European Folk Day affiliation take 2

Centre Pompidou, Paris, under scaffolding in 2026
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

As I mentioned on last week's Dragon Folk Club blog, we had affiliated with European Folk Day. Since the actual day fell on 23rd September, between two of our sessions, we had also affiliated last weeks' session with it and so some of us continued to echo aspects of Europe in song.

Colin started off the session from the MC's chair in a Dutch tone by singing Skipper Jan Rebeck. Simon was initially concerned that many of his "European" songs were about war (later to be refuted) so he started tentatively with a song which at least on the surface could be said at a pinch to paint Italy in a positive light: D-Day dodgers (roud 10499 - Lance-Sergeant Harry Pynn, Norbert Schultze).

Paul and Denny, absent from the previous week's Harvest-themed session, straddled the two themes. Paul sang The farmer's toast (roud 1603) and Denny followed that with Half past eleven square (Cicely Fox Smith).

Ray finished off the first rotation with No man's land (* Eric Bogle) though Ray called it by one of its other names: The green fields of France.

Colin started the second rotation with a song which deserves a mention since it is older than anyone present expected. Football Crazy, popularized by Robin Hall and Jimmie Macgregor in 1960 (that's already older than we discussed) was written as The Dooley Fitba' Club by James Curran in the 1880s. Ewan MacColl included a version of "Fitba' Crazy" in a collection of songs called Scotland sings published in 1953. The original 1880s song is understood to be the first mention in song of association football.

Apart from the one already mentioned (No man's land) there were just two more songs sung that were new to the Dragon database:

• Ray - Edelweiss (*  Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II)
• Simon - Amsterdam (* Jacques Brel)

There was one song not found on YouTube and therefore not included in this week's playlist. It was Denny's singing of Winchester geese (#) by Ann Reader. The song is about prostitutes who worked in the Liberty of the Clink area of Southwark, across the Thames from the City of London, an area owned by the Bishop of Winchester who licensed them to ply their trade. When they died, often of sexually transmitted diseases, they were not buried on sacred ground but in the Cross Bones burial ground.

It was also Denny who sang the last song of the evening which was Good English Ale (roud 1512).

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

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

In the above report songs new to the Dragon database (though not 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 (#).