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)