Christmas 2023

Christmas Shopping
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Yes, it's still a little early, but at the Dragon Folk Club we decided to have our Christmas session on 15th December this year. In fact *IMPORTANT NEWS* we will now be having two weeks' break. The next Dragon session will be on Friday 5th January 2024 when the obvious themes are New Year and Twelfth Night, but you can sing or play anything you like really as usual.

Sorry for keeping it short this time, but you can still listen to most of the songs we sang and the monologues we read (let's be honest) by following the link from "a selection" below.

Have a great Christmas and see you in the New Year.

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

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

Taking a breather before the big one

It was good to have a close to quorate group of singers at last Friday's themeless Dragon Folk Club session. This week (15 December) will be our official Christmas themed singaround, so do come along with your songs of Christmas, Winterval, or Bah Humbug as appropriate to your feelings.

We are still undecided whether to have a session next week (22 December) , so if you would like to come and sing, play or otherwise perform with us (or be our audience), then please get in touch to say you are coming. Please watch this space for confirmation or cancellation.

Colin started us off, marking the fortieth anniversary of the murder of John Lennon with his song Imagine (John Lennon, Yoko Ono).

I have got carried away with other things today and I do like to get this report out on Tuesday, so I am afraid it will be very brief this week. In fact I will mention only these songs not in the YouTube playlist linked from "a selection" below.

• Simon sang John Sykes' The Lincolnshire Song. There is a performance of the song by John's daughter Miranada Sykes on YouTube, but it is as part of a longer set, so here is a link to part a clip from that video.
• Paul sang Steve Thomason's Tracks in the snow.
• Simon's information (from mudcat) is that the version of Lord Franklin that he sang is by Les Barker, but the lyrics are quite different from the one on YouTube.
• Denny sang King of the railways (Roy Duffield)

Paul finished off the evening with Thousands or more (roud 1220).

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

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

St Andrew's Day 2023

We knew that some of our stalwarts would be missing from last week's Dragon session, but with just two singers present you could say we met a bit short. Nevertheless we sang 33 songs, all somehow on the theme of St Andrew, whether songs from or about Scotland, by Scottish writers, or relating to Andrew's other patronages which include fishermen, miners, textile workers and pregnant women. We didn't even have to resort to his patronage, very useful in this context, of singers.

Now we have one week's respite without a theme (on Friday 8th December), before our Christmas session on 15th. We will see how the wind blows before deciding whether we will meet for a final Christmas bash on 22nd, so watch this space closely.

Colin as MC started things off last Friday with Matt McGinn's The hielan' man (*), marking songs new to the Dragon database as usual with an asterisk (*).

Simon for the first time sang a song from the repertoires of our friends Derek B and Rob W: The dowie dens o'Yarrow (roud 13, child 214). And so ended the first, very short rotation of 16 and a half through the evening before the landlady gave us a not-so-subtle hint that it was time to pack up.

Colin's next song was interesting for the casual way he proclaimed that he may have written it, or maybe not. I have been unable to trace it anywhere, so let's assume he wrote The Thistle (* Colin Owen). The song told of that symbol of Scotland, comparing it with England's rose, Wales' daffodil and Ireland's shamrock. It definitely wasn't The shamrock and the thistle (Hamish Henderson, from a trad fragment heard on board an Irish ferry), which Colin has sung before.

I won't quite count Colin's Tommy Linn (roud 294) as a song new to the database since it is a version of Tam Lin, which we heard from Derek B in times past in the form of Old John Wallis. The linked video isn't Tommy Linn, but Tam Linn sung by Steeleye Span, for which Colin had been searching.

Simon had long wanted to sing The twa magicians (roud 1350, child 44), but couldn't get the tune to stick. This time he had a breakthrough, that the verses go tolerably well to the tune of Bonny ship the Diamond (roud 2172), which he also sang - the chorus being sung to approximately the correct tune.

Colin brought another new song to the party in the shape of Morris Blythman's Superintendent Barratt (*), one of several songs about the theft of the Stone of Scone (Scone pronounced "scoon" in this context of course).

Eric Bogle's Glasgow lullaby (*) gave Colin his next "new" song. Running out of songs about Scotland, Simon also drew on the songwriting of originally Scottish Eric Bogle with The band played waltzing matilda before resorting to songs of St Andrew's other patronages:

• Miners - Dark as a dungeon (Merle Travis)
• Textile workers - Poverty knock (Tommy Daniel)
• Fishermen - Fiddlers' green (John Connolly)

Colin sang St Andrew's day - a toast, which is a poem by Jean Blewett and doesn't appear on YouTube.

Colin added two more songs to the database before we closed for the evening. The first was The broo road (*) about which we know very little. It was composed during the depression in Dundee, and was included by John A Brune in his collection "The Roving Songster". His last and the final song of the evening was Tramps and hawkers (* roud 1874)

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

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