It would appear that Cowboys do like the snow

At least they do in the South of Bristol anyways.

The party that was described in my last blog was a great success, with a variety of friends of the birthday boy arriving all dressed in a variety of cowboy and red Indian costumes (apart from one chap who had clearly read his invite wrong and turned up as a Blues Brother….either that or he was proud of said costume and was determined to wear it regardless) and all cramped into a domestic kitchen until much jollity was had by all.

It was noted by the band that we have in fact played in smaller venues, and to much smaller crowds so we didn’t complain and ‘went for it’ with as much gusto as we could manage.

As I have mentioned previously, we are NOT a country & western band….although I do have to confess that having got hold of a C & W greatest hits album to get me ‘in the mood’ I found myself singing happily along to Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolie’ and ‘Coward of the County’.

However, we thought that in this case we really ought to make an effort to sing something that at least had a ‘Country’ feel to it, so that morning I managed to download and memorise ‘D.I.V.O.R.C.E as sung by Billy Connolly. If song doesn’t ring any bells then get yourself onto Youtube and have a look.

I also managed to remember the words to an old John Denver song called ‘Grandmother’s feather bed’.

I always remember that song fondly from my childhood and didn’t in my innocence see anything untoward about it at all.

Unfortunately, the crowd we were performing to tonight was made up largely of rugby players and their spouses.

They found great amusement in the concept of “having a lot of fun on grandmother’s feather bed”, especially as that ‘fun’ included “8 sheep, six hound dogs and a piggy we’d stolen from the shed”.

By the time I had sung the line about “wrestling with my cousin” I began to wish I had tried to remember the words to ‘Annie’s Song’ instead.

All in all it was fun evening, especially as they plied CJ and Aaron with free beer (muggings here had negotiate the snow and ice so stayed away from anything that might result in my skidding into the back of a snow plough).

By the time we had finished out two hour set the crowd were in good form and were in the mood to sing…roaring that immortal line to the birthday boy “Why was he born so beautiful, why was he born at all”. The rest is unprintable.
Leaving CJ to enjoy himself Aaron and I managed to discreetly slip away, with a few cans for later secreted in our pockets, and bought ourselves a curry on the way home.

Now, if that is what County and Western music is all about, I might be tempted to do some more.

Only ‘tempted’ mind you.