As we go into 2013, here comes one more - final - 52fs album:

52 Folk Songs - Red

Looking back, the white album was seasonal, Blue was mostly Child ballads, Green was love songs, Yellow was death and destruction, and Orange was Kipling/Bellamy. (Violet and Indigo didn't really have themes.) The theme this time round is "since this is the last one, what really good songs have I not managed to fit in so far?" And the answer is:

1 The holland handkerchief (Child 272)
2 Poor murdered woman
3 Geordie (Child 209)
4 Gilderoy
5 Banks of Yarrow
6 The lady gay (Child 79)
7 The scarecrow (Lal and Mike Waterson)
8 Old Molly Metcalfe (Jake Thackray)
9 Queen among the heather
10 Brigg Fair
11 Song composed in August (Robert Burns)
12 When I set off for Turkey
13 The grey goose and gander
14 Who's the fool now? (featuring the Beech singers)
15 A hard rain's a-gonna fall (Bob Dylan)
16 Hob-y-derri-dando (download only)
17 The green cockade
18 General Wolfe
19 Maid on the shore
20 Ballad of accounting (Ewan MacColl)
21 The little pot stove (Harry Robertson) (download only)

All songs traditional except where stated. Accompanied mostly on English concertina and recorder; track 12 also includes everything I could lay my hands on, including a defenceless ukulele.

Like the other downloads in the series, the Red album comes with a PDF file containing full lyrics, notes and artwork. And, like the other downloads, it has a minimum price set at a symbolic 52p.

I'm not sure what's going to happen to the 52 Folk Songs project now, although it does occur to me that we've just started a new calendar year - a period of 52 weeks. Hmm... Watch this space.

In the mean time, download 52 Folk Songs - Red
here.