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Cod Banging & Oscar Woods' Jig

from Outsiders by Chris Foster

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Chris' 6th solo album contains a mix of old traditional songs and ballads along with a few from the last 60 years. Comes in a beautifully designed 3 fold digipak with a booklet containing all song lyrics and featuring cover art by Chris. The album was a runner up in the 2008 fROOTS magazine, best folk / world music album of 2008.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Outsiders via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Buy the Full Digital Album

about

In the 1970’s I lived for a while in Suffolk on the east coast of England, where I was privileged to spend time with a number of singers and musicians of my grandparent’s generation, who had learned and were still performing their music in an oral tradition. I learnt Cod Banging from a lovely singer called Bob Hart (you can hear him singing the song on ‘My Ship Shall Sail the Ocean’, TSCD652, volume 2 in the wonderful Topic Records ‘Voice of the People’ series. I heard Oscar Woods playing his jig on his single row melodeon on numerous occasions.

A few years ago, filtered through 30 years of faulty memory I made a version of Oscar’s tune for the guitar. I play it here along with fiddle, mandolin and kantele. It still conjures up happy memories of sessions at the Blaxall Ship and other music pubs around East Suffolk.

lyrics

Come, come my lads and listen here
A fisherman’s song you soon shall hear
What I did and undergo
When first I went a cod-banging O

Chorus
To my lal fol the day
Riddle all day
This is the smacksman’s life at sea

How well I remember the fourteenth of May
A big barque ship she came our way
She came our way and she did let fly
And the topsail halyards they flew sky high

And now we draw near Harwich pier
The young and the old folks they both draw near
To see us get our fish on deck
And crack their skulls with a little short stick

And now my song it is nearly done
And I hope that I’ve offended none
But I don’t think I’ve got it complete
‘Cos I’ve only been in the trade about a week

credits

from Outsiders, track released April 23, 2008
Chris Foster - vocal & guitar
Val Regan - fiddle
Bára Grímsdóttir - kantele
Joe Broughton - mandolin

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Chris Foster Reykjavik, Iceland

Chris Foster grew up in the south west of England. A master of his trade, he was recently described as “one of the finest singers and most inventive guitar accompanists of English folk songs, meriting legend status.” Over the past 40 years, he has toured throughout the UK, Europe, Canada and the USA. He has recorded six solo albums as well as working on many collaborative projects. ... more

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