Burns' Night 2019

Broadside ballad entitled
'A Huy and Cry After Sir John Barlycorn'
by Alexander Pennecuik, 1725

Last week's Burns' Night session led to the singing of many Scottish or Scottish-related songs, and some Burns could even, however debatably, hang his name on. This Friday there doesn't seem to be an official theme though the start of the rugby internationals may give inspiration to some.

Also last week, we enjoyed the company of first time visitors Stuart and Pete, regulars I believe at FAF (Folk Around Fishponds) who mostly performed together, some well-knows songs, and some self-penned.

Colin, our regular MC, started the evening off with Captain Beaky's take on Scottish Tradition, The Haggis Season (Jeremy Lloyd, Jim Parker).

Stuart and Pete were reasonably unprepared for our theme and started off their contribution with the surprisingly old The Cat Came Back written by Harry S Miller, which was published in 1893. Colin persuaded them, as is the tradition with duos, to sing two songs per round, at least in the first part of the evening. Their second was Ukelele Man, telling, in the form of Jerry Reed's Guitar Man, of Pete's challenge of finding places to play his instrument.

Simon sang the first genuine Scottish song of the evening in Laird Of The Dainty Doonby (Roud 864) though it has never been anywhere near Burns as far as I know.

Derek was sorry that he had used too many of his Scottish songs on other recent occasions and plumped for Comin' Thro' The Rye, with at least one verse possibly attributable to Burns, as his first contribution.

For those who don't know it may be worth saying at this stage that Burns wrote poems, some of which have been set to music, and may have written songs, but he was certainly a collector of traditional songs. Unfortunately, some of the songs he collected have been attributed to him and whether that means he added some words, wrote a new version, or really didn't contribute much at all, is often unclear.

For example, Robert Burns wrote a poem in 1782 which starts:

There was three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.

Clearly this is inspired by earlier versions of John Barleycorn (Roud 164), and itself may have inspired later versions of the song such as the one that Mike sang. Mike always suggest that Burns must have gone south of the border for his inspiration and that may be the case but apparently there is a related Scottish poem included in a manuscript of 1568 called Quhy Sowld Nocht Allane Honorit Be. Literally the poem recounts the strange life and adventures of a man called "Allane" who grows from a youth to a powerful adult. Figuratively each of its stanzas also represents an aspect of the production or consumption of ale, which seems very familiar.

It is traditional to mention all the songs performed by first time visitors, and so I will do for Stuart and Pete. They tried to touch on the Scottish theme with a parody of The Lewis Bridal Song (Mairi's Wedding, originally written in Gaelic by John Roderick Bannerman as Màiri Bhàn). Stuart's version saw a lavish wedding landing the bride's father (I assume) in debt.

Next came The Napoli (Steve Knightley), The Mingulay Boat Song (Sir Hugh S Roberton) caused problems because Stuart and Pete usually have two ladies to sing that one and transposing proved difficult. By this time they were feeling the pressure and managed to plead for only one song per round - Colin is a very forgiving MC.

They got us all singing along to Lindisfarne's Meet Me On The Corner (Rod Clements) and again with Dirty Old Town (Ewan MacColl). Steve came up with a Les Barker parody of The Grey Funnel Line (Cyril Tawney) called The No Funnel Line which must be hot-off-the-press being about the recent news story involving a company with no ferries (Seaborne Freight) being given a contract to run a service between Ramsgate to Oostende.

Stuart and Pete's next song was Texas Love Song, written by Slaid Cleaves and their final contribution was the satirical, pseudo-American We'll Hunt Him Down (Jez Lowe) which has the inhabitants of an American town upset that Charles Darwin has spoilt their creationist approach to world history. The song was written in 2009 at a residential workshop where eight folk singer/songwriters created songs on the theme of Darwin.

I have two apologies to make. The first is that I haven't actually found space here to write about many of the Scottish and Burnsian songs sung at the session but you can listen to most of them via the usual "a selection" link below. The second, more of an admission, is that in that sequence of recordings I have guessed one song sung by Derek and I may be wide of the mark. After Simon gave us a waulking song in Gaelic (Mile Marbhaisg Air A Ghaol), Derek rose to the challenge and sang another Gaelic song. He said it was not a waulking song but I have to admit to not managing to take down any notes on it. Based on a little knowledge of his repertoire, I have guessed that it might have been Ailein Duinn and I apologise if I am wrong in this.

It fell to Simon to finish off the evening, which he did with Wild Mountain Thyme (Roud 541), written by Francis McPeake who was Irish, but he justified it in the theme because its writing was inspired by the Scottish song, The Braes of Balquhither (Robert Tannahill, Robert Archibald Smith).

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

(Number of people present - 6, of whom 6 performed)