English Folk Songwriters' Circle

We all apparently play the same instrument.

Even though we're all finger style steel string guitar players,

it's massively different.

It is a pretty self-contained instrument

and if you keep pushing boundaries then, you know,

you're never going to get bored. I don't get bored.

# ..Away from home... #

I was dragged kicking and screaming from to my first folk club.

"You'll hear some blues, great players there."

I come out of blues and jazz, not of folk music.

I played in folk clubs because it was the only place you could go and play the acoustic guitar.

I grew up listening to American music,

then went into the folk clubs

and got this complete brain-load of British music,

English traditional music was really big.

We have known each other for such a long time,

but seen each other so rarely over the years. It's mad.

-We don't live in each other's pockets.

-Not really.

APPLAUSE

# Someone's funeral, old Miss Do is bouncing through the quarter

# Henry hurries to the barn down there on the Cator

# The morning stinks of last night's fun, the morning sidewalk's sticky

# Henry chain smokes, Camel Lights sucks down his second Dixie

# He says, dear boy

# They just don't understand me how could they?

# They've not seen the things that I've seen

# Even then...

# Why should they believe me?

# They look at me now, not at what I have been

# Dear boy...

# We lived in Paris

# Bought Lilly a piano for the place in Mont Marte, look at me now

# And I know they despise me but what can they know

# Of the love in my heart

# Lilly comes back from the charity we carry her up the stairs

# Henry, he's too old to help he just stands and swears

# Some day soon she won't come back nothing is more certain

# I should be a lonely actor waiting for the curtain

# Dear boy, at the Pussycat she worked for Miss Dixie

# And some people thought she was one of the girls

# Oh, you should have seen us

# So handsome, so pretty she was always my Lilly

# The flower of my world, dear boy...

# Why do you come back here? The world is your oyster

# What makes you stay?

# One morning we wake up and age has us prisoner

# If it wasn't for Lilly I'd be far away

# Hustlers hustle, frat boys were chasing down cheap thrills

# They fry their brains with hurricanes, pay with sweaty bills

# Disco blares from double play there's a shuffle

# A second line beating Henry shambles

# Home again down to Cator Street

HE SCATS

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you very much.

When I first saw this gentleman on my right, play when I was about 14 years old.

And I was really thinking he was extremely good

and then he started playing slide with his wedding ring

and that was it, I was sold, completely sold. Michael Chapman.

APPLAUSE

# Two postcards of Scarborough

# Just to keep in my mind

# To hide away up there

# Help me remind

# Myself of time past and time passing

# I went down the Harbour

# Just to catch a bite to eat

# Boats along the quay

# And seagulls round my feet

# It reminds me

# Of when we're here together

# The food, it was so tasteless

# The wine was so stale

# I looked in the mirror

# And my face, it was so pale

# It's so different

# When we're here together

# And I sleep in the same room

# And the walls are so white

# But there's nothing

# To warm me

# In the cool of the night

# Not like when we're here together

# And I took a walk up to Paradise

# Just like we did before

# But it doesn't seem like Paradise

# To me any more

# Not like when we're here together

# And the food was so tasteless

# The wine was so stale

# I looked in the mirror

# And my face, it was so pale

# It's so different

# When we're here together

# But I've got postcards of Scarborough

# Just to keep in my mind

# To hide away up there

# Help me remind

# Myself of time past and time passing

# Time past and time passing

# Time passing. #

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

Will you please welcome another part,

the third part of the visitors from the North,

Steve Tilston.

CHEERING, APPLAUSE

Thank you, thank you.

I'm going to start off with a rewrite of an old...

Blind Boy Fuller blues, that I originally learnt

off the great Wizz Jones.

# Take this boat down to the riverside

# Weeping willow weep for me

# Going to let it ride down to the rolling sea

# The one I love She's moved to some other place

# Weeping willow weep for me

# That special face will not let me be

# Going to watch this world roll by through the hanging leaves

# Weeping willow weep for me

# I believe this river's going to set me free

# Rocking, rolling drift with the shifting tide

# Weeping willow weep for me

# I believe this river's going to set me free

# If this river was wide Oh now it ain't no lie

# Weeping willow weep for me

# I would drink it dry and cry a salty sea

# I'm going to take my boat down to the riverside

# Weeping willow wait for me

# I believe this river's going to set me free

# I'm going to let it ride down to the rolling sea. #

-APPLAUSE

-Thank you.

Thank you.

This song is about my father.

My father was born in 1899, he fought in both world wars,

he didn't marry until he was 52.

He had me when he was 54

and I have a little girl who's six years old,

who was born 106 years after her grandfather,

which I think is sensible generational separation.

LAUGHTER

# Well you were never any good with money

# Couldn't even hold a job

# Not steady enough for the office

# Not hard enough for the hod

# You'd rather be riding your Norton

# Or going fishing with your split cane rod

# You were never any good with money

# Couldn't even hold a job

# When your grammar school days were over

# It was 1917

# And you did the right and proper thing

# You were just 18

# You were never mentioned in dispatches

# You never mentioned what you did or saw

# You were just another keen young man

# In the mud and stink of war

# You were never any good with money

# Couldn't even hold a job

# Not steady enough for the office

# Not hard enough for the hod

# You'd rather be singing The Pirate King

# Or fishing with your split cane rod

# You were never any good with money

# Couldn't even hold a job

# And you came home from the Great War

# With the pips of a captain's rank

# And a German officer's Luger

# And no money in the bank

# Your family sent you down the coal mine

# To learn to be captain there

# But you didn't stand it very long

# Oh, you needed the light and the air

# You were never any good with money

# Couldn't even hold a job

# Not steady enough for the office

# Not hard enough for the hod

# You'd rather be watching the fullness fly

# Or fishing with your split cane rod

# You were never any good with money

# Couldn't even hold a job

# When the second war came along

# You knew what should be done

# You would re-enlist to teach young men

# The booby-trap and the gun

# And they sent you home to Yorkshire

# With a crew and a Lewis Gun

# So you could save your seaside town

# From the bombers of the Hun

# You were never any good with money

# Couldn't even hold a job

# Not steady enough for the office

# Not hard enough for the hod

# You'd rather be finding the nightjar's nest

# Or fishing with your split cane rod

# You were never any good with money

# Couldn't even hold a job

# When my mother came to your door

# With a baby in her arms

# And her big hurt boy just nine years old

# Trying to keep her from harm

# If you had been a practical man

# You would have been forewarned

# You would have seen that it never would work

# And I would have never been born

# There was no proper work in your seaside town

# So we moved here looking for a job

# You were storeman at the power station

# Just before I came along

# And nobody talked about how you quit

# But I know that's what you did

# My mother said you were a selfish man

# And I was your selfish kid

# You were never any good with money

# Couldn't even hold a job

# Not steady enough for the office

# Not hardly enough for the hod

# And your Norton, it was soon gone

# Along with your split cane rod

# You were never any good with money

# Couldn't even hold a job

# You showed me eyebright in the hedgerow

# Speedwell and traveller's joy

# You showed me how to use my eyes

# When I was just a boy

# You taught me how to love a song

# And all you knew of nature's ways

# These are the greatest gifts I've ever known

# And I use them every day

# You were never any good with money

# Couldn't even hold a job

# Not steady enough for the office, maybe

# Not hard enough for the hod

# You'd rather be riding your Norton

# Or going fishing with your split cane rod

# You were never any good with money

# Couldn't even hold a job. #

APPLAUSE

Do you think we write about the truth

-because we're not clever enough to lie?

-Yes.

Not smart enough to make it up!

If I hadn't been a guitar player, I'd have wound up being a woodsman, because it's a great job.

It's like this job, it changes every day.

I used to work in the woods.

To put myself through college, I had to have a job in the summer

and because I was at college, they thought I could count.

I didn't tell them I was at art college.

One day, they sent me off into a wood to do a traffic census.

I figured out that what they really wanted me to do

was to figure out how many cars would come past if we built a road.

What a great job!

So, this is one of the songs I wrote.

# Strange places we have been since our dreams began to fade

# Whatever became of all the promises we made?

# And have you ever thought of the times that we knew?

# I sit here alone, slightly blue

# Yes, I sit here alone You know I'm slightly blue

# No rain for weeks and the sun is in the sky

# The grass is turning brown and the stream is running dry

# All of a sudden the dawn begins to call

# How far is it down? Why must I fall?

# And the days pass so slowly in the valley of my time

# The trees sway so gently

# There's something on my mind like a fly buzzes round

# There's nothing I can do

# I guess it's just the memory of you

# Yes, I guess it is just the memory of you

# Strange places we have been since our dreams began to fade

# Whatever became of all the promises we made?

# And have you ever thought in the times that we knew

# I sit here alone slightly blue

# Yes, I sit here alone You know I'm slightly blue

# Yes, I sit here alone... #

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

What we are really is long-distance drivers.

This is the fun bit, this is the easy bit. This is a song, a road song.

We all have various road songs and it is a waltz.

Waltzing off into the metaphorical distance.

# Though these travelling shoes are worn and tattered

# They still keep moving on

# They have learned to tread the roots that matter

# Along the road when I was young

# There have been missed signs and diversions

# They're searching for the sun

# Many mislaid plans for missing persons

# Along the road when I was young

# Down that well-worn path I wandered

# Chasing dreams in the blue yonder

# And freely spending time 'twas mine to squander

# Along the road when I was young

# Many nights alone some nights together

# With some special one

# Back behind the wheel and hell for leather

# Along the road when I was young

# My first song it still lingers

# Oh, how the notes spill from my fingers

# And I did stand in line with the folk singers

# Along the road when I was young

# There were no goodbyes for some companions

# Never realised when time was done

# Each with our own absolute opinions

# Along the road when I was young

# I had guitar, was free to travel

# Strands of life did unravel

# When I sold my soul to the crossroads devil

# Along the road when I was young

# Along the road when I was young

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

Thank you so much. This is a song about a man called Will Atkinson.

Will, was a dance musician from Northumberland.

When Will Atkinson was 50 years of age,

his children didn't play any music

and he was getting very miffed about that.

So, he went into Alnwick on the bus

and he bought a cheap Chinese diatonic harmonica

and on the way home, he tried it out

and his children went into accountancy.

He ended up playing the harmonica every day

until two days before he died in hospital at the age of 95,

which is a pretty good advertisement for the harmonica as a health regime.

# Now I can tell you just exactly where I learned this tune

# It wasn't Roseden

# And at the harvest supper Uncle Dodie played the fiddle

# And Billy played the box

# And they laughed and drank and sang like there's no war on

# I have shepherded these hills I've been a rabbit catcher

# I've changed every roadside from Alnwick down to Craster

# And I've always loved to play and to watch the people dance

# Why, in my youth I've cycled 30 miles to get the chance

# Now my father was in Flanders fighting with the Fusiliers

# Me and mum were at the cottage till the telegram appeared

# Then they gave us one week's notice

# There was little time for tears

# Uncle Dodie, no he took us in at Roseden

# I have shepherded these hills I've been a rabbit catcher

# I've changed every road sign from Alnwick down to Craster

# And I always love to play and to watch the people dance

# Why, in my youth I've cycled 30 miles to get the chance

# Now I can tell you just exactly where I learned this tune

# It wasn't Roseden

# And at the harvest supper I was just a boy of eight then

# And I hadn't learned to play

# But I whistled it for Aunty and we danced it the next day

# All around the kitchen table where we danced the cares away

# All around the kitchen table there at Roseden

# I have shepherded these hills I've been a rabbit catcher

# I've changed every road sign from Alnwick down to Craster

# And I always loved to play and to watch the people dance

# Why, in my youth I've cycled 30 miles to get the chance

# And I'd watch them as they'd rant and I'd watch them as they'd twirl

# Never once I thought these tunes

# Would take me half way round the world. #

APPLAUSE

I've spent the early part of this year driving round America

reacquainting myself with that great American icon,

the truckstop waitress.

This one is called, Just Another Story.

# A ponytail and a pickup truck

# A crony jar just to make a buck

# She's high on her heels but down on her luck

# And that's just another story

# Just another story

# She watches as the trains go by

# Counts vapour trails across the sky

# And she wonders what it's like to fly

# But that's just another story

# Just another story

# There's a scar on a tree where she carved her name

# A scar on her heart where a man did the same

# She's got to get out of this scarring game

# Before she's just another story

# Before she's just another story

# She's sick and she's tired of being alone

# Another man is there and gone

# She thought this time he could be the one

# But that's just another story

# Now he's just another story

# There's a scar on a tree where she carved her name

# Scar on her heart where a man did the same

# She's got to get out of all this scarring game

# Before she's just another story

# Just another story

# A ponytail and a pickup truck

# A crummy jar just to make a buck

# She's high on her heels but down on her luck

# And that's just another story

# Just another story

# Yes, it's just another story. #

APPLAUSE

This one is a title track off my latest record

and it's called The Reckoning and it oozes baby boomer guilt.

# Here's to all the grandchildren yet to be born

# Great-grandchildren of our sons and daughters

# And their own grandchildren too

# I offer you this hand out across the ages spanned

# A misbegotten plan to leave

# The reckoning to you

# Now I must apologise

# It's written in these troubled skies

# We've been peddling lies somehow forgotten what is true

# Though it's buried deep the poison never sleeps

# Through the ages seeps to leave

# The reckoning to you

# We hang on to misguided dreams

# Sleepwalk to the brink

# Hey-ho, we rue the day

# We're going down in drink

# I've planted seeds

# In vain to raise an apple tree

# To entice the bees to sip

# The blossom from the boughs

# But bees don't toil

# Around the boughs some serpent coiled

# Drips venom the soil and leaves

# The reckoning to you

# We hang onto misguided dreams

# Sleepwalk to the brink

# Hey-ho, we rue the day

# We're going down in drink

# So here's to all the grandchildren

# Yet to be born great-grandchildren

# All their sons and daughters

# And their own grandchildren too

# I offer you this toast

# Should these troubles come to roost

# For we ate the golden goose

# And left the reckoning to you

# The reckoning to you

# Ooh

# The reckoning to you. #

APPLAUSE

This is a song about home.

And all the places in it are steel towns,

because I grew up in a steel town

and all the steel towns in this song,

apart from my own,

were majorly rundown.

And in the last few months,

they've announced that the Scunthorpe steelworks

are about to be closed down.

So, that'll be the end of Scunthorpe.

# Well, I've been to Gary Indiana

# Bethlehem PA

# I've seen the sinter dust at Consett

# Smelled the smoke on Swansea Bay

# And all the mills in Sheffield

# They rolled steel just the same

# But a furnace never burned so bright

# As down East Common Lane

# The good companions hut's long gone

# Where I first learned a leaving song

# John and Dave and Mo

# They sang many's the sad refrain

# And I listen hard between the lines

# I long for love in hard, hard times

# Followed the road and read the signs

# That led me home again

# I've been to Gary Indiana

# Bethlehem PA

# I've seen the sinter dust at Consett

# Smelled the smoke on Swansea Bay

# And all the mills in Sheffield

# They rolled steel just the same

# But a furnace never burned so bright

# As down East Common Lane

# I hear the shunting ghosts in goods yards

# By the ironstone school walls

# The yards of weeds and gravel

# But the echoes crash and call

# Across the bridge, across the years

# I hear them clear and plain

# All the way from Roland Road

# To East Common Lane

# I've been to Gary Indiana

# Bethlehem PA

# I've seen the sinter dust at Consett

# Smelled the smoke on Swansea Bay

# And all the mills in Sheffield

# They rolled steel just the same

# But a furnace never burned so bright

# As down East Common Lane

# Harry and Joyce they took in strays

# They took care of my mother

# They cut the hedges did the shopping

# Said it was no bother

# The kindness of the finest

# Crimson skies at dead of night

# The kid on the corner waiting for the bully

# Is spoiling for a fight

# I had a shotgun house on Bourbon Street

# Just down the block from Jean Lafitte's

# I'd sit on the stoop with a friend of mine

# And watch parades go by

# I'd already left a score of towns

# Delta heart, Great Lakes cold

# And oh, I was looking but I hadn't found

# A place I could grow old

# I've been to Gary Indiana

# Bethlehem PA

# I've seen the sinter dust at Consett

# Smelled the smoke on Swansea Bay

# And all the mills in Sheffield

# They rolled steel just the same

# But a furnace never burned so bright

# As down East Common Lane. #

APPLAUSE

You might have been talking about Meridian, Mississippi,

the home of Jimmie Rodgers.

That's where I wrote this song - in Meridian, Mississippi.

I went to a dance and I left just because the guns came out.

# Cowboys and cowgirls still dance in pairs

# No la-di-da Nobody putting on airs

# It's Saturday night And they're feeling all right

# It's time for a dance And maybe time for a fight

# And this could be me Till the end of my days

# I'm heading for a serious cowboy phase

# I'm heading for a serious cowboy phase

# The click of high heels on a cold marble floor

# The sweet smell of midnight As she opens the door

# God gave her grace And the devil gave her style

# And maybe this longing Will blunt in a while

# And this could be me Till the end of my days

# I'm heading for a serious cowboy phase

# I'm heading for a serious cowboy phase

# Cos I've got the boots And I've got the gun

# And maybe I was thinking Of going on the run

# I was waiting for a ride By then it could be done

# And I've never like to fight When I never could have won

# And this could be me Till the end of my days

# I'm heading for a serious cowboy phase

# I'm heading for a serious cowboy phase

# Cowboys and cowgirls Still dance in pairs

# No la-di-da No putting on airs

# It's Saturday night And they're feeling all right

# It's time for a dance Maybe time for a fight

# And this could be me Till the end of my days

# I'm heading for a serious cowboy phase

# I'm heading for a serious cowboy phase

# I'm heading for a serious cowboy phase. #

APPLAUSE

This is a traditional folk song I wrote

and it's got a kind of a touch of the South West about it.

# He was barely a man in his grandfather's coat

# Sewn into the lining a ten shilling note

# Goodbye to the family goodbye to the shore

# Till I taste good fortune you'll see me no more

# A boat on the ocean tossed like a cork

# Then one fine morning they sighted New York

# And he stood on the gangplank and he breathed in the air

# Hello, land of plenty I've come for my share

# And he did like the ladies the rise and the fall

# Of their ankles and dresses down on the dance floor

# And rolling the dice and spinning the wheel

# But he took most delight in the slip jigs and reels

# Now there's talk of the pistol some say a knife

# All are agreed there was somebody's wife

# Some kind of commotion a terrible fight

# He left a man for dead and ran into the night

# On a train from St Louis just one jump ahead

# He slept one eye open a six-gun in bed

# And he dreamt of the mountains and green fields of home

# While crossing the plains where the buffalo roam

# And he did like the ladies the rise and the fall

# Of their ankles and dresses down on the dance floor

# And rolling the dice and spinning the wheel

# But he took most delight in the slip jigs and reels

# Oh, a bad reputation's a hard thing to bear

# Mothers pour scorn and young children they stare

# But he found consolation in flash company

# For life ain't so bad with the girl on your knee

# Now they called him The Kid and by 21

# All that he knew was the power of the gun

# And by 23 he'd shot five men down

# Who just got in his way as he rambled around

# Oh, and he did like the ladies the rise and fall

# Of their ankles and dresses down on the dance floor

# And rolling the dice and spinning the wheel

# But he took most delight in the slip jigs and reels

# Now there's bones on the desert and buzzards that fly

# In the highest of circles just wishing he'd die

# But in the matters of cruelty it must be said

# A landlord will pick your bones before you're dead

# It was wild Mescaleros I heard people say

# In the deadliest ambush near old Santa Fe

# And the young buck was taken dressed in a coat

# And inside the lining a ten shilling note

# Well, he did like the ladies the rise and fall

# Of their ankles and dresses down on the dance floor

# And rolling the dice and spinning the wheel

# But he took most delight in the slip jigs and reels

# In the slip jigs and reels

# Woah oh-oh-oh. #

APPLAUSE

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd