- 1. Factory Lad
Colin Dryden
- This song laments and lauds forty years of life spent behind a metal lathe. It was written by English singer Col Dryden who lived for some years in Australia.
- Kate vocal, guitar: James vocal, bouzouki: Nancy vocal, fiddle: Margaret vocal: Bob vocal
- 2. Dark as a Dungeon Merle Travis
- Our friend Richie Howitt taught us this classic many years ago. Written by Merle Travis for a collection called Folksongs from the Hills, it tells of the Kentucky coalmines where Travis's father and brother worked.
- Bob vocal, guitar: Kate vocal, guitar: Margaret vocal: James vocal: Nancy vocal, fiddle
- 3. The Tunnel Tigers Ewan MacColll
- We first learned this in the 1970s from the singing of Irish group The Johnstones whose music has influenced many. The song tells of Irish labourers who left home to work on London tunnels in the 1960s and describes the impact of such emigration.
- James Margaret Kate Bob vocals
- 4. The Sailor Home from the Sea Dorothy Hewett/Bill Berry
- A love lyric written by poet and playwright Dorothy Hewett for her husband Merv Lilley, who worked at the time on ships bound to and from Fremantle in Western Australia. The poem appeared in Dorothy and Merv's 1961 broadside What About the People! which was republished by The National Council of the Realist Writers in 1963. Margaret learned Bill Berry's evocative setting many years ago from the singing of our friend Adele Flood. Sadly, Dorothy died in August 2002.
- Margaret vocal: Bob guitar: James bouzouki
- 5. Joan of Arc Kate Fagan
- For centuries Joan of Arc has been eulogised to different ends and by different people as a figure of passion and defiance. Saints Catherine, Margaret and Michael are said to have appeared to Joan in visions. On their advice Joan led the siege of Orleans in 1429, aiming to overthrow the occupying army of England's Henry VI in favour of the French Dauphin Charles. Executed in 1431 by English authorities in France, she was re-embraced and canonised 489 years later. The song was written in 1995 on Christmas Day.
- Kate vocal, guitar: Nancy fiddle
- 6. The Hills of Isle au Haut
Gordon Bok
- We love a good nautical chorus... Margaret and Bob learned this one from Richie Howitt in the days when Richie put together their first acoustic band, The Tempe Tipsters. Isle au Haut is off the coast of Maine in North Eastern USA.
- Margaret vocal: James vocal, bouzouki: Kate vocal, guitar: Nancy vocal, fiddle: Bob vocal
- 7. Margaret Fagan's/Bonny Kate Nancy Kerr & James Fagan/Trad.
- The first tune is a polka, written for the occasion of Margaret's fiftieth birthday, while Bonny Kate is a rather up-tempo version of the well loved English Morris tune.
- Nancy fiddle: James bouzouki
- 8. The Old Miner Trad.
- This song came to us from Maddy Prior and June Tabor's No More to the Dance, recorded in their Silly Sisters days. It also appears in Roy Palmer's Songs of the Midlands.
- Margaret vocal: Kate vocal
- 9. The Birchgrove Park Merv Lilley/Bill Berry
- Eight seamen lost their lives when a collier called The Birchgrove Park sank off Sydney Heads in 1956. Merv Lilley's haunting poem was published in the anthology What About the People! and again in John Lahey's Great Australian Folk Songs in 1965 with another of Bill Berry's wonderful settings. We learned it from Joe and Adele Flood.
- Margaret vocal: Bob guitar: James bouzouki: Kate vocal, piano accordion
- 10. Ye Jacobites by Name Robert Burns
- Poet Robbie Burns wrote a large number of songs, many of which passed into the Scots tradition. Bob and Margaret first heard this on a 1969 recording by The Johnstones, who learned it from traditional singers in England and Scotland. An anti-Jacobite song, it reminds us of countless ordinary people who have died in squabbles between aspirants for hereditary monarchies. Monarchists take note!
- James vocal, bouzouki: Kate vocal, guitar: Nancy vocal, fiddle: Margaret vocal: Bob vocal, guitar
- 11. The World Turned Upside Down (Part 2) Leon Rosselson
- 'This earth divided/we will make whole/so it can be a common treasury for all.'
- Leon Rosselson continues to be one of the best of all political songwriters and a major influence on our tastes in folk music.
- All vocals
- 12. The Roar of the Crowd Denis Kevans
- Denis Kevans wrote this in 1962 as a young member of the Sydney Realist Writers' group. Bob first heard it in 1965 on Gary Shearston's classic Australian folk revival album Australian Broadside and has never ceased being inspired by its powerful imagery.
- Bob vocal, guitar: James vocal, bouzouki
- 13. Stand by the Shore
Trad.
- On a rowdy bus trip after one Victor Harbour Festival, Scott and Louisa Wise from Margaret River in WA taught us this fabulous hymn. We were thrilled to sing it with the whole Wise family at the Canberra National Festival in 2002 and again in the spectacular acoustics of WA's Fairbridge chapel.
- All vocals
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