There are many singers on YouTube who also write their own songs. Some that I am subscribed to are AlonzoGarbanzo, Mike Brown (slippereal), Reg Campbell, Lew Dite, Derek Everett, Danny Knapp, Lost Hills, Paul Larson and Dan Samples,I have only done a few covers so far but I would like to showcase some of their work in this corner of my site.

There are also some budding songwriters who have asked me to sing their songs rather than put up videos themselves. Here are a few whose songs I agreed to do. I hope to see them singing their own songs someday.

The Ballad of Jack Riley (SirCoughsalot)

SirCoughsalot is a lover of folk music who frequently comments on videos put up by myself and other folksingers. Recently he tried his hand at writing a murder ballad and invited me to put it to a tune and sing it on YouTube. Here is the result of our collaboration. Hope you enjoy it. You can read the lyrics here.

The King's Daughter (Armonist)

A YouTube friend who calls his channel OfficialArmonist asked me to try his song:

Oh yeah, I got bored and wrote a song but I can't play the guitar well enough to sing it and I was wondering if you don't have anything else to do if you could maybe listen to it and/or cover it.
No pressure hehe I just think you can do more with it than me.

I thought it was quite an amusing little song, so I decided to cover it. You can judge for yourself whether you think I did it justice.

Here is my rendition, and here are the lyrics.

The Whiskey, the Girl and the Rebel (Jennifer Burdoo)

There was a fascinating thread on the Mudcat folk music discussion site about ten years ago - How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies). Jennifer Burdoo was one of the contributors who wrote a song based on several of the cliches listed. She sums them up as follows:

A good Celtic folksong should contain at least some of the following:

- Drink, obviously
- Death, preferably by murder...
- Of a loved one!
- Rebellion against the perfidious English
- Botany Bay, or at least transportation
- Execution, preferably by hanging
- A ghost
- A lilting and annoyingly repetitive refrain, preferably one that repeats half the words of the previous verse
- An opening that starts, "My name is 'blank', I'm a 'blank.' Or "Come all you bold 'blanks,' and listen to me." "Take warning by me" can be used at either the beginning or end.
- A bird (like dying swans, or blackbirds representing Prince Charlie, or Wild Geese)
- A date (as in, "It was in eighteen hundred and fifty-four, on June the thirteenth day")
- A start in May or June, but March and bleak December are okay in a pinch
- A protagonist with a backbreaking, dangerous job, like logging, mining or whaling
- As many verses as the singer can memorize.

With the list in front of me, it took me five minutes to write. Tropes I didn't use include "going away to the wars," lovers not recognizing each other, cross-dressing, highway robbery (by a man), stealing from you while you sleep (by a woman), and getting an unmarried girl pregnant.

She added: The tune is up to you. I've found it fits well to The Patriot Game and Sweet Betsy From Pike AKA The Old Orange Flute, but lately I've sung it to General Monroe, a song I heard from the Makem and Spain Brothers.

Here is my rendition, set to my own tune, and here are the lyrics.