Somewhat Scottish

Flag of Scotland

It was a definitely themeless session last Friday but at least we were reasonably quorate. Colin made some Scottish contributions as an early St Andrew's Day tribute and Simon followed him along those lines while Derek concentrated on his song sources, particularly traditional singers, and Mike made up for the last couple of weeks that he had missed by singing mostly songs of remembrance. We had some very random visitors (all polite and complimentary), but more of them later.

Arriving just in time for the start of the session I was told that we had already had a visitor (let's call him Sean1) who had apparently shown a minimum of skill on Colin's guitar.

Of course it was Colin as MC who started the evening proper, singing The Eddystone Light (roud 22257). Since the Eddystone lighthouse is off Cornwall I assume this wasn't intended as a start of Colin's Scottish selection.

Mike turned us back to our unofficial theme of Remembrance from the start of the month with Homeward (Cecily Fox Smith).

Derek mourned that he was not in the right part of the country early enough to have collected songs from Jack Elliot of Birtley, but he did get them from his daughter. I believe his contribution from that source was a medley of Jowl jowl and listen (roud 3191) and Rap her to bank (roud 1786). I know the songs reasonably well, but he threw me slightly by slipping unannounced from one to the other.

Simon went straight for the Scottish songs with The shearing's no for you (roud 4845). At this point our second visitor (let's call him Sean2) arrived and, looking over Simon's shoulder, joined in.

After this Sean2 picked up Simon's guitar (sort of with permission) and gave us the classic opening riff of Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water (Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice). Simon managed to fill in the first few lines of the lyric which tells of the band's time recording in a mobile studio at Montreux, cut short when an audience member at a Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention gig let off a flare gun causing a fire which destroyed Montreux Casino. That definitely sounds like a folk song to me!

Colin's first Scottish contribution was Adam MacNaughton's The jeely piece song (skyscraper wean).

Mike continued on the theme of remembrance with his own song, Away on the Western Front to the tune of Shenandoah (roud 324).

Although Derek had failed to meet Jack Elliot, he had collected from some traditional singers, including Bertha Brown from whom he acquired The doffing mistress (roud 2133), though it was he, definitely not she, who made Brown herself the mistress in the song.

Simon continued with the Scottish theme. Not that Wild mountain thyme (Francis McPeake - roud 541) is Scottish, for the McPeake family are Irish, but it is derived from The Braes of Balquhither (roud 541) by Scottish poet Robert Tannahill (1774–1810) and Scottish composer Robert Archibald Smith (1780–1829), which definitely is.

Derek was about to introduce a song about piles, allegedly written by a schoolteacher from Northumbria, and starting "The sparrow sitting on the tiles...", when Sean1 came back into the room and asked to borrow Colin's guitar again, which was offered. He continued with an eponymous improvisation. By the time it ended Derek seemed to have forgotten all about haemorrhoids and instead went for his own improvisation in the style of Sean1: My name is Derek.

When Colin had previously sung The war junk Tennessee (sorry no references or recordings), Derek had joked that it was good to see he had learnt Latin in a day. Simon at this point commented that he only usually sung two songs in Latin: his school song, which is too boring to sing and Gaudete for which it is still a month too early. He has Latin words for another song, but hasn't got round to working out the scansion, so he sang it in English instead: The hippopotamus song (Michael Flanders, Donald Swann).

This led us down a rabbit hole in that Derek felt compelled to sing his school song, Carmen Colcestriense, which includes a Latin chorus and a dodgy one at that because the author, Percy Shaw Jeffrey, invented the word "'tas" in order to get it to scan. Derek was sure that the song was based on that of another school and indeed it resembles that of The Skinners' School in Tunbridge Wells, since Shaw Jeffrey was headmaster of both schools and wrote the lyrics to both songs.

This was too much of a challenge for Simon, so he took his school song, Floreat Bostona (George Edwin Pattenden), but didn't sing verses 1, 2 and 3 as is usual, but rather 1, 4, 5 and 6. Verse 6 being recently rediscovered and it at least may not have been sung for 120 years. While you can hear the tune at the link above, there are ways of hearing the song on line (at least verses 1, 2 and 3), but I haven't inflicted them on listeners of the "a selection" link below. Here though for the keen is a conventional rendition, and here is a punk version from 1979 - you may even have seen the vocalist on television during the Iraq War and subsequent military activity.

It was Colin's turn when Sean2 made a second appearance, helping Colin with his rendition of Thousands or more (roud 1220).

Finally this eventful and enjoyable (yes, really) session was ended by Simon with No Sir no (roud 146).

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

(Number of people present - 5 + 2 of whom 4 + 2 performed)

Keepy-uppy

Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix play keepy-uppy
(Photo posted to Flickr by Diego Sideburns)

Last Friday's session was a bit quiet once again. We hope everyone is OK and it's just a glitch. Please get over here to The Bridge Inn, Shortwood, Bristol, BS16 9NG this Friday at 8:15pm, we need your company... and your singing if you feel capable.

Heading straight in with not a theme in sight, our MC, Colin, started the evening with The Folksinger's Lament (David Diamond) and Simon followed with Strike the Bell (roud 4190).

Well that's it. That was the first round. I'm not going to go through the songs in detail. You can listen to the "a selection" link below which includes seventeen of the eighteen songs we sang. The odd one out is Colin's singing of The Labourers' Union (roud V48257). It was sung by Walter Pardon whose repertoire included this and other anthems of the nineteenth century National Agricultural Labourers' Union.

The last round of the evening saw Colin sing Shelley Posen's No more fish, no fisherman and Simon The Galway Shawl (roud 1737).

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

(Number of people present - 2, of whom 2 performed)

Remembrance

(Photo: Simon Meeds)

As I keep saying, we are currently refraining from announcing official themes, but last Friday falling on 12 November meant that we were still thinking of remembrance, which therefore coloured many of the songs. Our usual room was in the middle of being decorated so we spent the evening in the small bar which was pleasant and we even got appreciation from some of the customers passing through to the toilets.

MC Colin started the ball rolling with Jez Lowe's Old Bones, which Maggie L noted was often sung by our late friend Ray Croll.

Derek hadn't been at our sessions for the previous two weeks, so he first took us back to Halloween with Sweet William's Ghost (roud 50, child 77) and The Unquiet Grave (roud 51, child 78), then to Guy Fawkes with Bonfire Night before bringing us back to the present with There's A Simple Little Cross Out At Mons.

Simon started with Elizabeth Padgett's tale of second world war wild-fowling in the fens, The Plover Catcher.

Colin took us to the First World War Balkans with Salonika (roud 10513), a song often sung by our late friend Pat Hyett.

Simon's singing of Where have all the flowers gone (Pete Seeger, Joe Hickerson) prompted Derek to burst into the German version, Sag mir, wo die Blumen sind (words by Max Colpet).

Colin contributed two songs from the singing of Roy Bailey: Ghost Story (Jim Woodland) and Maria Diaz (Lenny Galant). Simon gave us two from Mike Harding's pen: Bombers' Moon and Jimmy Spoons.

In the end it fell to Simon to finish off the night which he did, as the song says (metaphorically) "shaking plaster from the wall" with When all men sing (Keith Scowcroft, Derek Gifford).

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

(Number of people present - 4, of whom 3 performed)

Guy Fawkes, bonfires and camp fires

With fireworks for Guy Fawkes' Night well under way, Gerty kept Derek and Maggie home, no doubt to watch the local display while cowering under a table. Meanwhile there was no such trouble for Indy who kept an eye out for stray bangs but didn't cause too much trouble for Mike.

As is usual at the moment we didn't have an official theme but there was a strong leaning to songs to sing around the campfire with a few contemporary to Guido himself.

Colin arrived first and as MC put himself on to sing The grand old Duke of York (Roud 742). He sang several verses and said he hadn't come across them before; Mike remembered them from his schooldays.

Simon, almost completely off topic, said he had a request (from Colin) the week before at Halloween, so he sang Monster Mash (Bobby Pickett).

Mike's first song was Spencer the rover (Roud 1115) which mentions the fifth of November.

We had twenty five songs, twenty six of which can be heard via the "a selection" link below. Oh, 26 of 25? Mike, noting that the others were singing children's songs, sang I've got sixpence (Roud 1116 - yes, consecutive to Spencer!) and later returned with a snippet of the shanty version, Mop her down (Roud 17004) on a turn when he really sang Martin said to his man (Roud 473). This latter song was one of two later versions we had of political nonsense songs which originated around the time of the gunpowder plot (1605); the other was Benjamin Bowmaneer (Roud 1514) which Simon sang. Mike told us that they were from the time of the Napoleonic Wars with the evidence being that the "flea" was Napoleon in both songs. 

Other songs of note from Mike included his own Children of the train (the recording doesn't use Mike's tune). He also sang the JCB Song (Seamus Moore), not to be confused with the equally wonderful but totally different JCB Song (Luke Concannon).

Colin reminded us of our friend Roger, who we haven't seen for a while by singing Upidee. Known with different words as an American Civil War song, the song used the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem Exelsior and was a Harvard college song.

Simon finished off the evening with When I first came to this land (Roud 16813) which was translated by Oscar Brand in 1957 from a Pennsylvania Dutch song.

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

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

Eerily quiet

Friendly zombies in Dublin (Photo: Simon Meeds)

We aren't setting themes for our sessions at the moment but last Friday presented an obvious opportunity to bring out something spooky for Halloween. Unfortunately only two of us rose to the challenge.

Colin MCing started the evening off with a song of his own writing entitled Great Uncle Frank which Simon followed up with the properly traditional Halloween Souling Song (Roud 304).

And so it all came round too quickly this time; back to Colin for Dancers of Stanton Drew (Jim Parker, Muriel Holland), a cautionary tale from Somerset warning not to dance on a Sunday. Simon drew on the songwriting of Russian / Ingush performer Daria Kulesh and her song Begone! (The Witch of Walkern) telling a story from her adopted Hertfordshire about a woman accused of witchcraft and saved by a judge from the city.

Colin took his next from the singing of Martin Carthy: The Devil and the Feathery Wife (Roud 12551) while Simon took us westward for Stan Jones' 1948 song Riders in the Sky. Yes, the word "Ghost" was not in the original title.

Back to Colin for The Wife of Usher's Well (Roud 196, Child 79). Colin often takes songs from the works of bands such as Steeleye Span, but in this case though they popularised it, he assures us his version is from the tradition. Simon's song this round was certainly not from "the tradition" being a 1971 hit single by Native American band Redbone, Witch Queen of New Orleans (Lolly Vegas, Pat Vegas).

Being such a small contingent we wove much conversation through the evening touching such subjects as guitar playing, the Roud index and Wikipedia.

Finally we came to the closing round where Colin sang Widecombe Fair (Roud 137) and Simon finished with Zombie Jamboree (possibly written by Conrad Eugene Mauge, Jr).

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

(Number of people present - 2, of whom 2 performed)