May I have some more?

Hawthorn 1 (Photo: Chris Phillips)

Last week's session had no official theme but there were clearly a lot of songs left over from the previous week's May Day celebration. It was good to see Geoff after a short break and also to welcome Steve C and Jane, whose story telling lends a texture to the evening.

There will be no theme again this Friday (17 May) so anything goes. Perhaps there could even still be some unsung May songs lurking in the dusty corners of someone's repertoire?

Last week, Colin was MC as usual and started off the unofficial May left-overs theme with We'll Have A May Day (Matt McGinn). This was followed by Derek's traditional singing of The Constantine, a version of Hal An Tow (Roud 1520) sung in the village of Constantine, just down the road and one week later than its more famous neighbour, Helston.

Colin later evoked another Cornish May celebration with the Padstow May Song (Roud 305).

Simon departed from the usual WB Yeats song Down By The Sally Gardens (V28639) with Down In My Sally's Garden (Roud 3819) from Sam Henry's Songs of the People.

Steve C kept on topic with Just As The Tide Was Flowing (Roud 1105) "One morning in the month of May".

Jane's stories were very varied through the evening: a joke about a long distance lorry driver, a story about the King of Portugal's snow queen, one about the thatcher and the birds, a native American story which she learnt only recently from a native American about a buffalo and a catfish. Jane added two true stories from her own experience; the first was about an early morning rendezvous to go walking in the Brecon Beacons soon after she first met Steve, and the other about a young wood carver who made the necklace she was wearing. She said she had been in two minds whether to add her own life stories to her repertoire and asked us whether we enjoyed them; I believe we did.

Geoff thought that As I Roved Out (Roud 277, Laws O17) might be the only May song in his repertoire. Simon suggested The Rocky Road To Dublin (Roud 3012) but on closer inspection Geoff's words for that song declared that the action happened in June.

Simon steered dangerously close to singing the same song two weeks running but this time is wasn't the traditional Lady Franklin's Lament but Les Barker's Lord Franklin which only diverges from the original half way through the second verse. Derek suggested that Franklin's supposed navigation around Newport Pagnell, Crewe, the Watford Gap and Milton Keynes may go some way to explaining how you can "boldly from Yarmouth to the westward steered we" in The fourteenth of February (The bold Princess Royal). Yes, we know there's a Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight among other places.

Geoff gave us some stories or near-stories apparently in an attempt to match Jane. One was The Pig Got Up And Slowly Walked Away (Clarke Van Ness, F Henri Klickmann) and another was the tale of Ronald Reagan and a leprechaun which ends with the granting of a wish and a rather embarrassing outcome.

Simon sang a version of The Unfortunate Rake with a female protagonist called One Morning In May (Roud 2, Laws Q26). This caused Derek to sing another (sort of) version of the same song, The Young Student Sent Down In His Prime. I remember Derek saying how he found a manuscript for the song in the Bodleian Library in Oxford but I believe he said there was no evidence of the author or date of writing. With a little research I found mentions of the song in various threads on Mudcat where someone obliquely named the authors, and indeed at least one of them was involved in the discussion. The authors of this song seem to be Kevin McGrath and Mike Sutton and it seems to have been written in 1962.

Derek laid down a challenge for me when he sang The Internationale (Eugène Edine Pottier). The challenge was to find out when the BBC banned its playing. "The acceptability of playing the Soviet national anthem on the radio had been fiercely debated since Russia joined the war in June 1941". "The playing of the national anthem was a key issue because, from early on in the war, a programme called 'National Anthems of the Allies' had been broadcast on Sunday nights. Once Russia had joined the war it caused disquiet among listeners when 'The Internationale' was not played alongside the other anthems. It then took six months of discussions in the BBC, the House of Commons and numerous newspaper articles before... 'The Internationale' was eventually passed for broadcast." . Here's the article from which these quotes came and a copy of the telegram which permitted it to be played.

The session was finished off by Colin with Steve Knightley's Cousin Jack.

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

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