Lewes Virtual Session – Tuesday 18th August 2020

Hello again singers in Lewes (or wherever you may be). Hope you’re well and surviving the heatwave/storms as well as the overall situation. Still no clear idea of when pubs may be fully open again, so we are still “virtual” and these are my suggested songs for this month. I will send something round separately about trying out an additional Zoom session. As usual, some old songs, some newer, with recordings of starting notes, first verse and chorus, and some harmonies here.

• To warm up let’s start with the well-known West Sussex Drinking Song and A Smuggler’s Song.
• A couple of fun extras next – the 15th century Sussex round Sing You Now After Me and the distinctly un-Sussex Finnish reindeer yoik song Ole Leloila. We learned these to sing with other groups at the Southdowns Folk Festival Big Sing in 2019 (sigh, we hope to return there in 2021) and they are useful pieces for warming up and to encourage singing out and blending voices together. Both songs are recorded in full as they don’t really have “verses”.
• Two of our more reflective songs follow – Kipling’s My Boy Jack (again the whole song is here) and Old Adam (first verse and the last verse which is slightly different from the others).
• To round off our first half, two songs about nature – apple scrumping with Tommie and the many uses of Oak, Ash and Thorn.
• Welcoming you back from your virtual drinks and comfort break, we kick off again with the working lives of the jolly Turmut Hoer and the blacksmith in Twanky Dillo.
• Two love songs next – the suggestive Three Maidens (with its “bird in the bush”) and the more sedate Sussex Wedding Song (where once again they are married the very next day!).
• We will finish with old favourites Thousands Or More and Pleasant and Delightful (see previous sessions for recordings including harmonies).

Stay safe, keep well and happy singing until we can meet again in person. Golier!

Tina