Swansea and further west

Swansea Docks and railway bridge (c1850)

We were a little thin on the ground again last Friday but with Colin back from his travels and Geoff back at the song-face, we carried on regardless.

Colin returned to his MC's chair and started the evening off with Mary Ann (Roud 4438). Derek suggested that Colin's song was somehow related to Swansea Town (Roud 165). Hold that thought while I delve a little deeper.

Mary Ann seems to be descended from Fare Thee Well / Turtle Dove / Ten Thousand Miles (Roud 422) and MainlyNorfolk suggests that it is Canadian although Roud's references include USA, Canada and Gloucestershire, UK.

St Andrew's Day 2017

Point of Sleat, Isle of Skye, Scotland
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last Friday's session saw a satisfactory number of seven bums on seats for a St Andrew's Day theme. I had pointed out in publicity that St Andrew is patron saint of many places and things other than Scotland, including singers, but it was barely needed since I think there were only two songs clearly unrelated to Scotland, one very deliberately and the other was written by someone with what appears to be a Scottish name.

Colin was the MC and he called on Steve C to start us off; Steve sang Jock Stewart (Roud 975).

Burns' Night 2017

reconstructed head of Burns

Finally a respectable quorum for this year's Burns' Night session. That is it was our Burns and Scotland themed session which took place two days after Burns' Night. In fact the attendance was so numerous that it even deserved three raffle prizes!

As always at The Dragon Folk Club, the theme was optional, so there was plenty of variety. Colin was MC and he started off proceedings with a comic offering from Captain Beaky: The Haggis Season (Jeremy Lloyd, Jim Parker).

I won't get into the debate about which songs and poems Robert Burns wrote, which he collected and which he stole, so please read anything in this blog post which claims to be by Burns as being any one of those options.

Roger recited The Banks O' Doon (Roud 13889 - Robert Burns) as a poem and Chris gave us the Eriskay Love Lilt (I grew up to that version by Judith Durham).