G. F. PHILLIPS WRITES:
My
current project is The
Square & Compass: A Folksong Cycle for St Mary’s
Island
and Its Surrounds, North Tyneside.
It is a collection of poems as song lyrics that has been set to
music by folksong composer, John Bushby. The sixteen songs run
chronologically and follow the compass point from North, North East
to North and tell of the island and the nearby land’s history.
‘What happened
over those years between 1722 and 2006 on St Mary’s Island maybe
slight, being its little narratives, but it gave those folk a voice,
their incidents, however brief, of lives lived, now written and sung
about.’
Here
are two extracts:
At
compass point North, North East Last
Drop of Ale
is a tall story in the tradition of gallows humour.
Chorus.
Michael Curry’s
had his last drop of ale (2)
He had this rage and
he killed the landlord
So they hung him up;
he’s as stiff as a board.
Now one man’s
wager is another man’s pledge (2)
And four pints of
ale can be yours all free
If you ask of the
corpse, “How are you Curry?”
At
compass point West South West a dispute breaks out in Dodging
Bullets:
Old
Ewen blames Joe Patterson
For
letting out his field
That
Joe is in the army’s keep
If
anyone gets killed
Dodging
bullets
Old
Ewen says they fly his alehouse way.
Dodging
bullets
On
stepping stones over the island stray.
A
CD and an accompanying 38pp booklet of my lyrics with historical
notes and a three page article is on sale (see
www.gfphillipswriter.co.uk
for details).
