A song-list c1966

Denny’s list of song titles, c1966 [with my annotations in brackets]

1. Don’t Think Twice [Dylan, Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, 1963]


2. Daddy you’ve been on my mind [Dylan, via Baez, Farewell Angelina, 1965]


3. Girl of the North Country [Dylan, Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, 1963]


4. I’m a Rambler and a Gambler [trad; Baez, Songbook, p104]


5. Wagoner’s Lad [trad; Baez, Joan Baez 2, 1961; Jansch, Jack Orion, 1966; Baez, Songbook, p20]


6. I can’t help but wonder where I’m bound [Paxton, Ramblin’ Boy, 1965]


7. *The last thing on my mind [Paxton, Ramblin’ Boy, 1965]


8. Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall [Paul Simon Songbook, 1965]


9. Bleeker Street [Simon and Garfunkel, Wednesday Morning 3AM, 1964]


10. On the Side of a Hill [Paul Simon Songbook, 1965]


11. Kathy’s Song [Paul Simon Songbook, 1965]


12. A Most Peculiar Man [Paul Simon Songbook, 1965]


13. Waily Waily [trad=The Water is Wide; Baez, Songbook, p26; Child Ballad 204; in Theo Johnson’s repertoire at The Barge]


14. *I Once Loved A Lass [trad=The False Bride; Rodger Evans on Hootenanny at The Barge, 1965]


15. Jackaroo [trad; Baez, Songbook, p80]


16. *The Boatman [trad]


17. *Polly Vaughn [trad; the song that Judith Piepe recalled SD doing at The Barge, Heylin, p30; Anne Briggs, Hazards of Love, 1964; Peter, Paul and Mary, In the Wind, 1963]


18. *Milk and Honey [Jackson C Frank, 1965]


19. *Blues Run the Game [Jackson C Frank, 1965]


20. The Sun is Burning [Ian Campbell, issued in 1964 as a single backed by 21; Simon and Garfunkel, Wednesday Morning 3AM, 1964]


21. Crow on the Cradle [Sydney Carter; issued as a single by Ian Campbell Group in 1964 with 20]


22. One Day Old [Langston Hughes/Fisher]


23. (*)David [?= The Tender Years, SD’s first known original song]


24. I have no time to spend with you [Bert Jansch, 1965]


25. Silver Dagger [trad; Joan Baez, 1960; Baez, Songbook, p75]


26. *East Virginia [trad; Joan Baez, 1960; Baez, Songbook, p36]


27. *Geordie [trad; Baez, Songbook, p48]


28. Trees they grow high [trad; Joan Baez 2, 1961; Baez, Songbook, p78; Penguin Book of English Folk Songs; Theo Johnson on Hootenanny at the Barge, 1965]


29. Ten thousand miles [trad; Joan Baez, 1960; Baez, Songbook, p42]


30. Donna [trad; Joan Baez, 1960; Baez, Songbook, p167; in Theo Johnson’s repertoire at The Barge]


31. *The heart of Soho [Jansch and Renbourn, Bert and John, 1966]


32. Drinks (?) Song [probably Dink's Song or Dinks Song, trad; recorded by e.g. Cliff Aungier on Alex Campbell & His Friends, 1967]
    

[This list © estate of Sandy Denny]

Comments:

This neatly written list – which I take to be a composite set-list - appears in a sketchbook, apparently dating from Denny’s year at art college (1965-66), inscribed ‘Alexandra Denny’ inside the front cover. It contains some sketches of heads and figures but was mostly used for notes. The inclusion in the same sketchbook of the lyrics of ‘Sovay’ (which she requested from AL Lloyd in December ’66 or January ’67) makes dating, as always with SD’s notes, problematic. At art school she befriended the US folk-singer Gina Glazer and learned much of the American’s repertoire, which may be reflected in this list. However, many of these songs seemingly hark back to earlier in 1965, when Denny was an unpaid ‘floor singer’ at The Barge, and perhaps further still. Whatever its provenance or exact date, the list gives us an idea of the kind of American-inspired repertoire which left Joe Boyd so underwhelmed when he first heard Denny sing in 1965.

Titles are given as recorded in the notebook and do not always correspond to published versions of songs.

32 not identified; 23 not certain.

Only nine or ten out of thirty-two songs on this list (those marked *) are known to be associated with SD?

Apparently a high debt to Baez’s repertoire here (though many of these songs were common currency at the time). Baez’s is not a name that SD ever mentioned in interviews, to my knowledge, but I have always suspected that the smoothed out vocal lines in her covers of Dylan songs owe a lot to Baez’s mediating influence.

I note a clutch of protest songs (civil rights, Ban the Bomb), 20 to 22, very mid-’sixties.

The big surprise is to find five Paul Simon songs here. We know that Denny was friends with Simon in his London period but I have never heard that she performed any of his songs.