St David's Day 2026

Llwyn Celyn, Cwmyoy, Monmouthshire
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

It was that time of year to celebrate St David and by association to sing songs with some connection, however tenuous, with Wales or the Welsh. Bearing in mind that our singers had less notice than usual of the theme, and some hardly any notice at all, we didn't do too badly. As sometimes happens, some songs had their words mangled to fit, but we didn't quite get to the point of singing of whaling songs!

It was good to see Heather again, as usual with her non-singing companion Hazel. We did however have a newcomer to the Dragon. Angela has been following us on Facebook for a while and while she didn't perform, she was definitely seen singing along and should she return, which we hope she does, I suspect she may find something to sing now she knows we are a friendly audience.

Colin, MC as usual, started the ball rolling on theme with Hob y deri dando.

Heather's first song was The bunch of thyme (roud 3).

Simon referred to Welsh traditional singer Phil Tanner before singing The Gower wassail song (roud 209).

Paul sang When Jones's ale was new (roud 139), an English song which has its origins in the 16th century.

Denny brought the first rotation to a close with the much more modern Day trip to Bangor (Debbie Cook), a song which appears to tell the story of a seaside trip to Bangor in North Wales, which while in a coastal position is not renowned as a resort. Rumours spread that the song was inspired by a trip to Rhyl, 30 miles East along the coast, but "Rhyl" didn't scan and was replaced, much to the angst of the councillors of that town. Cook however stated that the song was specifically written about Bangor.

The only song of the evening not found on YouTube and therefore not included in the linked playlist was Colin's Children born to the valleys (# Dawson Smith). The song was included on a frustratingly elusive album of songs based the epic Welsh novels of Alexander Cordell.

There were just two songs sung during the evening which were new to the Dragon database. The first was The jovial man of Kent (*), sung by Paul to the same tune as When Jones's ale was new. This song was written by Charles Dibdin (1745-1814).

The other "new" song came from Heather and was Caravan song (*) written by Mike Batt for the 1978 film Caravans in which it was sung by Barbara Dickson.

The evening was finished by Colin singing the unofficial national anthem of Wales, Land of my fathers (Evan James, James James).

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

(Number of people present - 7 of whom 5 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 (#).

St David's Day 2024

(AI image from Stable Diffusion)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session actually fell on St David's Day, so no excuse was required to try to sing things related somehow, sometimes tenuously, to Wales... or even sometimes to whales (oh well). We were fine with four singers, but unusually we also had an audience member in the person of Denny's sister, who was a very welcome addition. I hope she enjoyed her evening; at least she laughed in all the right places.

This Friday's session (8th March) will have no theme, but then next week (15th March) we will be celebrating St Patrick's Day just two days early. I'll leave detailed suggestions of what you might like to do until next week's report.

We had a bumper set of 40 performances last Friday, and I should say that if any of them appear derogatory to Wales or the Welsh, no offence is intended. These are songs and poems from all sorts of different sources and of varying ages. Please enjoy all the recordings linked from "a selection" below in the spirit of entertainment.

There were just three performances for which no representative YouTube video could be found:

• Colin - Children born to the valleys (Dawson Smith)
• Simon - The ice cream bells of Porthcawl (Les Barker)
• Colin - From green to black (Dawson Smith)

It was in fact Denny who kicked off proceedings with a song variously called "Always eat when you are hungry" or "Don't forget to breathe or else you'll die. The song features sung by Gracie Fields at the end of the film Molly and Me from 1945 and an earlier recording can be found at 2:05 in this Vitaphone short from 1928 called The Beau Brummels and featuring the vaudeville act Shaw and Lee. Denny however sang more words and to the tune Cwm Rhondda.

Simon took a leaf out of our friend Derek's book in order to follow the theme by trying and not always succeeding to sing songs from the repertoire of traditional Gower singer Phil Tanner. The Gower Wassail (roud 209) was partly successful, and Barbara Allen (roud 54, child 84) more so as was The oyster girl (roud 875, laws Q13), albeit not Tanner's version, but acquired from the singing of Rosie Upton (who is in the linked video). Although he had a couple more songs in this vein on file he cut his losses at this stage.

Colin's singing of The bells of Rymney (Idris Davies) gives me the chance to roll out a fun video made by our friend Gabe in which he visited each of the locations mentioned in the song/poem.

As people started to run out of Welsh songs (except for Colin who lasted out the night) we had a number of perfectly good if geographically random mining songs such as Paul with Close the coalhouse door (Alex Glasgow), and Denny with Down in your mine (Colin Wilkie).

Well' I've just about run out of time to write this report, so I'll just mention that Simon finished the evening with When all men sing (Keith Scowcroft, Derek Gifford).

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

(Number of people present - 5 of whom 4 performed)

Christmas and more

Christmas shopping (photo: Simon Meeds)

Our last session of 2021 was a great success, not least due to a transatlantic visitor, but more of that later. Christmas songs were in evidence of course as this was 17 December.

Colin was MC and started the evening off with Mary's Boy Child (Jester Hairston), which he was preparing for his church. The tempo he chose was somewhere between Harry Belafonte and Boney M in order to make it easier for the choir to sing.

Simon went straight for the Latin, singing Gaudete with his usual classical, rather than the authentic medieval pronunciation. It was published in Piae Cantiones, a collection of Finnish/Swedish sacred songs published in 1582. No music is given for the verses, but the standard tune comes from older liturgical books.

Mike's first contribution was lighter with The Christmas Goose (roud 3204).

Colin offered another carol with Twelve Days of Christmas (roud 68), whereas Simon went for a Marriott Edgar monologue, Sam Small's Christmas Pudding. It was during Mike's singing of The Gloucestershire Wassail (roud 209) that we were joined by Gabe. There were jokes about the arrival of Gabriel before Christmas - I'm sure he's never heard those before!

Gabe sportingly agreed to hit the ground running and continued the wassail theme with The Wassail Song (Here we come a-wassailing). He explained that this is one of the most commonly sung wassails in his native USA. Note that Roud categorises all wassails under his number 209.

This started a mini-theme with two further wassails being sung. The Gower Wassail was sung by Gabe. This Gower Wassail was collected from Phil Tanner in 1947 (see the linked recording). Mike tells us that it is the one traditionally sung there after New Year. The final wassail of the evening was Apple Tree Wassail sung by Mike.

Traditionally I mention in the report every song contributed by a newcomer to the club. Since Gabe was skilfully able to follow even the most obscure, non-folky contributions, this also requires me to mention those songs to which he linked. Here goes.

Somewhat stand-alone was Gabe's Longfellow's Christmas Bells. I may be wrong, but I think the tune in the link is the one he sang. If that is so then the tune was "Waltham" to which it was set by the English organist, John Baptiste Calkin. The song tells of the narrator hearing Christmas bells during the American Civil War, but despairing that "hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men". After much anguish and despondency the carol concludes with the bells ringing out with resolution that "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep" and that there will ultimately be "...peace on earth, good will to men".

Colin gave us the sequel to Snoopy vs the Red Baron, also recorded by The Royal Guardsmen and entitled Snoopy's Christmas (George David Weiss, Hugo & Luigi). This led Gabe to sing The Biplane Evermore, originally recorded by its writer, Marty Cooper, but later covered by The Royal Guardsmen.

Simon sang Mon Beau Sapin (Laurent Delcasso), a French version of the German carol O Tannenbaum (Ernst Anschütz), written in 1824 and based on a 16th-century Silesian folk song by Melchior Franck. Gabe followed with Sing We Noel, a translation of a 15th century French carol.

Gabe went out on his own with Pete Seeger's Snow, Snow.

Simon's rendition of Elizabeth Padgett's Plover Catcher inspired Gabe to follow the ornithological theme with The Mallard (roud 1517).

Colin harked back to Simon's Gaudete with The Kipper Family's nonsense pseudo-Latin Awayday. Gabe found Don McLean's equally nonsense On the Amazon.

Maybe it was the Latin slant that took Gabe to In Dulci Jubilo with it's mix of German and Latin.

Colin, who had earlier sung The Restroom Door Said Gentlemen by Bob Rivers, returned to that writer with Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire. Gabe followed with The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late) written by Ross Bagdasarian under the pseudonym David Seville.

Gabe's penultimate contribution was from the North East of England, Robin Spraggon's Auld Grey Mare (roud 3063). He was called upon once more to finish the evening which he did with the Christmassy Silver Bells (Jay Livingston, Ray Evans).

We must thank Gabe for helping us to make it a great evening. He brought some excellent singing, even managing to get us to up our game with harmonies. He showed a varied repertoire, sportingly following us down many musical backwaters. We hope to see him again soon since we understand he is staying in the area for a while and he fitted right in with us.

Do as Gabe did; come and join us any Friday night at The Bridge Inn. We certainly don't expect everyone to be as versatile as Gabe, but everyone has something to contribute, whether it's a song, a story, or just some chat.

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

(Number of people present - 4 of whom 4 performed)

Happy New Year - 2018

Jacques Brel, 1963

Six wasn't a bad turn-out for the first Dragon Folk Club session of 2018. Everyone sang and there was a reasonable number of seasonal songs, whether that was New Year, Twelfth Night or the sequence of the year. Next week's session (12 January) will be without a theme but be ready later in the month for 26 January which is our nearest session to Burns Night.

Back to last Friday, Colin was MC and he started us off with Bob Zentz's At The End Of Another Year.

Mike's first contribution was Richard Thompson's We'll Sing Hallelujah (at the turning of the year).

Terry C made his first appearance at the club for a while and very welcome it was too. He said he didn't have any seasonal songs but Brown Photographs (John Meeks, Colin Radcliffe) certainly acknowledged the passing of time.

Derek took us to Orkney for A New Year's Carol (Roud 4584). Simon was afraid of stepping on toes with one of his two appropriate songs, but sang it anyway and Mike said he had had no intention of singing Dave Goulder's January Man.