Excerpt from The Songs of the Mountaineers

Skye Boat Song has also been included, as a compliment to our beloved Misty Isle.

The Sheffield Clarion Ramblers have just issued a handy booklet of Songs in praise of our common playground the Derbyshire moors. We have not included any of these songs, as space forbade printing them all, and selection would be difficult, while their booklet is Well ahead of ours both in cheapness and portability. Even the most ardent exponent cl the Light Rucksack will find place in his equipment for both' In the early stages, we gave little thought to the subject of music. Far from confident that we could sell enough copies even of the most unpretentious book of words to cover the cost of production, we regarded the provision of music as altogether beyond us. But again we had to succumb to force majeure. Our contributors demanded music, our members demanded music, and the songs themselves arose before us and protested against being sent forth naked, stripped of their proper cloth ing! Many of the best songs were written to airs not well known, or not readily accessible, while the airs of some of the very best were out of print, or being original compositions, had never been in print at all. Something had to be done. One cannot bring children into the world and then deny them clothing! So we set about to provide a complete set of music for our club library by purchasing such music as could be pur chased, and preparing manuscript copies of the remainder. The modern songs, published at two shillings, presented no difficulty, while we had a sufficient number of parodies of songs in the scottish students song book, and in the collection of lyrics from the Gilbert 81 Sullivan operas known as songs OF two savoyards, to justify the pur chase of these two volumes, with a View to tearing out the pages required and binding them together with the sheet music. But the matter would not rest there. Enthusiastic (or opulent?) members demanded sets of music for themselves, and when we had secured half a dozen orders it became evident that the manuscript music must be reproduced by mechanical methods. Meanwhile, the number of two shilling songs had increased to an alarming total, while the arrival of additional parodies on Gilbert and Sullivan and Students' songs demonstrated the unwisdom of our original plan of a single permanent binding. The pro cess of trying over the various parodies, to make sure that they reallyfit. The 'airs to which they are intended to be sung, brought into pro minence the difficulties of the accompanist who has to gaze at the original words while the vocalist is singing something totally different.

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