Give it a Whirl

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We told you that we sung about beer, politics and religion, so now is your chance to hear it. And did we forget to mention our sideline in gruesome stories?

We recorded these tracks on a single (but very good) microphone, so the balance is not always what it might be. Nevertheless, they will give you the flavour in a way that a carefully crafted studio recording won’t.

They were recorded in Phil’s beautifully appointed shed with, at the controls, at various times, Phil, Angela, Joe and Martin Ashby; to all of whom we are very properly grateful.

Thousands or More	We always start our a cappella sets with this, blatantly and unashamedly nicked from the Copper Family. Helps to get us (and, we hope) our audience nicely warmed up.
The Unquiet Grave	There comes a point when you just feel that you’ve heard a tune once too often. When that happens, perhaps it is time for a new one. An old favourite, but with a new setting by Mim.
A Spring Carol We Can All Agree On	Spring festivals: each to his own, but this song by Mim, written for our “Fresh Fields” set, even though it doesn’t cover all the bases, manages to reach quite a few of them.
The Diggers Song	One of the longest-standing items in our repertoire and always one of our favourites.
A Rosebud in June	If you’ve read ‘How Our Arrangements Happen’ you will already know this one, but it bears repeating.
The Young Man Killed By Custard	We cannot recommend too highly Lucie Skeaping’s book ‘Broadside Ballads’ (Faber, 2005) in which we found this gem of English verse. We’ve changed one or two things: we found that the place names in the first verse can be messed around with to suit the singers’ location and, as the tune was rather dull, we did a Vaughan Williams in reverse and borrowed a tune from the English Hymnal, it’s the one named ‘Horsley’ — you may remember it as ‘There is a Green Hill Far Away’.
The Rigs of Our Time	Sue must have been in a rotten mood, listening to the Peter Bellamy version of ‘The Rigs of the Time’ and realising that, two hundred years later, not much has changed. In this updated version we’ve stuck as closely as we could to the original while bringing the complaints up to date.

At last, an update to this page! On a long weekend in Leicestershire back in February, a friend shot a video of us singing one of the songs off the new album. Another member of the party, who happens to be a professional broadcast engineer, whiled away his train journey home by messing about with it. Building on that, Sue did a bit more ... then a bit more .. and a bit more. This, (B-, could do better) is the result ...

The song is called "In Memoriam" and was our way out of the problem of finding a suitable anti-war song. After going over any number of songs and rejecting them either as being inappropriate or else someone else's copyright, Sophie wrote these words and Mim produced the music. If you have a very acute ear you may detect that there is a much older melody hidden under the tune. It was only when we were taking photographs of the names on Felixstowe War Memorial that we discovered Ernest Seaman, VC, who turned out to be, in effect, the star of the song. The Grand Hotel, where he worked, is only a couple of hundred yards from the memorial.

If you've enjoyed these, and would like to get in touch with us, our e-mail address is here and we're always happy to supply 'hard copy' CDs.

Give it a Whirl!