I took the double bass along to this week’s Saturday Sing-around at The Plough. It’s always popular with the other musicians and sits well alongside the various acoustic instruments they bring along.

I contributed a couple of songs myself. Firstly, Reynardine, a folk ballard with a bit of mystery and perhaps a twist of menace. Who is the eponymous focus of the song? Not a hero, I’m pretty sure. Perhaps sly, bold Reynardine, with his charms, cunning words and glinting teeth is even the narrator of the story, although doing so in the third person. I don’t hold out much hope for the woman he encounters, who starts out beautiful and feisty but ends up drained and in his thrall. I used to do the song with Peter and the Wulf back in Oxford and you can hear the version I worked from on our Foolish Folk album. I kept it simple this time, just singing the story with simple accompaniment, but I might build it up a bit in future.

When my time came round again, we’d had several songs about miners and the perils of deep pits. One of the pieces I’d been toying with was Down in the Hole by Tom Waits, a gospel-type song about keeping the devil “down in the hole” (and, conveniently, a tone lower than the piece brought by the person before me). Easy decision then – a solid bassline under my fingers and some raucous and throaty singing to create some energy. Huzzah!