Chorus songs for the lively audience

Subject: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: GUEST,cmt49
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 02:53 PM

Any favourites? On nights when the quiet songs are struggling, its good to have some rip-roaring chorus songs with a great tune and/or story. I'm thinking of the kind of song that has a chorus everyone can join in on, without me having to resort to the likes of 'no,nay never' and 'whack for my daddy-o'. Any suggestions?

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Jim Lad
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 03:09 PM

South Australia

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Balsto da Loteya
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 03:32 PM

"You Salty Dog" is very popular in Dirty Gertie's, in Viana do Castelo.

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Tootler
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 05:05 PM

Wild Mountain Thyme
Leaving of Liverpool

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Lanfranc
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 05:18 PM

My Brother, Sylveste
Quinn the Eskimo
Johnny. Lad
Clementine (to Cwm Rhondda)

to name but four

Alan

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: growler
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 05:26 PM

Cigareets and Whiskey

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Soldier boy
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 07:04 PM

Will Ye Go lassie Go
Cockles and Mussels (In Dublins Fair City)
Dirty Old Town
Black Velvet Band
Red Rose Cafe
Dads Drunk Again
Ring A Ring O'Roses (Dublin Town)
Halento
Two Rochdale Mashers
The Hartlepool Monkey
Young Banker
I'm A Rover and Seldom Sober
Maids When You're Young
The Black Velvet Band
I'll Tell Me Ma (She is handsome she is pretty)
Rolling home
Pratty Flowers (The Holmfirth Anthem)
I'm A Rambler From Manchester Way

.........all can be examples of good crowd-pleasers but sometimes musicians and singers don't seem to want to do Chorus songs to please and include the lively audience.
I guess it depends on just how 'lively' the audience is.
It does seem a shame to me however when a 'session' turns its back on an interested audience and they just do their own thing. Unfortunately I have seen this happen on far more occasions than I care to remember
If players and singers are in a public setting (e.g a pub)I really do feel that it is only polite and courteous for them to make some effort to include and please the public.

Hope I am not introducing a negative element to your thread GUEST,cmt49 because I fully support you in starting this thread and,like you,I want to encourage people to do more Chorus Songs.

Some of the best sessions I have ever been to have been when this was done well and everyone in the venue had a really fantastic night. All go home with happy memories and extol the virtues and sheer fun of folk music to family and friends. That's how the tradition spreads and prospers.

Let's encourage Chorus songs for the lively and interested audience -absolutely! All I am trying to say (rather long-windedly - sorry) is a warning that you will get some snobbish snipers from the "we won't do Chorus songs" fraternity that will try to undermine your thread.

So come on pro-Chorus songsters support this good thread, proffer your suggestions and drown out any negative flack.

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Mike Miller
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 07:39 PM

I can't tell from the posting if the questioner is British or American. If it is the latter, the most successful and rousing chorus songs are Spirituals and Gospel Songs. "When The Saints Go Marching In" is always a winner but, if you are looking for something a little more esoteric, you might try "I'm On My Way" or "Come And Go With Me To That Land" (They are, both, parts of Odetta's "Freedom Trilogy). If you want to do an anti-war song, you could do a lot worse than to choose "Down By The Riverside" (I ain't gonna study war no more.)

                      Mike

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 08:59 PM

Barrett's Privateers.

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Soldier boy
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 09:13 PM

Good point Mike Miller, if we know where GUEST,cmt49 is coming from (in terms of which side of the pond) it would help to answere the question posted. Unfortunate to say but there are very different (but equally very supportive) cultures each side of the pond.

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Bugsy
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 10:16 PM

Rolling Home (the John Tams one) always does well for me.

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: GUEST,cmt 49
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 06:48 AM

Thanks everyone for the great suggestions. I should have mentioned that I am a Brit, but the American songs often have a novelty value for European audiences too.

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: leeneia
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 09:42 AM

The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night.

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Soldier boy
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 11:50 AM

Sorry, I made a mistake in an earlier message when I put down "Dads Drunk Again". This should be

"THEY DON'T WRITE 'EM LIKE THAT ANYMORE / Ee how we could sing."

This is a wonderful song by Pete Betts and is one of my all time favourites and one I would recommend to you to search out and learn if you don't already know it.
It's a guaranteed crowd-pleaser and especially for the lively audience after they've had a pint or six.

By the way, how many others are like me and suffer from a kind of music dyslexia? So that when I can't remember the correct song title I often remember it by it's opening line or strong chorus line etc.
I never mean to offend the creator of a song and I usually universally find that everyone knew which song I meant anyway.

I'm sure we will come across other examples of this on this thread and in a funny sort of way isn't it an even bigger compliment to an author when one of their songs is instantly recognised by more than just one identifiable/recognisable title?

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 12:20 PM

Maui
Uncle Joe's Mint Balls
Tom Dooley

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Bert
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 05:11 PM

Threshing Machine
Seven Dear Old Ladies
Barley Mow
That was a horrible song

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: JohnB
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 04:47 PM

IMHO the best quiet silencer (note the double negative) is "Bully in the Alley" I really must learn it one day.
JohnB

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 06:55 PM

Thanks for reminding me, JohnB

The Sloop John B.

Also useful, if you are not serious, is Les barker's

The Sloop John A.

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Betsy
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 03:31 AM

I think Soldier Boy has just about covered the type of songs on the British / Irish side of the Pond , whether they would work in the US who can tell.
If you're playing for around European ears "My Bonny lies over the ocean" is a cert., and perhaps Molly Malone.

Have a happy Easter all !
Betsy

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: melodeonboy
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 07:23 AM

Bring us a Barrel

Pleasant and Delightful

Thousands or more

Lowlands

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: phinque
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 09:31 AM

"Old Time Religion". Since there are a million verses, the crowd can really get into it.

Also "That Good Old Mountain Dew."

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Greg B
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 01:13 PM

The Wild Rover
Paddy Lay Back
General Taylor (Stormy)
Fire Marengo
Old Zeb
One More Day
Mary Ellen Carter
New York Gals

and even on occasion, when well sung by someone
who actually knows it...

The Old Dun Cow

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Gulliver
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 02:01 PM

I agree with Soldierboy's comments above. Here are a few songs with choruses that we have in our Dublin sessions:

Irish Molly
Johnny Jump Up
Katy Daly
Maggie
Maids when you're young
Mursheen Durkin
Old Triangle
Schooldays Over
Spanish Lady
As I roved out (fast Planxty version)
Clare to Here
Dicey Riley
Farewell to Nova Scotia

For variety sake I sometimes do American old-time and gospels like I'll Fly Away, Will the Circle be unbroken, You are my Sunshine, etc., or swing-type numbers like Making Whoopie, Old Cowhand, Bey mir bist Du Shayne, etc. At the end of the night it's always stuff like Wild Mountain Thyme, Red Rose Cafe, Goodnight Irene and Show me the way to go home.

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Scoville
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 02:30 PM

Poor Howard
Old Jim Dog (Gotta Quit Kicking My Dog Around)
Tell My Ma
I'll Fly Away (or any of a lot of great country gospel songs)
Down on the Old Plank Road
C-H-I-C-K-E-N (That's the way you spell "chicken")
Greenback Dollar
Gold Watch and Chain
Jesse James (Golden Ring version, especially)
Rolling Home
Sam Gone Away
Take Me Back to Tulsa
Kneeling Drunkard's Plea
Rambling Rover (there are drunkards barely twenty . . . )

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 04:19 PM

Any shanty you can give them. Even if you have to tell them the chorus it will only take seconds to learn, and shanties developed to be sung by people who weren't singers and had other things on their mind at the time.

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Tootler
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:17 PM

"Cosher Bailey" and "You'll Never Go to Heaven" are good ones. Even if the audience have never heard them before, they soon get the idea and will be making up new verses with the best :-)

And you can go on for as long or as little as you like.

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Dave Hunt
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 10:40 PM

Above - From Soldier Boy -'Halento' which I presume is Hal-an'-Tow

SEE ~ QUOTE '0.7967 - Thread - Message - RE: Lyr Req: alt. verses to Hal An Tow - Jan 7 2001 4:31AM -   NonMember
Summary: The Hal an Tow is enacted each year at Helston Flora Day (May 8th depending on Sundays and Market days). If you are in the area make sure you don't miss it. The day starts at 7am with the first Flora Dance and the Hal an Tow begins at 8.30am and continues through the town with the mummers play being enacted at several points.'

Dave

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Jim Lad
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 10:45 PM

I'm going to look through here the next time I'm creating a set list.
It's like getting somebody else to do your homework.

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: GUEST,cmt49
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 12:43 AM

Thanks again for the input, everybody. To return the favour, I can add:

Chevrolet (Lomax, not Donovan)
Jolly Beggarman
Little Red Hen
Spanish Lady
Mama Don't Allow
Willin'
Brown-Eyed Girl
Iko Iko
A Man You Don't Meet Everyday.

Are we all going to end up doing the same set? Only joking - the performer makes the difference anyway.

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Betsy
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 04:43 AM

Have we missed Black Velvet Band ?

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 11:53 AM

Fathom the bowl
The lighthouse (oh let it shine)
I like to rise
Dido Bendigo
The Nightingale (as she sings in the valley below)
The farmer's toast (I have lawns, I have bowers)
Five Pounds (by Les Sullivan, who has now written a fourth verse)

Try getting along to the Anchor in Sidmouth folk week for the Middle Bar Singers in August!

Kitty

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Gulliver
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 03:24 PM

Many of these songs I've never even heard of, for example, You'll Never Go to Heaven, Fathom the bowl, The lighthouse,
I like to rise, Dido Bendigo, Five Pounds, Iko Iko, Chevrolet, Gold Watch and Chain, Sam Gone Away, Kneeling Drunkard's Plea, etc., etc.

Does anyone know of a website that contains the lyrics of several of them? It would be quicker than looking them up individually.

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 05:00 PM

The Australian song "Overlanders"

                                       SOL

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Soldier boy
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 10:17 PM

The Fog on The Tyne

Subject: RE: Chorus songs for the lively audience
From: Ferrara
Date: 06 Apr 07 - 12:27 AM

Let Union Be (in all our hearts)