I have played about with words for much of my adult life and enjoy the process of bringing words and music together to craft a song and seeing what emerges.
My songs are free to use – to be taught and to be sung. My hope is that they are set free and enjoyed! If you are able to make a donation towards my time it will be warmly welcomed! (You can use the Buy Me a Coffee link at the side.)
I am gradually re-creating sound files for this songs on this page, so please bear with me.
Radical and campaigning songs
Many of the political songs I have written for choirs are available on the Protest in Harmony website.
Wassails
Photo by Anna Deacon https://annadeaconphotography.co.uk/
I have been leading singing at apple wassail events and facilitating apple wassail workshops since 2011. Having grown up on a small farm with an orchard I love bringing people together to sing to the fruit trees at the dark time of the year. I love the rowdy and slightly subversive tone of apple wassails and the way that singers connect to the land and the process of growing local food through song. It is both fun and political. My aim is to write a new apple wassail song each year. I don’t always manage – but it is good to set the goal!
This photo of me singing to trees by Anna Deacon is included in the beautiful book For the Love of Trees by Vicky Allan and Anna Deacon (alongside other less well known folk such as Chris Packham and Judi Dench!). I am beginning to inhabit my new title of Urban Wassailer.
My wassail Bear Good Fruit appears in the lovely NVN song book This Room Sings.
- Coventry Wassail
- Donkey field Community Orchard Canon 2011
- Give Thanks to the Wood Wide Web: A Wassail Waltz for the Fungi
- May there be Fruitfulness 2019
- Portobello Lockdown Blues Wassail 2021
- Stand Fast Root 2020
- Wassail Round the Branches Bare 2017
- Wassail the Worm
- What is the history of apple wassailing?