Phyl Lobl
Phyl Lobl is a singer – songwriter – teacher who has been active as a performer at Folk Festivals, mainly in Australia, since just before the first National Folk Festival 1967. She thinks of herself as a Cultural Maintenance Worker. ” [I] started learning to play classical guitar, and I’d started, out of boredom, putting words to the exercises, and so I found out a way of putting words to set patterns of music.
And then I wrote a song “when will the people” which was about war and stuff, and I wrote Dark-eyed Daughter, about the bus rides round New South Wales … I can still remember the day I read about it in the paper and the emotion I felt, and it spilled out into this thing “Dark-eyed Daughter“, based on a nursery rhyme called “Mother may I go out to swim? Yes, my darling daughter, hang your clothes on a hickory limb but don’t go near the water”. … that song became my entry into the folk world.” (Interview 14/02/2018)
Listen to Songs By Phyl Lobl
Derby Hall
The song selected for the First Australian Women’s songbook is Derby Hall.
This is a picture of the actual tin-lined hall in Derby, Tasmania . “In its hey day Derby was the site one of the richest tin mines in the world with a population of around 3,000. The Derby Town Hall was built in 1923 at the height of the mountain town’s prosperity. Sadly, just six years later the Briseis Dam (named after the 1876 Melbourne Cup winner) flooded the town killing 14 people in the worst flood in Tasmanian history.
Following the floods the town went into decline and until recently its population fell to just 176 locals.”(Festival of Small Halls website, 2020). “Derby is an old tin mining town on Tasmania’s East coast. The walls of the local hall were lined with pressed tin which really spread the sound around. The caretaker told me of activities regularly held in the hall over the years.” The stories told by the Derby Hall caretaker reflected Phyl’s experiences in her own home district of Hanging Rock in the Macedon Ranges .”Derby Hall” is based on the beautiful timber-lined Newham Mechanics’ Institute .
Song Lyrics
1. On a dampened Derby morning when the clouds string out like washing
And you see the mine bones pushing through the patches in the fog
Past the dinosaured remains you can hear the old time tunes
Floating far beyond the mullock and the ragged heaps of slag.
Varsovienna and mazurka bouncing off the tin lined wall,
Painting faint and fading pictures, mem’ries of the Derby Hall.
2.From the concerts came the sounds of La Paloma played on gumleaf;
Songs of Gladys Moncrieff, cover versions by the score
Lilting Irish tenor voices that had just begun to harden
While sopranos murdered Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden.
Road to Mandalay and Aves bouncing off the tin lined wall,
Painting faint and fading pictures, mem ‘ries of the Derby Hall.
3.When the boys went to the fighting, serving under foreign skies
There were memorable evenings, not farewells but sad goodbyes;
And when the boys came back again, the welcomes were the same,
Though there weren’t as many of them, just that list of golden names.
And The Last Post and Reveille bouncing off the tin lined wall,
Painting faint and fading pictures, mem’ries of the Derby Hall.
4. What a proud and wondrous moment when the Queen of Queens was crowned
How they’d laboured over dresses matching trinkets they had found;
There was taffeta with laces, marcasite with pearls,
Such a powdering of faces for the prettiest of girls.
Foxtrots, gypsy tap and tango bouncing off the tin lined wall,
Painting faint and fading pictures, mem’ries of the Derby Hall.
5. There were fetes with stalls and toffees and fancy dress parades
And costumes, a kaleidoscope of shifting shapes and shadings
But now there is the TV and in these later days
The hall is used for indoor cricket, sport and exercise.
Shuttle cock and plastic ping pong bouncing off the tin lined walls
Paint out faint and fading pictures, mem’ries of the Derby Hall.
Interior of the Newham Mechanic’s Institute in the 1990s
Losing Lady
Words for a young person I knew and for many I don’t
Song Lyrics
1. You are a product of the past;
The dice that’s thrown, the die that’s cast;
The way things are is not the last,
You can change it all, come, catch the ball
Chorus:
and change, change your dancing shoes;
Lady, you weren’t born to lose;
Leave the past with songs of sorrow,
Build yourself a clear blue-eyed tomorrow.
2. Friends are fine, but they can’t tie you
Money helps, don’t let it buy you
Life’s a force that’s bound to try you,
Give yourself a chance; come catch the dance
Chorus:
and change, change your dancing shoes;
Lady, you weren’t born to lose;
Leave the past with songs of sorrow,
Build yourself a clear blue-eyed tomorrow.
3. Lift your head for the steps to take;
Lift your mind for dreams to make:
You can bend instead of break;
Hearts aren’t made of clay; come catch the day,
Chorus:
and change, change your dancing shoes;
Lady, you weren’t born to lose;
Leave the past with songs of sorrow,
Build yourself a clear blue-eyed tomorrow