musician specializing in traditional song
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Debra Cowan's Perpetually Incomplete Songbook
This is a list of the songs that I have learned over the years and it is by no means ALL the songs I know, just the ones that come to mind when I have to make a list. This page will always be a work in progess because I'm always seeking out and learning new material. If you have any suggestions of songs that I might be interested in, please email me at dcowan AT DebraCowan DOT com (remove spaces and substitute appropriate symbols). This bit of my website is in need of an updating as many of these songs I haven't performed in years and there have also been many many additions. If you see a song here that you'd like me to do at a show, please ask me. I'll gladly do requests.

Unaccompanied (Traditional)
One Night As I Lay On My Bed
'Twas In the Month of January
Twa Corbies
My Son John
Fighting for Strangers
Willie Taylor
The Drunkard
Weary Cutters
Get Up and Bar the Door
I Was a Young Man
A Maid on the Shore
Parcel of Rogues
Saucy Sailor
Brisk Young Butcher
Cruel Mother
Moonshiner
My Johnny Was a Shoemaker
Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore
Up In the North
Gypsum Davey
Back and Sides/Julianna
Bonny Hind
Robin Hood and the Pedlar
Withee Tree
Edward Boyle
Johnny Be Fair
The Banks of the Green Willow
The Dreadful Ghost
Darlin' Corey
Female Ramblin' Sailor
Cork Harbor
The Life of a Man
Star In the East
Fearless In the Fire
Cruel Brother
Burly Burly Banks of Barbree-O
The Blacksmith

Traditional With Guitar
Two Soldiers
Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore
McGinnis Gets a Job
Bullgine Run
Verdant Braes of Skreen
Cherry Tree Carol
Blackwaterside
Coal Tattoo
Mary and the Soldier
Dad's Dinner Pail
In the Town of Oxford
Constitution and the Guerriere

Stan Rogers
45 Years From Now
Harris and the Mare
Canol Road
Night Guard
Barrett's Pirateers

Kate Wolf
Green Eyes
Give Yourself to Love
Two Way Waltz
Medicine Wheel

David Littlefield
Overlock's Orchestra
Promenade

Richard Thompson
Bright Lights Tonight
Valerie
A Heart Needs a Home
Galway to Graceland
Shane and Dixie
Small Town Romance
Waltzing's For Dreamers
Valerio
Strange Affair
Never Again
Princess is Dancing at the Egypt Room
Died For Love
How Will I Ever be Simple Again
Has He Got a Friend (appears on the 2005 Free Reed Box Set, "RT-The Life and Times of Richard Thompson")

David Cowan
Guitar and the Woman
Memorial Day
What We Gonna Do

Robin Williams
Daughter of MacLeod
Whipporwill

Uncle Bonsai
Family Restaurant
My Father's House
Lois 
In It for the Children
Penis Envy
Don't Put It in Your Mouth
Still In Love

Dave Goulder
The January Man
Sandwood Down to Kyle
Easter Tree

Utah Phillips
Song For Eddie
Green Rolling Hills of West Virginia
Goodnight Loving Trail
All Used Up

Jethro Tull
On the Inside
Nursie/Wondering Aloud
Fire at Midnight
Underwraps

John Prine
Bottomless Lake 
Hello In There
Far From Me
Illegal Smile
Come Back to Us Barbara Lewis

Eileen McGann
Isabella Gunn 
Canoe Song at Twilight 

<>Miscellaneous
All The Tunes (E. McVicker)
Ballad of Weaverville (Jim Ringer)
Sugar Trade (James Taylor)
Mary and Omie (Nancy Griffith)
Abiezer Copp (Leon Rosselson)
The Rose You Wore For Me (Carnahan)
Loughrask (Carnahan)
The Rock Against the Tide (Brian MacNeil)
Back 'O the North Wind (Brian MacNeil)
Dreamers (Lloyd Foote)
Rufus and Beverly (M. Graham)
Red Velvet (Ian Tyson)
Home is Where the Heart Is (Clive Gregson)
Thanksgiving Eve (Bob Franke)
Alma (Tom Lehrer)
St. Brendan's Faire Isle (Driftwood)
Unicorns (Bill Caddick)
Wealthiest of Men (Geoff Bartley)
Rosa's Carollas (Kate Campbell)
Bring 'Im On (John Tams)
I Can See Your Aura (Mark Graham)
Just a Note (Ewan MacColl)
Sir Richard's Song (Kipling/Bellamy)
The Long Grey Line (Alan Hunter)

<>Kids' Songs
Waltzing With Bears
Safari Up My Sister's Nose (Peter Alsop)
No, No, No (Peter Alsop)
My Brother Threw Up (Barry Louis Polisar)
Bottomless Lake (John Prine)
The Thinnest Man
Good Clam Chowder
The Stars at Night
Wild About Horns

Topical
The Working Man
Bread and Roses (Mimi Farina)
We Have Fed You All
Two Right Arms (Charlie King)
Stand Up For Judas (Rosselsson)
Palaces Of Gold (Rosselson)
Red-Winged Blackbird (Wheeler)
Coal Tattoo (Wheeler)

Acapella (Non-Trad)
Jazzman (Fred Holstein)
The January Man (Dave Goulder)
Easter Tree (Dave Goulder)
I Can See Your Aura (M. Graham)
The World Turned Upside Down (Rosselson)
Palaces of Gold(Rosselson)
Isabelle (Steeleye Span)
Lovely Agnes (Sally Rogers)
Land of Light (Roy Guillen)
Traveller's Prayer (Renbourne)
Acapella Stella (Prior)
Tired O’ Workin’ (Reid)
Grey Funnel Line (Tawny)
The Classical Greeks (Graham)

Chorus Songs
Shawneetown
St. Brendan’s
Gypsum Davey
Flash Company
Good Fish Chowder
Give Yourself to Love
Maids When you’re Young
Lovely Agnes
Padstow Drinking Song
Female Highwayman
Farmer and the Devil's Curst Wife
Walloping Window Blind

Sea Songs
Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy
Bay of Biscay-O
Bold Princess Royal
Bullgine Run 
Cape Cod Girls
Constitution and the Guerrier
Dreadnaught Mutiny (Jerry Bryant)
Fire Marengo
Go Down You Blood Red Roses
Grey Funnel Line (Tawney)
Maid On the Shore
Man O'War
My Boy Jack (Bellamy/Kipling)
My Johnny Was a Shoemaker
Paddy Lay Back 
The Rainbow
Rolling Down the Bay to Julianna
Saucy Sailor
Shawneetown
Topman and the Afterguard
Weary Cutters
Wings of a Gull


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