First times and name checks

Boston Dock, Boston, Lincolnshire

Last week's session of the Dragon Folk Club had no theme and a wide variety of songs was sung, forty in all. It was good to see Steve C join us for the first time in a while.

This Friday's session (15th March) being just two days before Paddy's Day will have a theme of St Patrick and all things Irish. You may be interested to know St Patrick's full list of patronages in case you run out of Irish songs. They are:

Ireland, Nigeria, Montserrat, the Archdiocese of New York, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark (New Jersey), the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Boston (Massachusetts), Rolla, Missouri, Loíza, Puerto Rico, Murcia (Spain), Clann Giolla Phádraig, engineers, paralegals, and the Archdiocese of Melbourne. He is also invoked against snakes and sins.

Back to last week, Colin as MC started off the session with Boston Harbour (roud 613). We briefly discussed which Boston this referred to before deciding it was Boston, Massachusetts rather than Boston, Lincolnshire which has a man-made dock, opened in 1884, rather than a harbour. Nevertheless it is this dock which has inspired the featured image.

The only song of the night that doesn't feature in the YouTube playlist linked from "a selection" below is Paul's self-penned parody of Close the coalhouse door (Alex Glasgow) which he wrote while waiting in the car for Denny to have some dental treatment, and which he calls "Close the dentist's door". Of course "...there's blood inside".

There was only one song during the evening that was new to the Dragon database and that was from Colin, The pensioner's complaint (roud 1663).

Simon started a theme of firsts. The first song he sang at a folk club was Suzanne Vega's Tom's diner. The first song Denny sang in a similar situation was Oh! Oh! Antonio (roud V36813 - C W Murphy, Dan Lipton) and Paul's was Fathom the bowl (roud 880).

Steve arrived during the second rotation of the evening, and his first song of the evening was Jolly Waggoner (roud 1088).

Another ad hoc theme, first spotted by Colin, was songs with someone's name in the first line. I'll leave it to you to listen to the playlist and work out how many there were.

We had eight complete rotations of the room and while Steve missed the first Colin made up for it by starting a ninth just before the end, so his singing of New York girls (roud 486) brought us to a round tally of forty songs in the evening.

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

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

St Patrick's Day 2023

Florrie Forde (1875-1940)

We had a great little session for St Patrick last Friday at The Bridge. The usual suspects were joined again by Paul W and Denny, the previous week's newcomers. The full complement was made up by Steve C.

I'll keep it short this week, but I can get away with that because, unusually, the YouTube playlist from the "a selection" link at the bottom includes every one of the 40 songs sung. And yes, while forty isn't a record for Dragon session it's really up there.

Colin as MC started us off with Whiskey in the Jar (roud 533, laws L13A). Many, although not all of the songs we sang were Irish or had some connection with Ireland. Next it was Simon singing Down Our Street.

Paul gave us All For Me Grog (roud 475) and Denny added Percy French's Mountains of Mourne. Steve C completed the first round with Galway Shawl (roud 2737)

I'll briefly mention a few of the other songs.

Steve asked whether he had sung Stan Rogers' Field Behind the Plow at the club before. I can confirm he has. One occasion, not necessarily the only one, was 13 September 2019.

Colin sang The City of Chicago which was made famous by Christy Moore, but was written in 1984 by his brother, Barry Moore, who is the singer Luka Bloom.

Paul sang a version of Fathom the Bowl (Roud 880) which he had adapted to refer to Ireland and Guinness. I've taken the liberty of linking a more conventional version.

Denny sang Oh! Oh! Antonio, which was written by CW Murphy and Dan Lipton in 1908. It's nice to be able to link to a recording of Florrie Forde who was the original artist to sing the song. I really wanted to use a photograph of Forde to head this article, but realised there was probably no Irish connection. Despite CW's surname, he was William Murphy, born in Manchester in 1870. It turns out however the songs he wrote include Irish As She's Spoken (1893), How Can They Tell That Oi'm Oirish? (1898), The Little Irish Postman (1904), The Singer Was Irish (1910). That's good enough for me.

Steve finished off the evening with The Ballad of Sammy's Bar (Cyril Tawney).

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

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