Anyone still following this?

I hope so, because this week's additions to 52fs are a bit different.

FS07 is Derwentwater's Farewell: a poem written in 1807, to a pre-existing tune, in the style of the real Lord D's last words before his execution as a Jacobite. You can hear more about the execution in Lord Allenwater, a heroic account of Lord D's last ride and his defiance on the scaffold. Danny Deever probably needs even less introduction than the other two; it's a Kipling poem set to the tune of Derwentwater's Farewell by Peter Bellamy, and I think the setting works rather well - as Bellamy's settings often do. It's a fascinating poem, which teeters on the edge of sub-Fascist brutality - as Kipling's poems often do.

The second and third of these are unaccompanied as per usual, but Derwentwater's Farewell features whistle, a Bontempi reed organ with a noisy fan, and a great deal of messing about with Audacity. The accompaniment is mostly a drone - maybe I should get a shruti box - but I begin by picking out the tune. I wanted to give the impression of playing it quite badly, although it's quite an artificial impression – I usually play it much *worse*, hitting the wrong notes at the right speed rather than just playing the right notes slowly. Towards the end you can hear the tune again, played reasonably competently on whistle. And right at the end you can hear… well, you find out.

52 Folk Songs is at http://www.52folksongs.com.