Bits and Bobs

The Richard Oastler pub, a former chapel, in Brighouse
mentioned in the first song of the evening

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session had no theme so the songs reasonably ranged widely. It was good to see John P come along for his second dose of the club - we obviously didn't frighten him too much the previous week, and it was good to see Gary for the first time in a while.

Colin was the MC and he started us off, before Gary's arrival, with a song from his repertoire as well as that of the late Alan Mitchell: Brighouse On A Saturday Night (Roger Davies).

Geoff won't be with us for the St Patrick's Day session this Friday (take a note for your diary), so he took Ireland as his personal theme for the night, his first being The Patriot Game (Dominic Behan). John P was also in Irish mode with Star Of The County Down (Cathal McGarvey).

Chris gave us The Three Ravens (Roud 5, Child 26) which has a chorus based on the common pattern "down derry down down" which we learnt in links from last week's blog may be derived from the Welsh capstan shanty Hob Y Deri Dando, whose title is likely to be a corruption of the Welsh for "the pig under the oaks".

Roger Sang a few verses of Widecombe Fair (Roud 137), which reminds me of an incident the other day where someone by the name of Tom Pearce joined a group on Facebook and the group owner greeted him by writing "How's the mare? I bet if you had a pound for every time someone said that…".

Simon took us to far away Newfoundland to admire Lukey's Boat (Roud 1828) and John B kept us on that side of the Atlantic for Mary Dana Shindler's I Am A Pilgrim.

Gary, who had appeared by the end of the first tour round the room, informed us that he had once lodged for a year in a room in Norwich which was designed for Princess Anne. During the year he had various people to stay including Jeremy Taylor, who he thought at the time South African but who turned out to be British, born in Newbury, Berkshire. Gary sang a song which Taylor had taught him: Liberal Man.

And so we carried on with Geoff and John P singing their St Patrick's Day preview. Simon and John B bringing pop and rock of all things to the DFC: in Simon's case it was Bob Geldof's I Don't Like Mondays and in John B's case Prince's Purple Rain (both recordings presented here are intentionally not by the original artists). Gary singing, among other things, his own song, Elsie. Chris and Roger doing their thing: for example Scarborough Fair (Roud 12, Child 2) and I'll See You In My Dreams (Isham Jones, Gus Kahn).

The last song of the evening fell to newcomer John P, who chose The Rare Ould Times (Pete St John), which leads us perfectly into this week's session which will, as already mentioned, be our St Patrick's Day special. All things Irish are welcome but if you can't manage that then anything will do, or if you don't feel like performing at all, then just come along to share in the craic.

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

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