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Bright Fine Gold

from Laugh While You May by Gráinneog

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about

BRIGHT FINE GOLD
Main Vocal, Sam

Recorded live at Waiheke Library May 2019

The addition of this classic New Zealand song was a last minute arrangement. Though it's a mainstay of our live shows, we thought to leave it out of the recordings as it's maybe too well known. 'What we need,' we thought, 'is more obscure material. Like 'Soon May The Wellerman Come'! Hardly anyone knows that!'
Then came 2020's 'Spot of Bother' and the discovery that a keen young Glasgow postal worker had picked up on 'Wellerman', performed it as a 'Tik Tok Video'* and became famous.

So we had to sigh and let 'Wellerman' go. It's available on our Bandcamp page for free though, so by all means help yourselves.
In its place we decided to drop in this live recording made during a NZ Music Month concert at our local library and intended for the Waiheke Radio archive.


The chorus of this song is reputed to be the oldest surviving fragment of an English language song in New Zealand. It survived as a children's song, used for skipping or hopscotch.

*Whatever one of those is. No point asking us. Ben, Helen, Andy & Alan are all in their dotage and Sam, though comparatively youthful, lives in a tree.

lyrics

Bright fine gold,
Bright fine gold.
One a pecker, Tuapeka,
Bright fine gold.

Spend it in the winter
Or die in the cold.
One a pecker, Tuapeka
Bright fine gold
Some are sons of fortune,
And so I came to see
That the riches of those river beds
Are not for such as me.
I'm weary of Otago
I'm weary of the snow,
And if I could strike it rich
then away I'd go.

credits

from Laugh While You May, released June 19, 2021
Sammy Leary - Vocals, Guitar
Ben Cobbett - Fiddle
Helen Cobbett - Backing Vocals
Alan Knight - Backing Vocals
Andy Spence - Backing Vocals, Bodrahn

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Gráinneog Auckland, New Zealand

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