Hello Jim

'The whole history of folk song scholarship has become a target for dismissal and distrust'.

It seems to me that the history of folk song scholarship has to be at least in part a narrative of scholars 'dismissing' and 'mistrusting' eachother's work, though I think I'd prefer 'discussing and disagreeing with' as less emotive terms?

Folklorists came up with theories about 'folk song' as a whole and the origins of particular songs, and even motifs, such as the delousing which both Child and Lloyd devoted time to considering.

To give just one example, Lloyd dismissed and distrusted the idea that Lady Isabel and the EK derived in part from the story of Judith and Holoferness. He was less dismissive of the Bluebeard link, though at least one of his sources was dismissive of that idea.

The Nygard piece referenced by Lloyd argues that the folklorists of the different countries within which Lady Isabel versions had been found gave accounts of it which fitted in with their particular national cultures, so that those used to stories about water-based mythological creatures emphasised that aspect etc.

In short, the folklore scholarship of the last hundred years was not the monolithic entity one might imagine.

In addition, as my brief investigations into Lady Isabel show, the also discussed 'methodology' ie what factors it was good and bad to take into account when tracing ballads across continents and through disparate cultures, and what factors might lead one to decide that one song was part of a particular grouping and not another.

I don't think would be right to say that all the scholars of the 20th century operated with the same idea of 'the folk', even if they had all agreed that 'folk songs' were ones that originated with the folk. To give one example, not all of them would have been operating with or even have written papers including definitions based on a deterministic variety of Marxism.

Roud, it seems to me, doesn't get involved with these theoretical debates, many of which seem not to have been resolved, but sticks to what can be said with reasonable certainty about the musical practices of ordinary people over a few relatively recent centuries. He draws upon contemporary accounts, diaries, libel trials, memoires to build up a fascinating picture.

Roud seems quite clear about what he sets out to do.

On page 3 Roud says: 'So, this is a book of social history, covering folk song in England from the sixteenth century to about 1950... The book's main argument is that the social context of traditional singing is the key to understanding its nature, but is also precisely the component which has often been neglected in past discussion of the subject....One of the dominant themes of the book is that folk song, however, defined, did not exist in a cultural vacuum, and we will dedicate some time to investigating the 'other musics' that were available to ordinary people in the past, and which potentially influenced the styles and repertoires of their own song cultures.'

Roud seems to give theorising rather short shrift, I admit: he says 'Writers of general books about folk song usually feel it their duty to give the subject deep roots, but the fact is that there is so little evidence about vernacular singing in the earlier periods that all is speculation..... ' I am not sure that it is entirely fair to equate the developments of theories as 'speculation', theorising for me has at least to have some evidential basis and arguments, whereas speculation is less bounded to what is known 'as a fact'.

On pages 5-6 Roud refers to what he calls 'the collection boom' of the Victorian and Edwardian enthusiasts, and says 'the corpus of "folk songs" discovered and documented by the collectors is one of the starting points of this book.' That seems pretty clear to me.

Roud says that his book will go beyond the narrow 'what folk songs did people sing' approach of the Vic/Ed people and ask 'what songs did the folk sing'?

Roud then goes on to defend the idea of 'folk' from the onslaught of Harker in 'Fakesong', with his own ideas on why 'The Marxist generation (which appears to include both Lloyd and Harker) turned against folk song: he says ultimately it did not meet their expectations in terms of furthering their cause. I can see that this is red rag to a bull for some people. But this view of Roud's is of course, another 'theory' and, I suppose, one that people in another generation may in their turn discuss and/or disagree with.

MacColl is mentioned here. This thread has carried denials that MacColl passed his own songs off as folk songs. Roud does not go that far, he simply says that his need for songs to fit the narratives of 'programmes like the "Radio Ballads" prompted him to fill the many lacunae by writing his own.' A song about travellers being evicted is one (according to the Telegraph, which does describe his songs as 'folk', and says that Mary Poppins was the inspiration for another! I didn't know he wrote 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face') But there is an implication in Roud about the narrative being in some sense 'not real', I guess.


I quite like MacColl's songs: I have heard the Manchester Rambler sing quite ofen, and I like the Pogues' version of Dirty Old Town.

(I didn't realise his descendant was in The Bombay Bicycle Club.)

I have just realised that Roud is *very* helpful if you are trying to understand some of the heated arguments that arise on some Mudcat threads.

Best wishes to all. Bother it, it looks like another very hot day!