Bonfire Night 2023

NOBODY LOVES ME

'Nobody loves me.

I'm going into the garden to eat worms.

Yesterday I ate two smooth ones and one woolly one.'

Once again I have limited time to complete the blog report for the Dragon Folk Club last week, so pardon me if it is slightly shorter and more terse than usual. Since we are in theme season last week's was Bonfire Night including campfire songs, community songs and anything else vaguely connected. This week's session (10 November 2023) also has a theme which is Remembrance. That could be songs, tunes, poems, stories or whatever on war, anti-war, remembrance, songs used in wartime by soldiers, sailors or airmen, or to keep the spirits up of the civilians back at home. Pretty much anything goes with the usual proviso that it must be acoustic.

Back to last week, I won't single out which songs were or were not on theme. I'll leave that to you to decide. That may be easier if you watch and listen to the videos in the YouTube playlist linked from "a selection" at the end of the report.

Colin was MC, but he deferred to Neil for the first song which turned out to be Galway shawl (roud 2737) after which it was back to Colin for Oh, how the money rolls in (* roud 10143). The latter was the first song of the evening which was new to the Dragon database. Subsequent such songs are marked with an asterisk (*). They may or may not be new to the club, but most songs sung here since August 2018 are in there - the club has been going since 1969.

Next was Denny with Land of the silver birch (* roud 4550), which is new to the database but definitely not to the club. Paul continued with Here we sit like birds in the wilderness (* roud 19557) - more of that later.

Simon subtly joined the theme with John Denver's Rocky mountain high.

From Bob we got See see rider (* Ma Rainey, Lena Arant) and from Sue Riders in the sky (Stan Jones).

After a light aberration of ordering Rob actually sang between Bob and Sue, but we can bring our record of the first rotation to an end with his own song, Magic on the wind, which in his own words "is distantly related to child 39", which is Tam Lin.

I'll continue with a list of the remaining songs new to the Dragon database:

• Neil - Twa Corbies (* roud 5, child 26), a Scottish version of The three ravens which was in the database, so this is only a half score
• Rob - You will burn (* Peter Knight)
• Neil - Sunday after the war (* Daniel Kahn)
• Denny - Kookaburra (* roud 36114 - Marion Sinclair)
• Rob - Martinmas time (* roud 54, child 84)
• Denny - Nobody likes me (* roud 12764), new to the database but last sung at the club for Bonfire Night 2016
• Neil - Cable Street (* Michael Hughes, Sean Cooney, David Eagle)
• Paul - gave us another version of Here we sit like birds in the wilderness (* roud 19557) where the waiting is specifically to be fed

Rob saw us off with his own pet version of The herring song (roud 128), which I think we can categorise as a mash-up of the version sung by Mikeen McCarthy and a chorus based on the version sung by John Roberts and Tony Barrand.

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

(Number of people present - 8 of whom 8 performed)

Campfire - Guy Fawkes 2018

Lewes Bonfire Night
(Photo by Simon Trimby)

Last week's "campfire" session to mark Guy Fawkes Night. We were a bit think on the ground in part because of a "lurgy" but we soldiered on and came up with quite a variety of material. This week there is no Dragon Folk Club session so don't turn up at The Bridge expecting music unless you want to be in the middle of a Charity Ladies' Night. But we are back at the songface on Friday 16 November with our Remembrance themed session. Please be there so we can make a noise for commemorating wars, condemning war or whatever you fancy.

So, back to last week, MC Colin started proceedings with Richard Digance's Boy Scout Song.

We carried on with mention of campfires such as Simon's Rocky Mountain High (John Denver), mention of camps as in Geoff's Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh (Allan Sherman, Lou Busch) or mention of fires in Mike's The Fireship (Roud 4841).

A cornucopia of themes

Barley (Photo: coniferconifer)

Last week's session was better attended than some recent ones but we still need more of you to come and join us. You never know, you may actually enjoy it despite what they say. This session seemed particularly packed with the unusual, the thought provoking, the entertaining and the random!

Colin was MC and kicked us off with Bob Dylan's Sara. In fact Dylan became one of several themes for the evening. John P's contribution was the long and perplexing Bob Dylan's 115th Dream. Simon eventually added The Mighty Quinn.

Campfire songs and more

The Gunpowder Plotters

Last week's theme was campfire songs to mark Bonfire Night. Attendance was rather sparse, not least because of the tendency of dogs having to look after their owners at this time of year lest they take fright at the noise of fireworks - these dog owners can be very flighty.

The linked recordings are of particularly variable quality because of the nature of some of the songs sung - par for the course with this theme.