FOLK SESSION – Howard Arms, Brampton

Our theme, when we met on 17^th February, shortly after Valentine’s Day, was of course ‘Love’. A warm welcome to Bob and Marion, joining us for the first time, and congratulations to Linda on her first solo song!

 

This being folk, naturally we had lots of songs about lost love, faithless lovers and all-round gloom! Peggy Gordon (Phil) slighted her young man’s love; the lonely girl calls out Horo Johnny to her inconstant lover (Jane); Paddy sketched a destructive love triangle in Famous Blue Raincoat. Outright tragedy pursued the young man drowned in Annan Water (Phil) as he rides to visit his true love; while the lover in She Moved Through the Fair (Sally) is haunted by his ‘dead love’. Adrian squeezed a reference to unrequited love into his melodeon tune, Jenny Lind, ‘because Hans Christian Andersen fell in love with the Swedish Nightingale’. In more general terms, Linda lamented the brevity of Plaisir d’Amour and Sally warned us that Waltzing’s for Dreamers (and Losers in Love).

 

Folk song is aware of the dangers of loving unwisely: Ron’s protagonist had to leave for America after ruining his life (Love is Teasing); we know that Mack the Knife (Charles) will be betrayed by his lights o’ love, while Chris warned us of the dangers of Flash Company. We also heard of elopements – will they turn out well or ill? – in Gerda’s Ned of the Hill and Katie Cruel; Sally’s I Know Where I’m Going and John G’s tune The Runaway Bride.

 

Then there are the poignancy of uncertainty and the bittersweetness of memory. Will the Lady of Bendigo (Ron) respond to the lover’s plea? Will the sailor bidding Farewell, Sweet, Lovely Nancy (Chris) return safely to shore? The young man who showed a ‘bonny young lassie’ The Road to Dundee (Geoff P) is unlikely ever to see her again; the same is true of the man remembering The Girl from the North Country (Jane).

 

But love does not have to lead to disaster, even in folk music! John G on mouth organ exhorted us to Cherish the Ladies, then celebrated The Pearl Wedding and The Bride’s Favourite. Bob uttered My Thanks to You for a shared life of memories and experiences; The Sailor’s Wife (Katy) is giddy with delight at her husband’s safe return; and Alan, tongue-in-cheek as always, sang Cheapskate Birthday Blues (aka Three Little Words) which he composed for his wife! The girl who loves The Little Carpenter (Gerda) refuses other proposals and remains faithful. Sweet Anne of Hethersgill (Geoff) loves, is courted and marries – as straightforward as anyone could wish - whereas John L’s courtship gets off to a bumpy start but eventually succeeds (Come, Write Me Down).

 

Charles boasted that Nobody Else Is Loved So Well by Isabel and John L was delighted that My Lady’s a Wild-Flying Bird and is ‘mine, mine, all mine’. The dancers in Alan’s Harvest Moon are ‘still in love’; Jane sees La Vie en Rose in her lover’s arms; and Paddy sang The Confidence Reel, about falling in love later in life. On a lighter note, Adrian’s rollicking music hall song, Rule Britannia, takes us from catastrophe (snatched by the press-gang) to happy ending (‘marr-i-ed to a merm - i -aid’).

 

And finally, let us pay tribute to the loves that are not romantic: a boat (The Jeannie C – Chris); alcohol (Good Ale, Thou Art My Darling – Adrian); and a brother (Neil Gow’s Lament for His Dead Brother – John G).

 

We next meet on 17^th March in The Howard Arms, Brampton at 8pm, with the theme ‘Trades and Professions’.  ALL WELCOME!