Derek's pairs

Before I get to the report on last week's session, there are some parish announcements, specifically announcements of some upcoming theme nights:

• 16 February - Valentine's Day theme of love and lust
• 2 March - St David's Day theme of all things Welsh and otherwise related
• 16 March - St Patrick's Day theme of all things Irish and otherwise related
• 27 April - St George's Day theme of all things English and otherwise related

Any Friday where no theme is mentioned, there will be a session with no theme. Themes are always optional and just for fun (with one possible annual exception but it's way too early to worry about that).

Back to last week, we were pleased to welcome a newcomer, Carl, who we hope will become a regular at the club and may many more join him. He said he had enjoyed the evening which is a good start.

Colin was MC and started us off with The Flowers Of Manchester to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Munich Air Disaster which killed and injured many members of the Manchester United football team known as the Busby Babes after their manager Matt Busby. The song was initially released anonymously but later it turned out to have been written by Eric Winter, the editor of Sing magazine where it first appeared.

As is customary, I will mention as far as I can all the songs and tunes performed by first-timer Carl whose repertoire is obviously quite varied. His first got us joining in with Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight. He showed his guitar playing ability with a medley including Anji (Davy Graham) and, I think, Maple Leaf Rag (Scott Joplin). Next came Crystal Spring (Roud 1391) and Lucille (Roger Bowling, Hal Bynum). With only five of us present, and four after Mike left at the interval, it kept coming round quite quickly but Carl was up to the job, giving us a Spanish medley which I believe included Romanza followed quickly by an instrumental Yesterday (Lennon-McCartney) and the Mountains Of Mourne (Percy French). Carl's final song of the evening was Wild Rover (Roud 1173). We would like to thank Carl for his sterling contribution to the session and hope to enjoy his company on many occasions in the future.

Mike gave us two shanties: The Dead Horse Shanty (Roud 3724) and John, Come Tell Us As We Haul Away (Roud 4696) before succumbing to Colin's request for The Gladiator (Bruce Campbell, Dave Houlden).

Derek indicated that he had a personal theme and suggested that we might guess it on the third song. After he sang the first, which was this (Roud 1030, Laws J14), it was I who told him that his next song would be The Croppy Boy (Carroll Malone) and indeed it was for his theme was pairs of matching songs. Derek's second pair consisted of the traditional Young Jamie Foyers (Roud 1941) on the subject of the Peninsular War of 1808-1814 and Ewan MacColl's Jamie Foyers, which shares the first verse with the older song and deals with the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939. The next pair was The Foggy Dew (Roud 558, Laws O3) and The Foggy Dew (Canon Charles O’Neill). Derek's final song of the evening was Windy Old Weather (Roud 472) which was due to be the first of another matching pair but we hit the end of the session.

Simon finished us off with When All Men Sing (Keith Scowcroft, Derek Gifford).

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

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