I’ve been (re) listening to Delta 5 a bit recently and one of my favourite tracks is Train Song. I can’t find any lyrics online but they seem to include references to knitting (“cast on three for another’s jumper”). Is this unique in he annals of popular music or are there other songs with lyrics celebrating knitting, crocheting, needlepoint or other fabric-related crafts?
Songs about knitting
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Ashley Hutching’s Rainbow Chasers recorded The Knitting Song.
Uncertain if they sang about the subject, but various ex members of X, LA punk band, rebranded as the Knitters
Purl 1, Chain 1?
Canada’s Cathy MIller is The Singing Quilter. Her music has helped me realise that James Brown was wrong. This is a Quilter’s World
A word to the wise. According to her website (http://www.singingquilter.com/) Cathy and her husband John will retire from touring next year. I know, it’s shock to me too. This isn’t like Status Quo who threaten to retire, give us all hope of relief from Repetitive Riff Injury and then carry on regardless. Bastards.
No, Cathy’s cotton reel is empty, this is the last ditch stitch, from now on all her patches are bald. After this it’s mass-produced bedspreads from Bensons For Beds and piped muzak over shitty speakers.
In other words don’t be one of those people who ends up regretting for the rest of their life not going to a concert when the opportunity was there to catch Cathy, her sewing, her fabrics, her singing and her husband in their quilting prime.
I was determined to call your bluff and point out that, as an Afterword quilter, I did indeed rate Cathy’s output and mourned her decision to hang up her Sew-Ezi portable sewing table.
However, after investigating further, I think I’ll stick to mining my Dad’s old jazz CDs or singing along to FFS while binding my latest quilt creation (yet another anti-cat quilt – the only thing between her claws and my scored and punctured legs …)
Have you considered combining your cat’s love of scratching with your love of music so that both of you can channel your impulses harmoniously?
Jim Crochet – Bad Bad Leroy Brown (The baddest knitter in the whole damned town)
Bill Oddie – The Knitting Song
Pearl’s A Singer
Wool You Still Love Me Tomorrow
The Stitch Is Back
The Chain
Embroider Rigby
Sorry Seams To Be The Hardest Wool
Knit Me With Your Rhythm Stitch
The Knitting Needle and The Darning Done
Those utter nitwits Alex James and Keith Allen with Vindaloo:
Can I introduce you please
To a lump of cheddar cheese?
Knit one, pearl one
Drop one, curl one
Liza Minnelli recommends you put aside your knitting and indulge in something far more hedonistic.
Deep Purple’s Mary Long gets up to some rum things and one of them involves knitting patterns.
http://youtu.be/GHIdzl5zyws
Here’s a quite catchy ditty: The Knitting Song by Sophie Madeleine.
Belle & Sebastion aren’t averse to a spot of knitting, even if the boyfriend is seeing someone else.
Dress Up In You
As you might expect, Nana Mouskouri enjoyed knitting.
http://youtu.be/w24wMyy8cBI
The Spinning Wheel
“So, a needle pulling thread..” from Do-Re-Mi in The Sound of Music
(NB. No Nazis or the stitching in lederhosen were harmed in the filming and recording of this song)
How soon we forget…
Henry Cow always had a knitted sock on their album covers. Does that count?
God darn it, NO!
Wool on the Hill
Daddy Wool
Where’s me jumper?
I believe I can ply
Darning Socks, by Mrs E, from Sir Henry at Rawlinson End.
Father McKenzie darned his own socks too! The line was a contribution from Ringo.
Unashamedly aggressive in its love of the sheep hair,
http://youtu.be/OcguLZaMelE
http://youtu.be/OcguLZaMelE
Cotton Fields (The Cotton Song) – The Beach Boys
(Cotton) Reel Around The Fountain – The Smiths
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxLFav1Z9EY
And finally: Knitting with Macbeth
Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep’, the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast,–
Dolly Parton – Coat Of Many Colours
From the album Teddy Boys Don’t Knit here’s Vivian Stanshall with Ginger Geezer
And I thought I’d draw a blank. Thanks guys.
Although not a song I wanted to share this.
Judy Dyble (when still with Fairport Convention) sat on the front of the stage at the Speakeasy club knitting, while Hendrix and Richard Thompson jammed.
Oh good. That gives me the excuse to post The Plastic Ono Band performing Instant Karma! Yoko Ono kept herself busy knitting in a blindfold. Fabulous record. Probably the best by a ‘solo’ Beatle.