| Very scary, I was asked to sing a song at our friends' wedding, which turned out to be one of the big events of my life. I adapted Jim Steinman's 'For Crying Out Loud' (the Meat Loaf song) to make it a song about how much Dozey (Martin) cared for Woody (Sue). As it was such a special occasion I wanted it to be the best I could do. |
Boxes - Moving to Stroud
| It's amazing how much work is involved in moving house. As we moved from Fairford to Stroud at the end of last year I wrote this song about it, sung by Suzanne and me. |
The Lockdown Shuffle
| Stephen Funnell, 'Peacemaker' in North Wilts Hash House Harriers, wrote the words to this song early in the pandemic and challenged me to put it to music. This was my second attempt. |
Hugs
| We're very lucky as we have family nearby and we have recentrly moved so there's lots to explore. But I do miss hugs. A very personal song about my friends and the clubs we're part of. Written to sing at White Horse Folk Club. |
Open Door Railway Hooter
| Swindon Community Choir performed with the Open Door choir at the Arts Centre and I had the honour of singing my Railway Hooter song with them. This is a simple recording taken from the audience, complete with my fluffed line! |
The Lady in the Subway
| This is a song I wrote after teaching in London. It's a true song about real people. Just a simple recording on my PC. |
Peacemaker's 40th
| Our Grand Master Peacemaker celebrated his 40 years of hashing at our Christmas Party in February, so I sang him a song. |
Penny and Harry's Christmas Wedding Song
| I always write a song for our other club's Christmas party but this year was special as Penny and Harry were married the same day. This was just recorded from one of the tables at the Christmas meal so it's not a great recording, but hopefully it gives the atmosphere. |
The Swindon Railway Hooter
| If you lived in Swindon before the 1980s you probably remember the sound of the hooter at the railway works. The works closed, becoming the 'Outlet Village', but 30 years later they made a replica of the hooter. I wrote this song about it, which I sang at the Swindon Community Choir's 'end of term' party in front of the Railway Town embroidery in the community centre by the railway village (and only fluffed one line!). |
Devil's Daughter
| I'd put some new strings on my guitar, so wanted to play some chords so I could wear them in. As I was playing the chords to Suzanne I came up with these words. Although they're not about Suzanne at all, of course! |
For Laughing Out Loud - Woody and Dozey's Wedding Song
A Song for Cally
| On a hash for Woody and Dozey's Wedding I had been playing my guitar in the cold and wet, and was about to sing a song for them so wanted to make sure it was in tune. Cally was standing on her own with the wind in her hair, so I came up with the second verse of this song and sang it to her. My challenge was to write her a new verse each week, but this only has 6 of them. |
Mildred and Arse About Face's Wedding Song
| Last hash run before the wedding, Mildred was running despite being very hung over, and a week after the legendary Sten night in Marlbrorough which is the subject of the first verses. I recorded this straight after the hash, which is why there are a few hiccups. |
Bonio's Hare Song
| In 2016 I was elected 'Religious Advisor' for the hash group, so my plan was to sing a song for everyone who 'hares' the hash. Bonio does great things for the hash so I tried to write her a nice song, although I'm not sure about the 'age' bit! |
Hash Christmas Song
| This is the hash version of my most controversial song. It's made people cry, I've been told it's too religious (I'm not religious at all, but it's a Christmas song and one of the people who was 'far away' is very religious), and I was told it was too 'liberal'. Listen at your own risk... |
What do you have to do to get a down down?
| My first ever hash song, having been a hasher for just over a year. Performed at the North Wilts Hash Burns Night celebration at Swindon Conservative Club. Suzanne and I were surprised they let us in! You may notice I sometimes get a bit tongue-tied, especially towards the end... |
Welsh Song
| We had a weekend in Pengenffordd in April 2012. There were mountains. There was snow. And of course it was in Wales! |
Utterley Butterley's Song
| It was her 60th birthday party, so obviously I had to sing her a song! |
Bridge of Iron
| October 2014, and the North Wilts Hash House Harriers descended on the youth hostel at Ironbridge for a weekend to celebrate their 1500th run. A fairly serious song, including some history of the bridge. In fact a visiting hasher told me he wished I'd taught him history at school, which I think was a compliment... |
We got you Babe
| Not only was it New Year's Eve, but also the 70th birthday of Babe, our Grand Master and partner to Utterly Butterly. We all wore 70s clothes, there was music and dancing including this song, taken from Sonny and Cher's I got you babe of course. |
I'm a North Wilts Hasher
| This is just a temporary version - the real one will have the full band once my voice is totally recovered, MicroFrite has her voice at all, and Rubber comes round with his Mandolin. It was written by the 3 of us and we did a version of it at Nash Hash 2013. It's a hash song so it's a bit rude and there's some bad language - like all these songs, listen at your own risk. Adapted from Part of the Union by the Strawbs of course. |
Thank you Fran (imo)
| It was 2am on the morning of New Year 2015, after Babe's 70th birthday party. Fran and Dave are always very generous in offering us accommodation for parties and things, and this time had provided a huge spread of food for everyone. I got my guitar out and somehow managed to write this short song. |
Dozey's 1000th Run
| Dozey and Woody organized an excellent run and pub crawl in Devizes, 19th October 2013, to celebrate Dozey's 1000th run. We sang this song to him at Wadworth's brewery, home of his favourite tipple, 6X. Suzanne actually wrote most of the words, but on the day had lost her voice so it was just me doing the verses. Based on Benny Hill's Ernie. |
Synth after CSS
| My attempt at something electronic. I'd been teaching CSS to a group of students in a place that I'm not allowed to tell you about. For some reason it was an unusually hard day so when I came home I recorded this on my trusty Nova synthesizer, which has sadly recently died. |
Angela's Flute
| On the Christmas pub crawl Sad Case told me she liked the sound of the flute, so I've played her a little tune I made up. I'm definitely a beginner on the flute, so I hope this doesn't spoil it for her! |
Count on Me
| There's a definite health warning for this song - when I've played it to Suzanne she's asked me if I could sing a happy song now! I was alone in a hotel room working away from home, and thinking about some people who are very dear to me and were going through hard times. The words to this song came out of my head as fast as I could type them, and although they're not perfect I didn't want to change them. |