Valentine's Day 2020

(Photo: Simon Meeds)

At our Valentine's Day session it was great to see Mel return for his second visit and even better that he indicated it is likely to become a regular occurrence. There were many songs of love and/or lust and a few which were simply calendar-relevant.

Colin, our MC, started things off with Jan Knuckey.

Let's get out of the way the songs which referred to the calendar rather than to love and lust. The ones I spotted were Mike's Last Valentine's Day (Roud 6475) and Derek's Bold Princess Royal (Roud 528, Laws K29).

Simon's slightly sideways glance at Valentine started with reminiscences of a love lost with Harvey Andrews' Margarita. Mike's more conventional approach, if with some playing hard-to-get was Come Write Me Down (Roud 381).

Derek gave us children's rhyme, Postman Postman (Roud 19234). While I have yet to find a recording of the British version, here is a more modern American game which is obviously derived from it.

Mel suggested that his song was more about lust than love, it being The Funeral Song (Keith Marsden). With this and his next song, The Reed Cutter's Daughter (Roud 5397), Mel was complimentary of our ability to join in choruses.

Derek impressed again with his powers of memory. He had been doing some on-line research a few days before and had come across the title of a song which is not in his repertoire. He decided to look up the words but before finding them had already sung it through. He wondered however, where he had come across The Jute Mill Song (Mary Brooksbank, Roud 2585). He had found it on a Ewan MacColl album which he once had but found that there it was a CD bonus track but his was a vinyl pressing and would not have had it. Mike said that the club's old friend, Betty McDonald, used to sing it, but Derek had not heard it from her. Mike remembered another female singer from the North East singing it; perhaps someone Derek had come across when he lived in that region? Mike couldn't remember her name but Derek later came up with "Di Henderson" (video), so a tentative agreement was made that it may have been her.

I have been unable to come up with any proof that Henderson sings the song. I was quite pleased to come up with the recording linked above of Mary Brooksbank singing it, but what Derek really wanted me to find was a recording of Brooksbank with Hamish Henderson. I like to oblige. Go here, and type "Mary Brooksbank" in the first "Enter search text" field, then type "Hamish Henderson" in the second such field. Finally, hit the "Search" button. There should be a total of 32 results on four pages.

Simon's Valentine contributions reached a peak of obscurity and even perversion with Brother Gorilla (Jake Thackray, George Brassens).

When Mike was stuck with what to sing on the theme, Derek suggested he may know some sea shanties about storms, given the imminent arrival of storm Dennis. Mike's response was to sing the oft-requested Doodle Let Me Go (Roud 3221) but this got Simon thinking, and inspired his next song, which he had not previously considered performing. Beginning with "Dennis is a menace with his 'Anyone for tennis'" it was Chris de Burgh's Patricia The Stripper. Meanwhile, Colin remained very chaste with the bowdlerised version of Maid Of Amsterdam (Roud 649) which he learned at school.

Mel gave us some fun with Jim Mackie's The Yorkshire Couple, Leon Rosselson's The Neighbour's Cat and The Old Game Cock (Roud 10733) which finished off the evening.

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

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