Festival-style sing-a-long

Carson Robison

At the start of the session Maggie wasn't very happy, having sat down on a wet seat (I assume). She had to swap for a dry one, and in the process found a cigarette that someone had dropped on the floor, presumably while picking up their darts from beneath the dart board. Maggie wasn't bold enough to smoke it but, after some examination to check the brand and to eliminate the possibility of obvious "doctoring", Colin smoked it at the interval with no obvious ill effects.

Mike kicked off the session with The hunting priest [Doctor Mack or Tally Ho! the hounds, Sir] (Roud 1861), but he started with the second verse of his version and while he could remember the third was at a total loss for the the first and gave up, restarting with Haul on the bowline (Roud 652).

Richard had uncharacteristically turned up without words, but unusually for recent times, with his guitar. He managed through the evening with a mixture of memory and surfing on his phone. Hi first was Good ale thou art my darling (Roud 203). Richard also sang Jake Thackray's Molly Metcalf, and recited (or rather read from his phone) his own monologue in the style of Marriott Edgar, Albert and Pythagoras.

We were joined for the first time in ages by Phil, unusually minus his guitar and he regaled us with a song remembered from childhood Saturday morning cinema sing-alongs: You are my sunshine (Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell). Phil went on to recite Life gets tee-jus don't it, a poem written in 1948 by Carson Robison.

Derek, inspired by earlier discussion that we hadn't seen Alan at The Dragon Folk Club for a while, sang Dalesman's litany. The Dalesman’s litany, written about 1900, is probably the best known of Frederic William Moorman’s poems, having been set to music c1960 by the late Dave Keddie of Bradford, of the folk group The Dalesmen.

Colin's first song of the evening was Ewan McColl's Legal Illegal and another of his contributions was Dougie McLean's Scythe song.

Simon had been re-reading blog posts and realised he had omitted to sing Mike Harding's Jimmy Spoons on the anniversary of the beginning of the First World War, so he put that right, singing it as his first of this evening. Another of Simon's contributions was Brian Bedford's This is the way the world ends.

Gary was another who turned up without his usual accoutrements, in his case, like Phil, without his guitar. Apparently he has found his artistic direction has recently been taking him more towards unaccompanied songs, so that's fair enough. His first song was Si Kahn's New Year's Eve.

Keith G turned up just before the interval and was straight on after the break with Neon flame (Chuck Jones, Terri Clark and Chris Waters).

Maggie pointed out that Richard's first song, which has already been mentioned, represented a good folk festival song. This started a bit of a theme. Far be it from me to judge what Maggie would consider a good festival song, but I'd suggest:

• Richard - Good ale thou art my darling (Roud 203)
• Derek - When Jones's ale was new (Roud 139)
• Colin - The Manchester rambler (Ewan McColl)
• Simon -  The good old colony times (Roud 130)
• Mike - Pleasant and delightful (Roud 660)
• Mike - Yellow girls [Doodle let me go] (Roud 3221)
• Richard - Thousands or more (Roud 1220)

Keith G finished us off with One meat ball (Hy Zaret and Lou Singer).

Here's a selection of these and other songs sung during the session.

 (Number of people present - 9, of which 8 performed)