Author Archives: Quentin Bega

I was born in the middle of the 20th Century and have, somewhat to my surprise, found myself in the next one with something more to say and do.

A bit of Banter: 11- Joe Hill

a-muso-imageThere’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’ coots gather together to make music? The next 20 posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps, enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. 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 was a laptop with built-in mic that somehow survived the knocks and spillages that were part and parcel of the sessions. 

Song 11: Joe Hill– This great union song has been a part of my musical experience for many220px-joe_hill002 decades now and I am still moved by its defiant and uplifting message. Before his execution by firing squad in Utah, Joe Hill mordantly declared, in a note to IWW leader Bill  Haywood, “Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don’t want to be found dead in Utah.” His will is also worth recording, My will is easy to decide/For there is nothing to divide/My kin don’t need to fuss and moan/”Moss does not cling to rolling stone”/My body? Oh, if I could choose/I would to ashes it reduce/And let the merry breezes blow/My dust to where some flowers grow/Perhaps some fading flower then/Would come to life and bloom again./This is my Last and final Will./Good Luck to All of you/Joe Hill. I think Banter do a good job of the song here.

 

Joe Hill

A bit of Banter: 12- The Old Man’s Tale/Instrumental

a-muso-imageThere’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’ coots gather together to make music? The next 20 posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps, enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. 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 was a laptop with built-in mic that somehow survived the knocks and spillages that were part and parcel of the sessions. 

Song 12: The Old Man’s Tale/Instrumental– In my 20s, I played with a group in Wollongong called Seannachie. Our singer, Tony Fitzgerald, was the first person I heard singing this fine iancampbellsong. Written by Ian Campbell, a Scottish-born folksinger and left-wing activist, it was popular among the anti-nuclear Aldermaston protesters in the 1960s. Campbell was an influential force in music in his native Britain from the early sixties right up to his death in 2012. In Banter, I took it up and twinned it with the instrumental you hear at its end.

 

The Old Man’s Tale/Instrumental

A bit of Banter: 13- Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore

a-muso-imageThere’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’ coots gather together to make music? The next 20 posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps, enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. 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 was a laptop with built-in mic that somehow survived the knocks and spillages that were part and parcel of the sessions. 

Song 13: Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore– The songs of Irish emigration are legion. Before the Great Famine of the mid-19th Century, the Irish had a penchant for travel and this is reflected in the Brendan voyage and the travels of Irish monks across Europe in the Middle Ages. However, the famine forced millions off the land to starve in ditiches or seek refuge in America or Australia.The first memorable version of this song, for me, was sung by Paul Brady, in the 1970s, I think. This emigrant ballad exerts a strange but pbradycompelling pull on the listener when sung by a good singer. I would assert that this is the case here.

 

Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore

A bit of Banter: 14- Shoals of Herring

a-muso-imageThere’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’ coots gather together to make music? The next 20 posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps, enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. 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 was a laptop with built-in mic that somehow survived the knocks and spillages that were part and parcel of the sessions. 

Song 14: Shoals of Herring– The late, great Ewan McColl wrote this one. I was privileged toewan-mccoll hear him sing in the Wollongong Town Hall in the mid-1970s with his wife, Peggy Seeger. He wrote lots of fine songs about workers and the alienated. Perhaps the greatest exponent of this song was Luke Kelly of the Dubliners.

The Shoals of Herring (lockdown Outlaw Version)

A Bit of Banter: 15- The Raggle Taggle Gypsy/The Battle of Aughrim

a-muso-imageThere’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’ coots gather together to make music? The next 20 posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps, enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. 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 was a laptop with built-in mic that somehow survived the knocks and spillages that were part and parcel of the sessions. 

Song 15: The Raggle Taggle Gypsies/ The Battle of Aughrim– I first sang this song in the folk group Seannachie over forty years ago. When Banter formed in the mid- 1990s, we thought the stirring march, The Battle of Aughrim, would complement it nicely. I do wonder, though, how many fine ladies in history have ever left the money, fine clothes  and privileges of wealth and rank in order to follow a gypsy into the privations of a traveller’s life….                                                         the-battle-of-aughrim-by-john-mulvany

 

The Ragglr Taggle Gypsy/The Battle of Aughrim

A bit of Banter: 16- The Three Sea Captains

a-muso-imageThere’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’ coots gather together to make music? The next 20 posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps, enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. 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 was a laptop with built-in mic that somehow survived the knocks and spillages that were part and parcel of the sessions. 

Song 16: The Three Sea Captains– As I mentioned before, chimney sweeps are in my DNA but so, too, are sea captains. My father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all3seacapts captains at one time or another in their lives. This graceful Irish set dance reminds me of this part of my heritage.

 

The Three Sea Captains

A bit of Banter: 17- Central Story/ The Hag at the Churn

a-muso-imageThere’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’ coots gather together to make music? The next 20 posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps, enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. 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 was a laptop with built-in mic that somehow survived the knocks and spillages that were part and parcel of the sessions. 

Song 17: Central Story/The Hag at the Churn– St Patrick’s Day used to be celebrated at a park near Central Station and I enjoyed it much more that the subsequent ordered and orderlychurn version that saw it contained within a secured site. This song celebrates a time about twenty years ago when we were rather younger and wilder. The instrumental at the end I initially thought was entitled The Goose in the Bog– I wonder what rhymed line I would have come up with if I had known the accurate title when writing the song…

 

Central Story/The Hag at the Churn

A bit of Banter: 18- Ride On

a-muso-imageThere’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’  coots gather together to make music? The next 20 posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps,  enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. 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 was a laptop with built-in mic that somehow survived the knocks and spillages that were part and parcel of the sessions. 

Song 18: Ride On– Written by Jimmy McCarthy, noted Irish songwriter, this song has been a favourite of the band since we first heard Christy Moore sing it. Although it is short, it is memorable and is often requested when we make one of our rideonsporadic appearances in public out here on the fringes of Western Sydney.

 

Ride On

A Bit of Banter: 19- Sam Hall/ The Palmer River Song

a-muso-imageThere’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’  coots gather together to make music? The next bunch of posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps,  enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. 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 was a laptop with built-in mic that somehow survived the knocks and spillages that were part and parcel of the sessions. 

Song 19: Sam Hall/ The Palmer River Tune– This song has been in my repertoire for decades and when I discovered that there were chimney sweeps in my ancestry it made sense at a deep, even DNA, level. The song is twinned with a great Aussie tune from the gold-rushpalmer-river days in Far Northern Queensland.

 

Sam Hall/The Palmer River Song

A bit of Banter: 20- William Bloat/ The Sash

a-muso-imageThere’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’  coots gather together to make music? The next 20 posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps,  enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. 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 was a laptop with built-in mic that somehow survived the knocks and spillages that were part and parcel of the sessions. 

Song 20: William Bloat/Sash– Belfast built the Titanic and was also a centre for the flax industry in the 19th Century. The song is a humorous boast concerning a man having a spot of trouble with his wife. We twin it with a tune beloved of Orange folk. Belfast was one of the great industrial cities of the British Isles in the 19th Century and, like other manufacturing centres, there was a great pride taken in the quality of goods produced in the city.sash

 

William Bloat/The Sash