May Songs 2016

Photo by Eric Adamshick

Slightly thinner on the ground last week but a fun evening nonetheless. There was no official theme but I had hinted at May being an appropriate path to tread, and some of us trod it more or less closely.

Colin was MC and Derek kicked us off with Constantine a song from the Cornish village of that name which has a similar May tradition to its more famous neighbour, Helston. It is marked with a different version of Roud 1520 and the celebration is held one week later (this is a recording of the Helston version).

Mike was thinking of singing his Bristol version of Outward and Homeward but couldn't get it to start, so he made do with Wild Mountain Thyme (Roud 541), returning Homeward on our next rotation. Maybe it was this that suggested to Derek Sprig of Thyme (Roud 3) for a later turn or maybe just because it was appropriate to May.

Richard who, having spent the first half of a recent year singing almost solely May songs, is always able to pull out a Spring song, gave us Maggie Holland's A Place Called England. Colin on the other hand felt somewhat naked of appropriate songs when he realised how small the throng, and therefore how frequent the turns would be. His first was The Field Of The Willows (Dave Goulder), modified to be May-appropriate.

Terry made a brief appearance after his morris dancing and sang The Dutchman (Michael Peter Smith).

Derek told of a recent embarrassing incident about which I won't elaborate apart from to say it involved singing an excerpt from Jake Thackray's Isabel Makes Love Upon National Monuments, so Simon rubbed it in by singing just that song. I am sure it was already Derek's plan, with which he followed through, to sing Lady Isabel (Child 261).

In the second half Lesley took the opportunity to practice with her new guitar, singing The Ballad Of Doctor Sigmund Freud (David Lazar) and My Girl (Smokey Robinson, Ronald White).

It was left to Richard to close the evening with Erin Go Bragh (Roud 1627, Laws Q20).

Please come along to this Friday's session (13 May). There's no official theme, so anything goes; bring your own theme if you wish.

Here's a selection of songs sung during this session.

(Number of people present - 8, of whom 7 performed)