Moon, martyrs, Australia and hangings

Buzz Aldrin walks on the moon, July 20, 1969 (Photo: NASA)

What a contrast was last week's session to the previous one; we were down from 10 to three people but nevertheless we meandered in some interesting directions and despite a pragmatically early finish, before Derek dropped off from lack of sleep, we got through quite a lot of songs.

Colin, the MC, started us off on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission with Jonathan King's Everyone's Gone To The Moon. The others may have been caught off guard by the perfectly reasonable theme but improvised anyway, Simon singing It's Only A Paper Moon (Harold Arlen, Yip Harburg, Billy Rose) and Derek with Hey Diddle Diddle (Roud 19478) completed the very short first lap of a tight circuit.

Colin kept on storming with a lunar theme, singing Man In The Moon (Roud 21397). Up to the challenge, Simon offered Neil Young's After The Goldrush - "silver spaceships", etc. Maybe I misunderstood what seemed to be indications from Derek that his singing of The Kildare Rake (Roud 5681) was keeping to the theme but there seems to me no obvious link unless the girl in the fourth verse is a werewolf.

Still following the moonshot theme, Colin sang When The Harvest Moon Is Shining (Roud 25903), and Simon, obviously feeling he was scraping the barrel, came up with Moon River (Henry Mancini, Johnny Mercer). And there, thankfully, we put that particular theme to rest.

Colin drew our attention to the Tolpuddle Martyrs. There was a suggestion of an anniversary but the only thing I can find is that a festival is usually held around this time (the third week of July). Anyway, he sang Tolpuddle Man (Graham Moore).

Derek noted that a few weeks ago I had linked one of his Australian songs to the singing of Gary Shearston. He suggested that Shearston was a pretty good traditional singer before turning to pop music (shock horror!). Derek proceeded to sing three from Shearston's repertoire: Ben Hall (Roud 3352), Son Of Mine (Kath Walker / Oodgeroo Noonuccal) and The Roar Of The Crowd (Denis Kevans).

When Colin sang Turpin Hero (Roud 621, Laws L10) Derek took it as a challenge to sing a song about a hanging, leading to Jack Hall (Roud 369, Laws L5).

It fell to Simon to finish the evening before Derek nodded off, so he sang the rousing When All Men Sing (Keith Scowcroft, Derek Gifford).

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

(Number of people present - 3, of whom 3 performed)