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Chapter 1: Who is Sean Cooney and what is his contribution to folk music?
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Welcome to the documentary In The Studio from the BBC World Service, the programme that explores the process of some of the world's most creative minds. I'm Tom Rain, a broadcaster and audio producer, and in this episode I'm following English folk musician Sean Cooney, best known as one third of the award-winning singing trio The Young'uns. Sean's one of my musical heroes.
Like me, he's from the north-east of England, and his songs have become cornerstones of modern British folk music. He tells stories of miners, doctors, activists and everyday heroes from both the past and the present.
So the young'uns sing folk songs, folk songs that tell stories, folk songs that hopefully bring people together, folk songs of yesterday, maybe more importantly folk songs about today.
Through his writing, Sean has given voice to people often forgotten by history or whose stories just haven't been told yet. One of my favourites is about Gafua Hussein, a man who would travel 2,000 miles from the north-east of England to Greece to give out free food to refugees from a bus, hence the lively ballad Gafua's Bus. Another is the ballad of Johnny Longstaff.
It's a full-length album and theatre show about the journey of a man from Sean's hometown of Stockton, from the hunger marches of the 1930s and the Battle of Cable Street to fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War. But today, Sean's exploring something even more personal.
Sean's wife Emily is partially sighted, and after retiring her guide dog Nessie after eight years of service, Sean's found himself thinking about other dogs around the world whose bravery has changed lives.
He's been building a collection of songs celebrating these remarkable animals, from dogs who've saved children in floods to the loyal companions that have stuck by their owners' sides through thick and thin.
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Chapter 2: What inspired Sean to write songs about dogs?
You kind of picture sort of holding a dram of whiskey or something and sort of let's raise a glass to Tip.
Yeah, that's lovely, yeah. Sort of feeling. That's the kind of thought. Almost like at a shepherd's gathering or something, you know. Yeah. on a winter's night by a fire. Whereas other ones, yeah, I mean, the Swansea Jack ones, I wanted that to be sort of upbeat and snappy, and that's kind of... I always imagine that as a kind of join-in one with those little refrains.
But then there's other sort of more... There's one song on there about a guide dog called Roselle who belonged to Michael Higson who was working in the North Tower of the World Trade Centre on the morning of 9-11. And Roselle led him down 78 flights of stairs that day. And his book about it is just phenomenal. It's called Thunder Dog.
So when I was writing the song for Roselle, that felt like a song of more thought and depth. So I think there's a big mix of stuff that are going to be on there.
Here we are back at the car park.
Back at the car park, yeah, that was nice. We went the wrong way just the once.
Just the one wrong turn.
No-one fell in, no-one got wet. Do you want an ice cream?
Yeah, why not, yeah. Yeah, three-degree weather, I'd love one. After seeing where the inspiration begins, I wanted to understand more about Sean's songwriting craft. We drove over to Sean's house in Sheffield to take a look at some of the stories he was researching, as well as finding out more about his actual songwriting process. Yeah, a love one, please. Thank you. Cheers.
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Chapter 3: How does Sean research stories for his songs?
So when did you start out as a songwriter how did you get into it?
It was finding the folk clubs when I was a teenager with Michael and David and the young ones that really led me to finding my voice really because here was a a community of people who got together. And it didn't matter if you had a big voice or a little voice, if you could sing in tune or not, if you had a song or a story or something to share that meant something to you.
it was respected, and I just love that. I still do today. I suddenly found songs and culture related to the landscape that was around me, and I realised that you could sing a song in your own accent without an instrument, telling a story about something that meant something to you or other people, and that was just life-changing.
I left university, I did a bit of travelling, and I came to live with my mum and dad right by the sea in the old part of Hartlepool, the headlands. And we started a folk club there in about 2007. And I'd meet characters in the pubs. I'd meet fishermen who told me amazing stories. So that's what I started to do. I started to write songs about the history of Hartlepool and Teesside.
And then realised a few years down the line that, well, why am I writing about these things that have happened? The people who were writing the good songs 200 years ago were writing the songs of the times they were living in, the things that meant something to them. And so that became a...
A bit of a change of direction really to start writing about things that were important to me in the 21st century and incredible stories of human resilience and inspiration that were occurring around the world that kind of led to this.
find myself in a privileged position where where people now approach approach us as a band the young ones and me individually to kind of turn their own stories into songs which is which is a real beautiful privilege so what what do you think connects a lot of these stories of dogs that you found are there common themes that you're finding as you write in some of these new songs
That's a very good question. I mean, I'm struggling to sort of categorise it already. I thought maybe they might have a different section of the album or the project or whatever it's going to be. It might be a section about the dogs who wait, the dogs who work, the dogs who serve. But I think all of the stories that I'm intending to write are all stories that have moved me.
And I think, yeah, getting back to that, why am I doing this? Are we putting... Am I putting the kind of too much human emotion into these sort of animals? But I think that there's great active, you know, dogs and humans, it's a partnership, isn't it? That's key, I think, to the guide dog thing. It's not that the dog is leading you. You're working together with the dog.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of the story of Tip the dog?
They've got some sort of mood lighting thing going on with candles, which is a bit weird, but the room's filling up nicely and people are ready to sing.
I mean, without making you sound like you drink too much, you've... You spent quite a lot of time in pubs over the years. How central were pubs to the early days of the young ones? I mean, obviously you got your name from the older folk singers calling you the young ones in the back of the pub.
But as a testing ground almost for singing and for also learning about folk history, those places were crucial, weren't they?
Yeah, I think it's organised folk clubs that 99% of them met in the back room of pubs. David used to take a digital recorder around and sort of record everything. We've got some really precious recordings because a lot of the people we got to know in those days, they've all passed away now because they were all of a certain age then. So we've got these precious early recordings of pubs.
singers but yeah it was very much like we couldn't you know the youtube wasn't really hadn't really taken off then and we folks just weren't easy to find weren't easy to get hold to so you'd go to the club and you'd hear a song and you might timidly ask the person who sang it if they could give you the words and then maybe the next week you might have a go yourself
yeah so have you decided what you're going to sing tonight are you going to do are you going to do tip yeah do you think I should yeah I think it'd be nice to do because it's the local one and it'd be nice to see you know you sing that for the first time and for the people see how it lands you know that's right yeah ever since you left my house this afternoon it's been in my head I've been singing it
Me and Patrick were singing it in the park. Oh, really? Yeah, I hope I've got to pitch it right, actually, because it's a bit like... I don't want to do this thing where I start too high and start squeaking and I start again. But, you know, that's the friendly environment. You can do that. Often people stop halfway through and say, oh, I've forgotten the words, and then people help them out.
I was going to ask if you still get nervous singing in front of people, but in a group like this, surely it must be...
feel quite I don't know really I mean it depends what it is if it's something new like this then yeah I am because I haven't like yeah yeah yeah whereas if it's like a young'uns gig it doesn't matter how many people were in front of it because if I know the songs and you've got two lads with you on stage it doesn't feel as bad but it's the uncertainty it's the new stuff really so yeah I'm sure it's going to be great I'm really looking forward to hearing well after hearing it this morning it was fantastic oh thank you and I hope you enjoy it too
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