St Andrew's Day 2018

Saint Andrew the Apostle by Artus Wolffort

After last week's excellent St Andrew's Day session we return to a themeless evening this Friday where anything goes as long as it's acoustic and legal (although we have had songs in the past the singing of which might have got you locked up only a few years ago).

MC Colin kicked us off in appropriately Scottish mood with the poem St. Andrew's Day-A Toast by Jean Blewett which he put to a familiar tune which escapes me at the moment.

We were joined for the first time in several years by Chris S who didn't sing on previous occasions. This time he started off with his own part-finished work, Be The One To Turn To, and continued with borrowed words, singing Michael Row The Boat Ashore (Roud 11975), Drink Up Thy Zider (Adge Cutler) and Kumbaya.

It would be very easy for me to go through a variety of Scottish songs we heard through the evening, and there were plenty as you will see, but as I pointed out in the report two weeks ago, St Andrew is patron of a lot of places, professions and other things apart from Scotland, so let's go on a partial tour of those.

The Seven Seas

Kaskelot in Bristol (Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's session got off to a slow start. Parking was unusually busy outside The Bridge Inn, so I wasn't early but was only the third to arrive. We had a pleasant chat and I think were about to decide whether to stay or go when Steve C arrived just on cue. At a grand total of four we were quorate and after some more procrastination we got the evening going.

Colin was MC and he started us off with So Long It's Been Good To Know You (Woody Guthrie, Roud 15161). With no theme we didn't really know what was coming next and despite being small in number we managed to come up with quite an eclectic mix of music for the evening. Some songs were intentionally aimed at a May theme and others accidentally hit that spot. Nevertheless, our official May themed session will be this week (Friday 5 May).