Until the Dragon Comes

Bones in the Ocean is one of the Longest Johns earliest and most popular original songs, and it's a powerful one - with themes of survivors' guilt and suicidal thoughts. I linked it for Octenth but now the community project version has been released.



Over a thousand people joining together to sing, it's a wonderful thing. (And yes, I did get the nerve together to join in.)

Several years ago on a livestream someone told the Longest Johns that their music was 10/10 or as their text to speech put it - October 10th. So fans decided to celebrate Octenth and I wanted to share 10 of my favourite Johns videos, starting with yesterday's collab...

( Star of the County Down Ft Colm R. Mcguinness )

Once you know the in-joke, you can spot it in this very English video for an American folk song.

( Hog Eye Man )

This one is also from the US - when you have a sudden snowfall, it's a good time to film a winter song from the Great Lakes. Such powerful acapella harmonies.

( Cold Winds (Tom Kastle Cover) )

Of course you also have the wonderful original songs - a seriously fun one about the time you find yourself in a job you're really not qualified for.

( Hoist Up the Thing )

This is one of their very best. A powerful original song about death and survivor's guilt, they're currently working on a community version - look on thelongestjohns.com/communityprojects for how to join in.

( Bones in the Ocean Live | Made of Ale Sessions )

This one is recorded with their friends from El Pony Pisador, the Catalan shanty/folk group, singing the Stan Rogers Canadian classic. This was one of the first videos of theirs I saw, and I wanted to watch it over and over.

( The Northwest Passage )

For the last year or so, they've mixed fullout music videos with stripped down covers from their back garden studio, like this beautiful version.

( The Sound of Silence- Simon & Garfunkel Cover )

And videos recorded on location

( Byker Hill )

Christmas 2023 they were summoned at short notice to fill on the Jingle Jam charity livestream organised by Yogscast - yes, the ones that did Diggy Diggy Hole... They played for a couple of hours, and pushed the total up by about £40k, when they agreed to sing a new original from the album that came out this year. The music video for that is also great fun, but I think this version really shows their spontaneity and love for performing. (The Llandoger is a historic pub in their home city of Bristol.)

( The Llandoger | Jingle Jam 2023 Day 4 )

And an encore - another original, possibly my favourite. There's no official video for this one, but this was filmed at one of their US shows earlier in the year, when Adam Chance, of my other favourite band Home Free, stood in for Robbie, who was having visa issues.

!Flashing lights warning!

( Ashes - at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia )

Last weekend the Longest Johns did a set at the Shrewsbury Folk Festival, and the festival livestreamed most of the performances, and they are still up for now, so it's a great opportunity to see what they are all about.



It's back!

What I found when I signed into YouTube yesterday.



(How many people had one of those Fisher Price pull-along phones?)

No Home Free Friday this week, because I knew this was coming. Home Free's 5 part harmony version of this is awesome (see previous New Year's) but I love this folky take, with some of the verses you don't normally get to hear.



(They were very apologetic about releasing a lyric video for this one, but since they had a baby on the 16th December, I think they can be excused...)

Home Free like to refer to their arranger/producer Darren Rust as their sixth member, but before that he was (and is) part of vocal harmony group the Blenders. They've been doing Christmas shows in the Mid-West for many years, but in 2020 they crowd-funded to do a studio session to be released online. Fun, upbeat, beautiful - well worth listening to. Darren is the guy with the grey hair and the red tie.

The latest song from the new album, written by Tim and Austin, as well as friends Adam Wakefield of Texas Hill (the one on the keyboard in the Dreamer video) and Chris Chatham. Long time cameraman and video editor Jimmy Bates came up with clever and different style for this video, featuring beautiful autumn colours in upstate New York.

This week's track is an original winter lullaby from the Hound and the Fox, it's such a lovely, warm and comforting piece.



Warning, there will almost certainly be more music links than usual over the next couple of weeks - there's so much good Christmas music from all of these guys.

Last December Home Free did a show live from the Ryman in Nashville, a special venue for country music fans. One of the groups they'd recently adopted into the family at that point were Texas Hill. They'd been performing this version of a song from their 2019 album Dive Bar Saints in all the shows where Texas Hill were opening for them, and released it on their channel - one of the fun things about it is that it includes the band introductions, so if you were wondering who they are, here's where to find out.

It's release day for Home Free's new album, and we got another video to celebrate, this one written by their friend and collaborator Jeffrey East, and added to by Tim Foust - apparently there's a saying in Nashville, write a word, get a third, and Tim claims that's his contribution this one...



If you want to hear the whole album, you can find it on Spotify here:
https://open.spotify.com/album/0645nY5JGmW0eiyS0DEAGZ?si=72XsAVkVRDuaguiiAA0t6A