Scarborough Fair

Now hear this ...

This is probably a bit like the song that Martin Carthy shared with Paul Simon in 1965 before Art Garfunkel arranged it in counterpoint, as it was used in the soundtrack of that film The Graduate.

Even in this (more authentic?) rendition of a trad. song Mr Dransfield has added some impossible lover's tasks I've never heard before, but it's much easier to perform this arrangement solo than Canticle!

Being Friday the 24th of August,,2012 ...

It poured with rain and there was a hint of chill in the air.
We even fired up the central heating for a while until its whining noise became intrusive.

Without using any long words Berry told us what to do.

The highlight of the evening involved Roland singing a song without any words at all!

How to engage with your audience ...
an example of best practice!

Suggestions for a caption competition may be submitted as comments.

 

 

Here's a collage of images that obscurely represent some of the musical offerings we heard.

 

See if you can guess!

 

Rambling in the New-Mown Hay ...

Here's a rustic song we might share some time:

 

Country Life 

I like to rise when the sun she rises,

Early in the morning

And I like to hear them small birds singing,

Merrily upon their leyland,

And hurrah for the life of a country boy,

And to ramble in the new mown hay. 

In spring we sow at the harvest mow,

And that’s how the seasons round they go,

But of all the times if choose I may,

I'd be rambling through the new mown hay.

 

I like to rise when the sun she rises …

 

In summer when the sun is hot

We sing, and we dance, and we drink a lot.

We spend all night in sport and play,

And go rambling in the new mown hay.

 

I like to rise when the sun she rises …

 

In autumn when the oak trees turn

We gather all the wood that's fit to burn.

We cut and stash and stow away,

And go rambling in the new mown hay.

 

I like to rise when the sun she rises …

 

In winter when the sky is gray

We hedge and ditch our times away,

But in summer when the sun shines gay,

We go rambling through the new mowed hay.

 

I like to rise when the sun she rises …

Oh, Nancy is my darling gay,

And she blooms like the flowers every day,

But I love her best in the month of May

When we're rambling through the new mown hay.

 

I like to rise when the sun she rises …

 

I like to hear the Morris dancers

Clash their sticks and drink our ale.

I like to hear those bells a-ringing

As we ramble in the new mown hay.

 

I like to rise when the sun she rises …

It’s a trad song, but you can hear a recording on The Watersons’ album ‘For Pence and Spicy Ale’, track 1, athough Mike W. sings only two verses - Hit this link: The Watersons - Country Life

Being Friday the 17th of August, 2012 ...

Quote of the evening, from Yvonne, was:

• “You sound just like Karen Carpenter.”
• “Thank you, but she’s been dead for twenty years!”

An immaculately groomed Paul was in the chair.
At last I have a decent photograph of Paul ...



"Oh, stop faffing around, will you?!"

Dogsbody crept around, moth-like, trying and failing to be unobtrusive while attending to the infrastructure of the proceedings.

Undeterred by that peripheral activity, others contributed some memorable performances, a few of which might be discernable from these clues …

• The B-side of some great hit of the sixties.
• A song conveyed subliminally from a parallel space-time continuum.
• A purveyor of meat pies to submariners.
• Some Creole culinary dishes.
• Arranged marriage to a toy-boy who has yet to complete full-time education.
• Barbarous use of a cereal crop.
• A wireless aviator ...

Contact!

• ... and Roger charmingly declined to apologise for anything.

(If you can't work those out, you weren't listening!)