Current Review (Large Text Version)
FOLK SESSION – Howard Arms, Brampton
We circled the globe in song and tune, story and rhyme, when we met on 21st April, following a theme of ‘Rivers, Lakes and Seas’. To start with our instrumentalists: John G on harmonica took us to Lough Gowna and The Shores of the Logan, and celebrated the Braw Lads o’ Gala Water; while Adrian on melodeon gave us the Morris tune, The Banks of the Dee.
We had some metaphorical seas: John L told us that ‘the heart is like an ocean, mysterious and dark’ (Dylan’s One More Cup of Coffee) and Richard compared life to sailing on uncharted waters (Tom Paxton’s Outward Bound). Ron suggested that If Wishes Were Fishes ‘we would all cast nets in the sea’. Chris, with his story Howler Monkey, took us via the South Atlantic and up the Amazon in order to make a mischievous comparison with politics.
Some bodies of water remained generalised or implicit, or were even fictional! The hero of Cindy, Oh Cindy (Bob) sails the seas but cannot not forget his sweetheart; Linda makes her Journeys Home ‘over seas’. The ‘Lowland Sea’ on which the Golden Vanity sailed (Chris) is not clearly defined in any atlas; and while the Atlantic is clearly meant in Sally’s song God Moves On the Water, it is not actually mentioned. The underground waters that flooded the Diglake Colliery in 1895 (Diglake Fields – John G) never had a name. Charles stated frankly that the ‘cool Shalimar’ in which Flanders and Swann’s Hippopotamus Song takes place is not, in fact, a river!
Moving on to named rivers, seas etc, we ranged the world, visiting the Nile (Jane’s Queen of Egypt); Table Bay (All In Search of You – Phil); the Mississippi (Old Man River – Charles); the Magellan Straits (Rounding the Horn – Katy) and the Czech River Morava (Okolo – Jane). Chris and Richard both took us to the Northwest Passage – Chris in Stan Rogers’ song of that name, and Richard in Lady Franklin’s Lament. Between them, they also managed to squeeze in references to Baffin Bay, the Beaufort Sea, the Davis Strait and the Fraser River (but it’s not a competition, chaps!) Geoff warned us, with grim humour, against ending up in Botany Bay, whereas in Ron and Linda’s song (The Fields of Athenry) the same destination is a tragedy for the convicted man and his family.
Nearer to home, Geoff recited the light-hearted poem Southey wrote for his children describing The Cataract of Lodore. Adrian threatened to cross the Tamar and Severn and march on London with ‘twenty thousand Cornishmen’ (The Song of the Western Men); Ron advised the Sweet Thames to Flow Softly; Phil’s Norland Wind swept north across the Firth of Forth and the Tay; John L bade farewell to the Mersey in The Leaving of Liverpool; Sally warned Here’s the Tender Coming and urged the sailor husband to hide until the press-gang moves on to Druridge Bay; the English Channel is either a routeway for Roman invasion (Adrian’s The National Anthem of the Ancient Britons) or the homebound destination of sailors (Ron’s Spanish Ladies).
We next meet on Tuesday, 19th May, at 8pm in The Howard Arms, Brampton. The theme will be ‘placenames’ – dry ones, this time! Cities, towns, villages, even streets. ALL WELCOME!