Christmas II 2019

December Grey Seal Pup at Donna Nook, Lincolnshire
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's session didn't have an official theme but predictably there were a lot of Christmas levef-overs from the previous week. Having said that, this weeks selection of recordings is a bit patchy because as with all left-overs there were the bits no one could really palate and some that seemed to repeat more than might be ideal.

This Friday, 27 December there will be a session and if you need a theme it will be Boxing Day, so expect to hear plenty about wrens and maybe some wassails as well. If that's all a bit specific for you then just come along with some songs to cheer us all up. The most important thing is that you come along and give us some support because we may need it.

Back to last week, Colin started us off with The Hampshire Mummers' Carol (Roud 1065). Simon's only truly Christmas left-over from last week was Deck The Halls (Thomas Oliphant - Roud 26301). Mike clearly thought Oliphant hadn't spent much time on the chorus but in fact he had maybe spent even less time than he thought since he only wrote the English words, and the "Fa la la"s go back to the earlier Welsh and may originate from medieval ballads.

Mike gave us The Boar's Head Carol (Roud 22229), the "proper" one, not the Kipper Family parody which Colin sang the week before. It was however followed by Derek with another parody of the song "Of boar's head we are bereft, the Co-Op butchers had none left... went to Tesco next of course, but their boar's head was made of horse" (allegedly).

Derek's next offering was, confusingly, The Cherry Tree Carol (Roud 453, Child 54). Confusing not because there's anything wrong with the song but because he sang it the previous week too. In fact it is a particularly long song which he chops into two instalments. Simon suggested we should perhaps write a song which could be sung in three or four verse episodes every week of the year and always be appropriate... hmm, there's something to think about.

Colin took us back to the Kipper Family songbook with The Poacher's Christmas, essentially a parody of the Twelve Days Of Christmas. The linked recording of the song and Colin indeed use the tune of "The Twelve..." but notably the Kippers did not.

At this point Simon sang the non-Christmassy Poverty Knock (Tommy Daniel - Roud 3491) accompanied by Derek on not two, not four, not six, but eight bones.

I hope I don't get into trouble with Mike's singing of a wassail. He certainly wanted to sing the words which start off "Here we come a-wassailing..." and go into a chorus "Love and joy come to you..." but he couldn't get the popular tune out of his head and wanted to find another. I have to admit that my memory for tunes is very poor, so I can't guarantee to find the one he sang. Let's admit is probably wasn't this one sung by Kate Rusby. Mike suggested what he sang was The Gower Wassail and Derek, presumably correctly suggested that The Gower Wassail was so named for Phil Tanner, who lived on The Gower. Unfortunately The Gower Wassail has more in common with The Gloucestershire Wassail, which Mike also sings, and in this recording is even sung by Phil Tanner himself.

Mike sang a song, It was Christmas Day In The Barracks, that he had collected from a "squaddies" songbook and said it went back to at least the 1930s but that it was so filthy that even he had decided to clean it up before singing it. I would have included a link to a snippet of the words but I decided that the link was not appropriate... not particularly because of the words but because of a comment that went along with them, so you'll just have to imagine. The gist is "what do you want..." queue dodgy rhyme omitted and replaced with "Tiding of comfort and joy".

On separate rounds Derek gave us a variety of parodies first of While Shepherds Watched and later of We Three Kings. They weren't exactly like this and this but you get the idea.

Colin gave us the eminently sing-alongable version of Hark The Herald Angels Sing from the singing of the Hotwells Howlers. It is known as Carlingcott since the tune was discovered in the tune book of the Carlingcott Weslyan Chapel Band. Carlingcott is in Somerset.

When we were all out of Christmas songs we made a slightly early finish to the evening with Derek singing As I Sat On A Sunny Bank (Roud 700).

Now listen to a selection of songs sung during this session.

(Number of people present - 4, of whom 4 performed)