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)