your favourite chorus songs?

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 03:37 PM

True, that is the best type of singing (especially when done at 1, 2, 3am) a truly transendental experience.
Unfortunatly a relitivly small number of people in this country ever get to enjoy it!

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Noreen
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 06:13 PM

True- been there, played the piano for primary school assemblies... but I was thinking more along the lines of the chorus singing outside the Moor and Coast tent at Warwick festival at 1am last Monday... wow.

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 05:57 PM

True, but they usually THINK it is. It a singing style popular amoung football crowds, coach tours and primary school assembalies.

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Noreen
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 05:39 PM

But then that's not singing, GUEST.

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 05:20 PM

I don't think it matters what the song is, as long as there is a really rude version which the less reputable audience members can yell at the top of their lungs ;-)

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 07:41 AM

There are so many good choruses to sing, my old shipmate Les
Sullivan has knocked out one or two as has El Greko. But, it is
sometimes where you sing them that matters.Wareham Wail always
brings out the best in a chorus as does a Dave Guest gents toilet
singaround. Time for another thread perhaps?

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST,Noreen
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 07:08 AM

John Ball!!

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 09:13 PM

Orphan Child
Anchored in Love
Will the Circle Be Unbroken

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST,JennyO
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 09:35 AM

I've thought of a couple more, after going to Almost Acoustic tonight - "Stand by the shore" - the Fagans raised the roof with it - and "Poison Train".

Jenny

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Sooz
Date: 17 Jan 04 - 08:33 AM

Well, Curly, it was a shame Caledonia got squeezed out but I enjoyed giving vent in Roll on the Day!

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Snuffy
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 09:08 AM

Long Choruses and short verses are always popular

Cadgwith Anthem
Funeral Song (All his other wives came in)

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Trevor
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 08:13 AM

Good Old Way
Follow On
John Barleycorn
One of the Rakish Kind
Constant Lovers

...so there!

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Morticia
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 07:56 AM

I love Five Foot Flirt.....and no-one mentioned Sammy's Bar I noticed, although I guess that isn't a chorus per se....( who is this Percy person and what has he to do with it all?). I love Byker Hill too, especially the way our own Cllr sings it.....Pixie calls it Combat Folk Singing.....plenty of ooomph.

Subject: RE: Longer choruses feel the best?
From: MickyMan
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 07:48 AM

Wow... Country Life. That one also sticks in my head as #1 after reading down the thread through about a hundred. How about Five Foot Flirt. I believe it's by Cyril Tawney[sic]? I don't know about the rest of you, but there seems to be a strange dynamic that exhibits itself in the singing of chorus songs....People like LONG CHORUSES BEST, but they need to have people around who can sing with them. There's a great feeling of accomplishment when you've learned the words and tune to a real long one, and a real charge when you find out that other people know it too. I'll bet that in the days before recordings and general literacy this must have been a compounded charm. All the learning had to happen in groups of at least two. Anyway, there seem to be lots of long choruses in older songs.

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST,Strollin' Johnny
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 07:35 AM

Then I shall expect your voice to be dominant amongst the choruseers when I do it tonight at Bingham, Sooz.
Curly Bin Lowden

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Sooz
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 04:08 AM

Thanks for the memory, Plum - Caledonia indeed. (Mike and I were at Fylde!)

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST,bugsy
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 03:46 AM

Well said Alanww!

It's "Country Life" for me too.



Cheers



Bugsy

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Sandina
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 01:54 AM

Hey, gimme a break re: Streets of London---it doesn't get played very often Stateside. I understand though, that it's the "Macarena" or "Celebration" of the European folk world, and I promise never to sing or request it on the east side of the pond.

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 09:55 PM

"Streets of LONDON??" (is there an echo in here?)

"C'mon, everyone...mumble the chorus with me...let's show 'em what saccherine IS!"

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 07:19 PM

I like to hear Streets of London once in awhile but I can't say I'd sing it as an anthem. But I do like the chorus of Thanksgiving Eve:

What can you do with your days
But work and hope
Let your dreams bind your work to your play
What can you do with each moment of your life
But love 'till you've loved it away
Love 'till you've loved it away.

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: muppitz
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:43 PM

It would very much depend, was I at a specific Shanty session, it would have to be "Rolling Down to Old Maui", and for the general free for alls, there is the classic, "They don't write 'em like that anymore".

However were I to be at a Padgett & Booker run singaround, there would be no way of getting out without a Holmfirth Anthem! After Auld Lang Syne(?), it was the first song sung after Big Ben at the Tap & Spile at Whitby on New Year's Eve, though, I must admit, I don't remember an awful lot about it!

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Schantieman
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 02:54 PM

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Schantieman
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 02:09 PM

Streets of London?

STREETS OF LONDON?

STREETS OF LONDON?

It's not quite that bad sung to the tune of Wild Rover but...I ask you....   Streets of London?!!

S

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: plum
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 06:51 PM

caledonia - anyone at fylde last year?

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 05:09 PM

Leave Her, Johnny
We're On the One Road
Uist Tramping Song

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST,crooner
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 02:33 AM

tell me baby why you been gone so long, a surefire hit!

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST,Sandy Andina
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 01:01 AM

Some not mentioned:
Streets of London
Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms
City of New Orleans
Thanksgiving Eve
Circle Game
Werewolves of London (yeah, it's a rock song, but everyone in the audience loves to go "Ah-WOO!" whenever I play it)
The Last Thing On My Mind
Will The Circle Be Unbroken
The Boxer
The Weight
and, of course, The Dutchman

Not to get morbid or weepy here, but the first time I ever heard Streets of London was when Fred Holstein did it live at the Barbarossa in 1979.

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 11:09 PM

Good one, AlanWW... wish I'd thought of it!

Snuffy, thanks for clearing that up for me -- I thought it was odd it wasn't in the DT.

Cheers,

YY

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: alanww
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 08:05 PM

Some great songs have been suggested so far, particularly:-
Blessed Quietness (Morticia & Animaterra),
Wild Mountain Thyme (MMario) and
Holmforth Anthem (Schantieman and I don't even sing that one!)
But if I were to have only one vote it would be for:-
Country Life
Well its the one I like to sing most to really get an audience to join in!
"Oh, I like to rise when the sun she rises ...!"
Alan

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Margret RoadKnight
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 06:18 PM

RE: "Never Grow Old"
Brilliant version on Aretha Rranklin's first album (recorded by Checker live in her church in '56, when she was only 14 years old).
Re-recorded on her "return to Gospel" double album, Amazing Grace.

RE: Great chorus songs
Minuit
Somos El Barco
Precious Friend
and so many others introduced to us by Pete Seeger

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Cluin
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 06:03 PM

This is the song that never ends
It just goes on and on, my friends
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was
And they'll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends
It just goes on and on, my friends
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was
And they'll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends
It just goes on and on, my friends
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was
And they'll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends...

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 05:52 PM

The MTA by the Kingston Trio

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Snuffy
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 04:07 PM

YY,

that is in the DT as DRIVE SORROWS AWAY but many people call it THOUSANDS OR MORE

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 02:36 PM

So many songs, so little time! Some of my all-time favorites have already been mentioned, including:
When we go Rolling Home
Rollin' Down to Old Maui
Time Has Made a Change
Pleasant & Delightful
Give Yourself to Love
Roll on the Day

A few that haven't yet:
Hard Times Come Again No More
The Rolling Hills of the Border
Music in my Mother's House
Song of the Soul ("And we will sing this song, why don't you sing along; and we can sing for a long, long time")
The Fox Hunt ("And a merry, merry, merry horn cries come, come away...)
Sorrow Away (?) (Am not sure if I have the right name for this one; searched the DT & didn't find it -- much to my surprise -- then Googled, also with no success...)
The first verse goes (I may have a word or two wrong):
    The time passes over so cheerful & gay
    Since we learned a new act to drive sorrow away
    Sorrow away (3x)
    Since we learned a new act to drive sorrow away

Perhaps that doesn't really count as a chorus song; since you don't sing the same thing every time but rather repeat the last line... but it's a fantastic song for harmony & singing together!

Cheers,

YY

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST,Scabby Douglas
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 11:47 AM

"Busk, Bonnie Lassie" (Bonnie Glenshee) usually gets them going.

RE: "Never Grow Old" - Blue Murder (waterson/carthy/coope, boyes, simpson) have a pretty good recording of it...

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST,Strollin' Johnny
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 11:37 AM

Forgot to mention Allan Taylor's 'Roll On The Day'. Allan would probably be shocked to hear it described as a chorus song, but it's a wonderful song with a soaring and eminently singable chorus - QED.

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Schantieman
Date: 12 Jan 04 - 12:07 PM

Thousands or More

Also, Cadgwith Anthem, (and Holfirth Anthem, for that matter, but sung by a proper Yorkie, not my 'orrible version!), Fathom the Bowl, Drop of Nelson's Blood, Miners' Lifeguard, While we are Together, Doin' the Manch, etc. etc.

Steve

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Bo Vandenberg
Date: 12 Jan 04 - 03:00 AM

Damocles: Definately


Axe time
And Shieldwall


Sigurd

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Mudlark
Date: 11 Jan 04 - 09:37 PM

I will go on singing Give Yourself to Love for as long as the audience holds out.

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST,Crystal
Date: 11 Jan 04 - 07:30 PM

The Barley Mow is a good 'un, as is Barrets Priveteers And one which has the line "Three nights and a Sunday double time" (I can't remember if that's also the title, or if it is called somthing else).

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 11 Jan 04 - 04:12 PM

I'll second "Joke and Push About the Pitcher"

and "Fathom the Bowl."

Union and Labor songs, too, as well as most shanties.

Linn

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Menolly
Date: 11 Jan 04 - 03:25 PM

The Cadgeworth Anthem. Especially in hte kind of room where you feel as if the roof is joining in too !

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Metchosin
Date: 11 Jan 04 - 02:09 AM

hmmm......now I'm thinking.....dangerous

Rain and Snow
Sailor Town
Step it Out Mary
Whip Jamboree
Wild Goose Shanty
Tom's Gone to Hilo
I Can't Get Down

hell, if I had enough good stuff to drink, I'd never go home.

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Metchosin
Date: 11 Jan 04 - 01:45 AM

hands down, Northwest Passage....or maybe Santiano, depends on how much I've had to drink.

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: GUEST,Damocles
Date: 11 Jan 04 - 01:19 AM

its a rosebud in June
Gaudete
Bache bene venies (carmina burana) NOT ORFF
Oak and ash and thorn
Uislenn Cha,niel bas ach Ruidgh
Men of Harlech (any version)welsh preferred
It is now september and the harvest moon begun
Lift up your hearts emmanuels friends
The north wind lew across weal down moor
Axe Time
Logs to burn
Chastity belt
Chicken on a raft
Grey funnel line
The magpie
Burden of the crown
The Moose song
Macintyre
Song of the shield wall
Theyre hanging him for payin his taxes

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Ebbie
Date: 11 Jan 04 - 01:08 AM

Well, Jerry, there are about 20 people in Juneau who know it now! It's a good one. People enjoy lustily singing the chorus. With players taking lead breaks, we've kept the chorus going for three more go 'rounds after the song was finished.

Teaching it to people at the Pioneers Home to perform it at the Alaska Folk Festival here was my first idea, then I thought, Well, it would actually be more effective to teach it to four or five 10 and 12 year-olds to perform there, then I thought, Heck, my age group is even better! We're old enough that people will internalize it and yet we're young enough that we're not sensitive about it. Win - win, don't you know.

Although I wouldn't have any qualms about teaching it to old people. Sometimes we forget that Hey! They know they're old!

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Jan 04 - 12:56 AM

just sang tonight at a birthday party..

"Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" (safe & secure from all alarms)
and "Let Union Be" ("When We Are Together")and "Flash Company" (tie a yellow ribbon in remembrance of me)

add to those "Fathom the Bowl", which may be one of the best group songs ever created, "Chicken on a Raft", "Boozin',Bloody Well Boozin'" and oh, 40 more, including some already noted..

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 10 Jan 04 - 08:52 PM

Hey, Ebbie: You're the first person I EVER didn't actually meet, who even heard of Never Grow Old. I learned it many years ago from an Alfred G. Karnes recording. Over the years, I've often sung it in nursing homes. People have occasionally questioned the "Correctness" of singing the song there. Where better? When you're strapped into a wheel chair, so paralyzed that you can only move you index finger, the song is very encouraging.

"All our troubles will end, and our voices will blend."

Can't beat that with a stick.

Jerry

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: Bo Vandenberg
Date: 10 Jan 04 - 08:05 PM

All of these sound like great suggestions.

I really like Goodnight Irene, especially with all the harsh verses, makes people think.


btw

I think Rolling Down to Maui is trad.

Subject: RE: what is your favourite chorus song?
From: JennyO
Date: 10 Jan 04 - 07:38 PM

From the Oz side of the world, here are a few that spring to my mind -

Here is my home (Si Kahn)
Grey funnel line
Pity the downtrodden landlord
On my journey home (thanks, Charlie)
The people have songs (written by our own Miguel Heatwole)

and many others which I will probably think of later.

But my current favourite of all is Northwest Passage (especially when Brett sings it)

Jenny