragon database (though no always new to the club) are marked with an asterisk (*) and any songs not included in the "a selection" playlist are marked with a hash (#).

1805, 1066 and all that

HMS Victory (Photo: Simon Meeds)

We may have been a small group at last week's Dragon Folk Club session, but we sang up a storm. There was no official theme, but we touched on the Battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Hastings which were both near their anniversaries, had a variety of songs directly or indirectly from Singing Together, and several also from the singing of The Spinners. Listen to the playlist linked from "a selection" below and I'm sure you will find other themes that emerged.

There will be no theme this week (24th October), but get ready for the Halloween theme the following Friday (31st October).

Colin, MC as usual, started the ball rolling last Friday with Come fair wind or stormy weather (Steve Knightley).

Paul continued the maritime theme and took us straight to Trafalgar with Nelson's death (roud 18837) and Denny brought us onto dry land (just) with Tom Lewis' Marching inland.

Simon completed the first rotation with Boney was a warrior (roud 485) which was our first from Singing Together - he sang it at junior school in the 1970s.

I won't labour the point about the ad hoc themes, but there are a few things that may be worth a mention.

Colin returned to the work of Steve Knightley to sing Breme fell at Hastings (*), marking the recently passed 959th anniversary of the battle.

In the absence of our resident blues-man, Bob, Paul sang Little red rooster (* roud 16807 - Willie Dixon), and Denny followed on with The chickens in the garden (roud 2552 - James Alan Bland).

Simon sang two songs to the same tune: The wark o' the weavers (roud 374 - David Shaw) and The oyster girl (roud 875, laws Q13).

Denny sang Ye Jacobites by name (roud V31021 - traditional, rewritten by Robert Burns) which caused Simon to bring out Les Barker's My name it is Van Goch (*), a parody of the same song. I don't know whether Denny knew who wrote Simon's song, but shortly afterwards she sang Les Barker's Sloop John A (*), of course a parody of Sloop John B, otherwise known as H'ist Up The John B's Sails (roud 15634).

Simon finished the evening off with No Sir No (roud 146).

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

(Number of people present - 4 of whom 4 performed)

In the above report songs new to the Dragon database (though no always new to the club) are marked with an asterisk (*) and any songs not included in the "a selection" playlist are marked with a hash (#).

Harvest 2025

(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session was themed for harvest and we did pretty well with lots of more or less on topic songs.

Remember that our themes are always optional, so while following the theme is encouraged, don't worry if you can't at all or if you can't keep it up all evening. As usual, any type of performance is welcome as long as you keep it acoustic.

We are heading into one of our theme-laden seasons, so here are some dates for your diary:

• 31 October - Halloween (traditions, ghosts, witches, horror...)
• 7 November - Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes, bonfires, fireworks...)
• 14 November - Remembrance (Remembrance, war, anti-war...)

With only very rare exceptions, with or without a theme, we are to be found every Friday night from 8:15pm in the barn (just past the toilets) at The Bridge Inn, Bridge Road, Shortwood, Bristol (UK), BS16 9NG. See you there!

And so to last week's session: Colin, MC as usual, started the ball rolling with Out in the green fields (roud 2670).

Helen followed with a version of the Skye boat song (roud 3772). Apparently Robert Louis Stevenson rewrote the song in 1885. He judged the lyrics to be "unworthy", so made a new set of verses "more in harmony with the plaintive tune". The version Helen sang (*) was based on this version, adapted by Bear McCreary for the TV series Outlander.

Denny gave us the first of the evening's three versions of John Barleycorn: Hey John Barleycorn (roud 2141).

Paul introduced us to Shiny-o (*). According to Stan Hugill, "this halyard song was saved from oblivion thanks to the daughter of a certain Professor Hatfield who took town several rare shanties her father heard being sung by a black crew in 1886 aboard the 548 ton, three-masted barque Ahkera on an eighty-four day passage from Pensacola to Nice. He collected nine work songs, the rarest being Way down below (roud 11870), Nancy Rhee and the one we have here.

Excuse me here a quick aside. Until I was researching the previous section I don't think I'd ever seen a shanty being used for it's original purpose, whether that's capstan, windlass, or whatever. That is until I saw this video of Hulton Clint singing Across the western ocean "at the windlass". It makes the point often stressed by our shanty-singing friend Mike Starkey that people often sing shanties too fast.

Roger's first song of the evening was Adge Cutler's Twice daily.

Simon finished the first rotation with John Barleycorn (roud 164) to the tune Wir Pflügen (Johann Abraham Peter Schulz).

Helen's second song, Forever Autumn (music by Jeff Wayne, lyrics by Gary Osborne and Paul Vigrass), was already in the Dragon database, but it deserves a bit of an explanation for it's unusual history. Most people know the version sing by Justin Hayward for Wayne's musical version of War of the Worlds, but it was previously recorded by Vigrass and Osborne. That however is not the start of the story, because the tune was written by Jeff Wayne for a Lego commercial in 1969, and here it is.

Roger sang Keep right on to the end of the road (*), written by Harry Lauder in 1924. Lauder wrote the song in honour of his son, Captain John Currie Lauder, killed in the First World War, and it was originally published under the name "The End Of The Road".

Helen was surprised that none of us knew The shelter of your eyes (*), written by Don Williams, which was his first single, released in 1972. It's good to introduce us to things we haven't heard before or don't remember.

It was also Helen who sang I'll never find another you (*), written by Tom Springfield and recorded by The Seekers.

Roger sang his own Ukrainian lament (# Roger Stanleigh).

Crows in the Garden (* roud 4505) was Colin's penultimate offering of the evening for it was he who rounded off the session with Take a whiff on me (roud 10062), which of course isn't as innocent as he claimed. Here's the earliest known recording from 1930.

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

(Number of people present - 6 of whom 6 performed)

In the above report songs new to the Dragon database (though no always new to the club) are marked with an asterisk (*) and any songs not included in the "a selection" playlist are marked with a hash (#).