May Day 2026

(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session fell on 1st May, so the theme had to be May Day. As always the theme was entirely optional. Some people had prepared appropriate songs, others mangled their songs or introductions to fit, and others quite reasonably went ahead and sang what they sang.

It was great to see a turn-out of 11, just the same as the week before, and a level we would be very happy to maintain, so do come along whether you're a regular, it's been a while or it will be your first time. We really are very friendly and definitely non-judgemental.

Two of those present were happy to be our audience: Heather's friend Hazel, and Sheila who was with Paul and Denny. It was Sheila's first visit; she seemed to have enjoyed it and said she was surprised how many of the songs she knew - I saw her joining in quite frequently.

Colin, MC as usual, started us off with The month of May (roud 153).

Stuart and Carrie sang I wandered by a brookside (Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Hougthon, Barbara Berry) and Fresh as a sweet Sunday morning (Bert Jansch).

Paul gave us The Galway shawl (roud 2737) and Denny followed up with the Swinton May song (roud 305).

Stan added the first new entry of the evening in the Dragon database with I will love you all my life (* Charlie Landsborough).

Heather's first song of the evening was Day trip to Bangor (Debbie Cook).

Simon had been stuck on the motorway, but having arrived and bought a drink from the bar, it was his turn straight away and he plucked out Phil Tanner's version of Barbara Allen (roud 54, child 84). And so the first rotation was completed.

Keith G arrived some time later on a rare visit complete with a new keyboard, which he used to give us Is you is or is you ain't my baby (Billy Austin, Louis Jordan). His second offering was a medley of songs which included among others excerpts from: Love letters (* Victor Young, Edward Heyman), Georgia on my mind (Hoagy Carmichael, Stuart Gorrell) and Perfect day (* Lou Reed).

Other songs new to the Dragon database last week were:

•  Stuart and Carrie - Tin man (* Dewey Bunnell)
•  Stan - Someday soon (* Ian Tyson)
•  Carrie - Sunshine in Leith (* Craig Reid, Charlie Reid)

It fell to Denny to finish the session. She said she thought of May as the start of the festival season and sang a song she proposed as a good one to start off a folk festival: Come by the hills (W Gordon Smith).

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

(Number of people present - 11 of whom 9 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 (#).

Christmas 2024 (Part 1)

Vancouver (Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session was the first of two we are having with a Christmas theme. It was an excellent evening not least because Keith G joined us for the first time in a while. To our surprise Keith has given up the guitar which he played so well in favour of the piano, and as such he brought along a keyboard with which to accompany his singing. We'll forgive his bending of our "rule" that anything goes as long as it's acoustic on the basis that a piano is acoustic, but difficult to haul in from the car park, never mind to fit in the car.

This Friday's session (20 December 2024) will be our second Christmas themed one, but in recognition that some of us may be running a bit low on strictly seasonal songs let's widen it out a bit. We have missed Saint Nicholas' Day which was on 6th December, but since he is so closely associated with Christmas, let's consider his patronages which include: children, coopers, travellers, sailors, fishermen, merchants, toymakers, broadcasters, the falsely accused, repentant thieves, brewers, pharmacists, archers, pawnbrokers, unmarried people, Aberdeen, Galway, Albania, Russia, Greece, Liverpool, Moscow, Amsterdam, and Lorraine. That should give some scope. Also remember various Christmas traditions around the UK, Europe and the world such as Krampus (Austria) and Zwarte Piet (Netherlands).

Back to last Friday, there was a suggestion that we broke the record for songs sung in an evening at the Dragon Folk Club. This is a slightly controversial claim, mostly because it relies on double-counting a medley performed by Keith, but also because some other songs (if not performances) were arguably double counted. Nevertheless, the YouTube playlist below includes a full forty nine songs, omitting just one from the evening; that being The first hard sell sung by Colin and from the pen of Christopher Hershey.

Some people enjoy seeing which songs are new to the Dragon database, though as ever not necessarily new to the club, so they are marked below with an asterisk (*).

Colin started off the session with the version of Sweet bells (roud 936 - Nahum Tate) remembered from childhood by Kate Rusby who grew up in the Sheffield carol tradition. This is where the controversy starts since Colin's (and Kate's) version of Sweet bells is in fact a mash-up between Sweet Bells and While shepherds watched, and Denny's first song of the evening was Cranbrook (roud 936 - Nahum Tate, Thomas Clark). Sheffield carols are often known by their tune rather than their words, and in this case it is While shepherds watched to the tune better known these days as being used for Ilkley Moor bah't 'at. If this doesn't muddy the waters enough, Denny later sang Sweet chiming bells (roud 24506), which is another version of the Sheffield carol with which Colin started the evening.

Simon's first song of the evening was Gaudete, sung in Latin and from the manuscript From Piæ Cantiones, a collection of late medieval Latin songs first published in 1582, and compiled by Jacobus Finno, a clergyman and headmaster.

Paul started his evening off in a light-hearted mood with Dominick the donkey (* Ray Allen, Sam Saltzberg, Wandra Merrell). Since Keith was yet to arrive that finished off the first rotation.

Paul was next to add to the controversy, singing The holly and the ivy (roud 514) and later coming up with the Sans day carol (roud 514), which is considered to be a variant of the same song.

The real controversy though came with the arrival of Keith G and his combining of two songs: Is you is or is you ain't my baby (* Billy Austin, Louis Jordan) and Hit the road Jack (* Percy Mayfield). If we consider these as two performances, as Colin is inclined to do, then fifty songs and an all-time club record was scored; if we don't then the record was equalled at forty nine.

Keith's next song, this time from the singing of Bonnie Raitt, was Too long at the fair (* Joel Zoss) and he went on to give us an improvised version of Love is the sweetest thing (* Ray Noble).

With the main controversy over, let's just list a few more notable performances (not that others weren't also notable):

• Colin - The forest carol (* Leonard Clark, Johnny Coppin)
• Paul - Carol of the creatures (* Sydney Carter)
• Keith - Light your windows (* Gary Duncan and David Freiberg of Quicksilver Messenger Service)
• Paul - Herod and the cock (* roud 306, child 55)
• Keith - Drinking alone (* Graeme Douglas, Will Birch of the Kursaal Flyers)
• Denny - See amid the winter snow (* Edward Caswall)

That left it to Paul to finish off the evening with an unusual version of I saw three ships (* roud 700) known as the ‘Crawn’ version. It was collected in 1895 from a Humber estuary boatman, and ultimately published by Baring-Gould in his Garland of Country Songs in the same year. It finally makes sense out of the puzzle of why three ships appear in the Christmas narrative at all. Legend has it that the skulls (‘crawns’ = ‘craniums’ = ‘crowns’?) of the ‘Kings’ or ‘Wise Men’ were taken and lodged in the cathedral at Cologne.

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

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