There’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’ coots (+ one middle aged son) gather together to make music? The next series of posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps, enrage or entertain. These songs were the result of a few sessions around a table laden with alcoholic beverages of various kinds. Plonked in the centre of the table is, now, an iPad with connected mic that has somehow survived the knocks and spillages that are part and parcel of the sessions. So here we are, up and running again…
Song 61: Paddy Went Home Today– I wrote this in the mid-1990s. It was inspired by an anecdote by one of the group during a refreshment break (our rehearsals often feature such breaks, which we deem necessary- for our mental and emotional well-being, of course). We were chatting about “characters” we had encountered in our working lives. One of these characters was a sheet metal worker encountered in the mid-1970s in inner-Sydney. This guy would slope off to the pub at morning smoko for a “cure”. Often enough he would be missing in action when the foreman looked for him later. We have revived the song for our current repertoire as hosts of the folk club at The Penrith Gaels in outer-western Sydney. This version is a Band-in-a-Box demo I recorded a couple of years back. I’ll update this with the current, acoustic version featuring guitar, mandolin, fiddle and bodhran in the not-too-distant-future.
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