Valentine's Day 2023

It was a really useful turn-out at last week's Dragon Folk Club session. The official theme was Valentine's Day, Love and Lust. While there was plenty of that in our songs, there were also some interesting groups of songs so that is what this report will focus on.

Colin, taking his usual role of MC, started us off with Liverpool Judies (roud 928).

John B continued with The Rose (Amanda McBroom). This song featured in the film of the same name which was loosely based on the life of Janis Joplin. The film follows a self-destructive rock star in the late 1960s who struggles to cope with the pressures of her career and the demands of her ruthless business manager.

Geoff's first of the evening was The Lakes of Ponchartrain (roud 1836, laws H9). The song is about a man who is given shelter by a Louisiana Creole woman. He falls in love with her and asks her to marry him, but she is already promised to a sailor and declines. It is set on the shores of the major estuarine water-bodies of the Pontchartrain Basin, including lakes Maurepas, Pontchartrain, and Borgne.

Simon's Bonnie Ship the Diamond (roud 2172) tells of whalers leaving the port of Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland for the whaling grounds near Greenland, later returning to port to be greeted by their sweethearts and wives.

Sue gave us I Will (Paul McCartney). Like numerous other Beatles songs, this was credited to Lennon-McCartney, but we now know that many of them were actually written by one or the other.

Geoff gave us two songs from the singing of Waylon Jennings: Amanda (Bob McDill) and Wrong (Steve Seskin, André Pessis).

John B sang two songs from Bob Dylan: One too many mornings and Marchin' to the city.

We had two songs from the singing of the Carter Family. For the first, John B sang Will the Circle Be Unbroken? (roud 3409) though strictly speaking the linked version is A.P. Carter's reworking of the original Ada R. Habershon and Charles H. Gabriel song into "Can the Circle Be Unbroken (By and By)". The second Carter song was Bob's Bear Creek Blues which was actually written by A. P. Carter.

Colin sang Ruby Tuesday (Keith Richards, Mick Jagger) which was covered by Melanie Safka. This inspired John B to follow on with another Melanie song: What have they done to my song Ma (Melanie Safka, HM Saffer II).

I wondered whether Geoff might follow up with Brand New Key (Melanie Safka), but he didn't; instead singing Cheryl's Goin' Home (Bob Lind), a response to Simon's earlier Elusive Butterfly (Bob Lind), the former being the B-Side of the latter on the 7" original single.

We also had a pair of Joe Brown songs with Sue singing I'll see you in my dreams (Isham Jones, Gus Kahn) and Geoff giving us A Picture of you (John Beveridge, Peter Oakman).

Simon finished off the session with the rousing When all men sing (Keith Scowcroft, Derek Gifford).

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

(Number of people present - 6 of whom 6 performed)