An out-take from Swift Years' No Sorrow For Me recordings; available as an extra track with the full album, available here: https://swiftyears.bandcamp.com/album/no-sorrow-for-me
 "Lish Young Buy-a-Broom" is a traditional song from the north of England; celebrating a remarkably consequence-free encounter between two travelling people, a musician and a seller of brooms. I learned it from the first recording of Steeleye Span founders Tim Hart and Maddy Prior.  We mix in a couple of Irish barn-dance tunes that go well with it: If We Hadn't Any Women In The World as in intro, and Lucy Farr's for breaks and coda.
Bob Cussen, mandolin; Patrick Hutchinson, guitar and lead vocal; Suzanne Ungar, bass; with guest Belfast Andi MacGabhann on bodhrán and backing vox.)

Buy-a-Broom & Barn-dances (Swift Years + Belfast Andi)

The first song I ever had released...written in 1977; recorded in '78 at a studio in Wragby, Lincolnshire, just before my family emigrated to Canada, & released on a regional compilation in 1979. Alas, I've long ago lost my only copy of the LP, but downloaded this file from some post-punk blog, please excuse lo-res file.
Performed by Half Life: David Ivermee, bass & vocal; Roger Daly, chord guitar & backing vox; John May, drums; and Patrick Hutchinson; picking guitar & writer/composer (inspired by my father, who suggested I write a song about Biko, after he was murdered by apartheid South African "security" forces.)

Steve Biko, by Half Life (from compilation album East, Dead Good Records 1978)

from Gilles Losier & Friends concert Feb 1 2008, St-Matthias Church Wsmt: Gilles Losier violin, Ken MacKenzie whistle, Jim McDermott concertina, Bob Cussen mandolin, Susan Palmer harp, Andi MacGabhánn bodhrán & backing vox, Patrick Hutchinson guitar & lead vox.

Broom Of Cowdenowes

Bass & drum groove cooked up by Craig Cormack in his front room, who then invited me over to drink fine Uisghe Beatha and do a couple of guitar tracks. At some point later, redoubtable horn-man Josh Fuhrman coated the entire proceedings with outrageously rude sax, then someone mixed it a bit, and here we are...

How We Chicken (Funk Logic)

A noodle while trying to stay cool on an oppressively hot/humid Mtl day, double-tracked in the chilly depths of Feb...

10 Toune De Canicule (en Hiver)

A song I've only rarely sung, I have to be feeling particularly obnoxious to do it. I originally titled it The Ballad of Folk Annoyance, as it was inspired by my ambivalence when a big music-biz conference came to town.

03 - Did I Kiss Enough Ass

A  tune made up to suit a guitar I had for a week or two, that had been abandoned in a locker at a school I sometimes visit. It looked like it had been hand-made over a long winter with primitive tools; evidently had started life as a 7-string, but one string & peg had been removed along the way. The kid who'd left it at the school when he graduated reappeared sheepishly, saying it was a family heirloom from Bulgaria & could he have it back, so I decided to do record something quickly with it first. The guitar was strung lefty, the strings were a mile off the fretboard, and the bridge looked like it was going to fly off any minute, so I tuned it to some kind of open-C & played it upside-down. Recorded on a Fostex 4-track cassette machine, with effects provided by an old Radio Shack reverb i got at a garage sale

9 Lives

A derisive punk rock song written & played a few times in the mid-80s with Bob's Your Uncle (no, not the BC one with Sook Yin Lee) inspired by a party (Party?) bore. I then mostly forgot about it, until 2013 when I registered in one of those make-an-album-in-a-month things: this version was recorded on 4-track K7 with drums by a Casio keyboard, and guitars, bass & vox by me.
The "album" was called WORK SIN PROGRESS, there are a few other cuts here from it too.

02 - Whatcha Gonna Do

Music by Patrick Hutchinson and words by Endre Farkas (https://www.endrefarkas.net/) who is the only person in the world who could get me to write a song about hockey, and indeed he did, for a CBC contest 5 years ago. We didn't win (stoopid voting contests, o tempora o mores) and indeed I'd forgotten about the song, until I wanted to have a party piece for his 70th Birthday extravaganza.

Hockey Song (words by Endre Farkas)

A somewhat generic arabesque groove, with some electric guitar freakouts starting about half way in

Ooh, où l'oud lewd (Work Sin Progress)

Recorded on 4-track tape at Gilles Losier's place on Aylmer St in Montréal, c. 1997; with himself on keys, and myself on slide guitar. Gilles was having monthly Scottish sessions at his house, and after I'd been unobtrusively to a couple, I was emboldened to play my slide guitar take on this old Scottish classic. I wasn't sure if it would get me barred, but Gilles was most enthusiastic, & leaped in right away with lovely piano accompaniment. Swift Years subsequently recorded this too, on the Three album, & I reckon it's even on our band soundcloud.

Neil Gow's Lament for his Second Wife (PLH slide guit, GL piano) 1997ish

Local rural production of Aristophanes' famous play...
Brekekekex koax koax
Brekekekex koax koax
Children of the marsh and lake
harmonious song now sweetly make,
our own enchanting melodies
koax koax
The songs we sang for Nysa’s lord,
for Dionysus, son of Zeus,
in Limnai at the Feast of Jars
as people in their drunken glee
thronged into our sanctuary.
Brekekekex koax koax.

Amphibian rubber band, S pond near Lac MacDonald, night 26V12

Version of an old Scots pipe or fiddle lament, pretty literally as found in The Skye Collection (1887)but played on electric guitar with muckle noise & tremelo

MacCrimmon's Lament

Cover of Richard Thompson's Dimming Of The Day, from a 1996 demo by short-lived Montreal trio Ousia. 
Vocals and acoustic guitar: Ariel Harper
Electric slide guitar: Patrick Hutchinson
Electric bass: Zack Lober
Recorded by Dave Sturton at Studio DNA, Montreal
The original Richard & Linda Thompson version is on the album Pour Down Like Silver.

TASCAM DR-05

Dimming Of The Day

Cover of a song by Edmonton singer-songwriter Luann Kowalek, from a 1996 demo by short-lived Montreal trio Ousia.  Patrick met Luann at the Frostbite Festival in Whitehorse YK, where he was performing with Bare Bones, and Luann was performing with Jr. Gone Wild member Chris Smith.
Vocals and acoustic guitar: Ariel Harper
Electric guitar & vocal: Patrick Hutchinson
Electric bass: Zack Lober
Recorded by Dave Sturton at Studio DNA, Montreal

Baby's gotta have some sugar tonight

A place to park miscellaneous works-in-progress, side-projects, collaborations, and other odds'n'sods, mainly found on dusty old tapes accumulated over the decades. For official Swift Years stuff, please visit  https://www.facebook.com/swiftyears/ , https://swiftyears.bandcamp.com/ and/or http://soundcloud.com/swift-years; & for official BluesReel stuff, it's www.bluesreel.com / http://bluesreel.bandcamp.com/releases

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