An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs

Subject: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: PatrickRose
Date: 01 Dec 25 - 05:49 AM

Last year, there was a concert celebrating Peter Bellamy put on in Sheffield and it was one of those concerts where I came out of it fired up and wanting to celebrate one of my favourite singers as well.

Because I'm a fool, I decided to make an advent calendar. 25 songs from across Bellamy's life, including The Young Tradition, The Transports and of course his setting of Kipling poems.

I'll try and remember to post a bump with the next day's song but I started with Butter And Cheese And All, entirely because Won't You Go My Way starts with it as well.

Feel free to guess what you think is on the list. There'll be a prize at the end for the person that gets the most right (the prize will be nothing but a sense of smug satisfaction, but that's not nothing!)

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: PatrickRose
Date: 02 Dec 25 - 04:11 AM

Thanks for all the kind messages about this so far!

Today's song is Big Steamers, the first of many Kipling settings. I've been using this as my standard concert opener for roughly 8 years I think.

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: GUEST,Folkypete
Date: 03 Dec 25 - 01:18 AM

Wow this is a great resource. I didn’t see it yesterday. Great stuff, very well presented. Appreciated.

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: DaveRo
Date: 03 Dec 25 - 02:38 AM

Nice. But why the 08.00 GMT reveal? Could you make it 06.00?

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: PatrickRose
Date: 03 Dec 25 - 04:06 AM

Dave - it's 8am entirely because I'm definitely up and about by then if something goes wrong!

Today's song is Fakenham Fair, a song from Pete Bullen that people have said is Bellamy acting under a pseudonym. I don't believe them - I'm confident that someone would have found out by now.

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: PatrickRose
Date: 04 Dec 25 - 04:35 AM

Today's song comes from Rudyard Kipling Made Exceedingly Good Songs, and is Heriot's Ford - a song that is Kipling imitating a traditional ballad.

My research pulled up very little for this, so if anyone knows more about it I'd love to know.

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Dec 25 - 11:17 AM

I am confident Fakenham Fair is not trad, the very name suggests a Peter Bellamy leg pull.
but that's not nothing!) quote... a double negative.

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: GUEST,The Sandman
Date: 04 Dec 25 - 11:23 AM

above post was me. apologies

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: PatrickRose
Date: 04 Dec 25 - 12:31 PM

@Sandman - I'm willing to believe that Pete Bullen's grandfather wrote Fakenham Fair and therefore it's not "trad", but I just can't believe that Bellamy wouldn't have copped to writing it if he had.

There was also an evening in May 1965 with Peter Bellamy and Pete Bullen that my aunt found (subscription to newspapers.com needed, which I think my aunt has via ancestry.com) after taking this as a challenge to find out if Pete Bullen was a complete fiction.

There's also a review of Bellamy performing at Studio Four by Richard Nash where he talks about the fact he's been trying to find Pete Bullen but can't.

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: PatrickRose
Date: 05 Dec 25 - 03:54 AM

Today's Bellamy Song is Daddy Fox, a song I learned after someone gave me a Young Tradition bootleg recording and I've loved ever since.

If you want to hear me talking instead of singing, James Fagan has kindly invited me on to Sheffield Live's weekly folk show Thank Goodness It's Folk:

TGIF - Friday 5th Dec 2025 - 10am UK time, Sheffield Live Radio 93.2FM Stream worldwide here And catch up later

This week on TGIF, James Fagan is talking to Sheffield singer Patrick Rose about his amazing and ambitious "Advent of Bellamy" - 25 songs from the repertoire of Peter Bellamy, released one song per day in December leading up to Christmas. We hear two songs from a great new set of village carols from Foolow, released this Friday by Seb Stone and Samuel Day. There's new music from Brian Peters, and tributes to two much-loved Australian musicians Ted Egan and Nigel Lever who left us this week.

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: PatrickRose
Date: 06 Dec 25 - 04:05 AM

Today's Bellamy Song is On Board A '98, a song collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams that Bellamy looked at and went "That tune's rubbish" and wrote a better one.

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: PatrickRose
Date: 07 Dec 25 - 04:22 AM

Quite possibly this one is my favourite of the lot, today's Bellamy Song is The Land.

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 07 Dec 25 - 03:51 PM

Does anybody know of any more songs that mention cocoa?
Aboard a 98 and Little Piecer are the only two that I have found and I was hoping to make up a set of them!

Robin

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: Reinhard
Date: 07 Dec 25 - 06:44 PM

Cocoa Tea as sung by Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne.

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: PatrickRose
Date: 08 Dec 25 - 10:08 AM

Whoops, I thought I posted today's already.

Today is The Black and Bitter Night. When James interviewed me about the calendar he asked if there was going to be anything from The Transports and I replied "It would be criminal of me to not include anything from The Transports".

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: PatrickRose
Date: 09 Dec 25 - 04:26 AM

Today's Advent of Bellamy is Recessional, which was one of the hardest Kipling poems to grapple with personally. I do agree with Bellamy when he said While the country wallows in an orgy of self congratulatory jingoism, Kipling admonishes those "drunk with sight of power" to remember what Pride goeth before

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: PatrickRose
Date: 10 Dec 25 - 04:14 AM

Today's Advent of Bellamy is The Roman Centurion's Song, a song that says "I am no longer Roman but British, please don't make me go back home".

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: PatrickRose
Date: 11 Dec 25 - 05:15 AM

Today's Advent of Bellamy is The Fox Jumps Over The Parson's Gate; a song that contains a lot of words, none of which add to any real meaning!

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: Reinhard
Date: 11 Dec 25 - 11:25 AM

Lot of words? I don't think The Fox Jumps Over The Parson's Gate is one of the muckle sangs ;-) but it is one of the most uplifting songs I know and it never fails to put a smile on my face.

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: PatrickRose
Date: 12 Dec 25 - 04:06 AM

@Reinhard - there's at least 50 words in it! That's a lot!

Today's Advent of Bellamy is The Old Songs - a song I am pretending is the first Copper song in the project for fun.

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: GUEST,Jon Dudley
Date: 12 Dec 25 - 07:06 AM

Words Bob Copper, tune Peter Bellamy.

Subject: RE: An Advent Of Peter Bellamy Songs
From: PatrickRose
Date: 13 Dec 25 - 05:27 AM

Today's Bellamy Song is Edmund In The Lowlands. A gorgeous tune, with the words being pulled together from different variants.