It all started roughly 4 years ago in 2007 or 8 when my wife and I were at the county fair, and we stopped to play bingo. One of the prizes we had won was a black 3/4 size guitar. My wife has a lovely voice and we often sing together. I already played piano and flute (both self-taught), but pianos are notoriously difficult to play around a campfire (we are active in the medieval recreationist group known as the SCA), and you can't accompany your own singing with a recorder flute, so I decided to learn to play it. Enough people have asked me if I have a CD they can buy that I decided to oblige them and work on and album or three. Below is a semi-autobiographical song I wrote:
The Ballad of Falstaff del'Arpeggio
Chorus:
Now I've loved me many a lass
And I've been 10 years out to sea,
I've traveled hither and yon
from dusk 'til dawn
From London-Town
all the way down
Through France to Sicily
But I've never found a lass so fair and fine
As my Lady Shaughnessy.
My father was a sea-captain
And spent many years out to sea.
My mother was a selkie siren
A lass of great beauty.
I grew up as big and strong
As any lad should be
I took a wife and before too long
I had a family.
Then one day I did find out
My wife no longer did love me
Without a pence she cast me out
And so I went to sea.
(Chorus)
I sailed around and round the world
And saw many a country.
And loved a lass in every port
And spent much time in revelry.
When came a day I met a lass
As fair as fair cold be
Who had a tiny trinket shop
On the coast of Normandy.
I asked her if she'd marry me,
to this she said no
So if she would not marry me,
It's off to sea I go.
(Chorus)
For ten long years I traveled round
And sailed the ocean blue
I made and lost a fortune
And loved more lasses too.
Until one day my travels
brought me to a well-known shore
And I went to town and found my lass
Still in her trinket store.
She asked me if I'd stay with her
And live forever more.
And to this day I'll never stray...
With my true love I'll always stay...
Here just south of Newport Bay...
And love her evermore.
(Chorus)
