A little bit of royalty

Squeezy Belly Alley, Port Isaac, Cornwall
(Photo: Portwenn Online)

Last Friday's Dragon Folk Club session saw four of us convene at The Bridge Inn for an evening of song and chat. Of course the death of Queen Elizabeth II featured a little, but there was much more to it than that.

Before I start with this week's report proper, let me tell you that we will be having our annual Harvest session on 30 September, so please come along that week prepared to sing "harvesty" songs - John Barleycorn is a valid option but there are many more.

Last week's session started with MC Colin singing George Papvgeris' "As long as someone sings a song". It was written for the 39th birthday of London-based folk club, Herga, where the club is a "friend". Sorry, I've failed to find a recording of the song.

Rob was the first to dip his toe into royal waters with Nancy Kerr's song Queen of waters. When Rob first knew Nancy, she and James Fagan lived on a narrowboat of that name in Bath. The song was written about the boat when they moved to live on dry land in Sheffield.

Simon drew one obvious and a couple of tenuous topical links from his first song, The vicar of Bray (roud V4266). Mike however eschewed all temptation with his first song, All among the barley (roud 1283).

Rob introduced us to an interesting song written by Maggie Duffy and called Squeezy belly alley after a similarly named street in Port Isaac, Cornwall.

When Mike sang We're all surrounded (roud 9164) Rob asked, given that many of the references are biblical, where the words "we're all surrounded" came from given that he couldn't place them in any other song. No one knew, so Simon found a partial answer in The Traditional Ballad Index at fresnostate.edu:

Harlow-ChantyingAboardAmericanShips gives this as an example of a Negro cotton stowing song that was adapted as a shanty. - SL

The reference to "Martha wept and Mary cried" is presumably a reference to the sisters of Lazarus who mourned over their brother in John 11. I don't have a good explanation for the "We're all surrounded" chorus (unless it's a mistake); it occurs to me that it might, just possibly, be a reference to Hebrews 12:1, where we are told that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (who might well include Martha and Mary). The problem, is, the King James version uses the verb "compassed about" rather than "surrounded" (the Greek means something like "having an encirclement"). There is, in fact, no instance of the English verb "to surround," in any form, in the King James Bible.

The first line, "Oh! Martha wept and Mary cried," is found in a song, "Carry the News to Mary," with words by Charley Howard and music by Walter Bray; see Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #275, p. 19. I do not know the relationship between the songs, if any. - RBW

Rob, a fan of Leonard Cohen, referred to his song The Partisan, adapted by Hy Zaret (who wrote Unchained melody) from a song of the French Resistance composed in 1943 by Russian-born Anna Marly, and with lyrics by French Resistance leader Emmanuel d'Astier de la Vigerie. Rob sang the original song, La Complainte du partisan.

Colin gave us a Newfoundland version of Rigs of the time (roud 876) called Hard hard times.

Surprisingly I wasn't able to find a recording (or really much more than a trace) of Peggy Seeger's song Where have all the felon's gone? which Colin sang. Of course it is based on the tune of her half-brother Pete's song Where have all the flowers gone?

Simon closed the evening with Nobby Dye's song about leaving and returning to Bristol, Welsh Back Quay.

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

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