How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Anon (but alive)
Date: 15 Oct 98 - 11:21 PM

In 1907, after collecting and studying about 1500 folk songs, Cecil Sharp wrote a book entitled 'English Folksongs: Some Conclusions'. The first conclusion: A folk song is always anonymous.

If you can read that last paragraph, you aren't dead and forgotten, so as far as creating a folk song goes, you can't get there from here.

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Les B
Date: 16 Oct 98 - 01:53 AM

And don't forget the animals with all their amazing deeds and needs: a. If it's a dog, it's gonna die and you'll need a golden chain to lower it down with b. If it's a swan, as soon as you shoot it it's gonna turn into your girlfriend. c. If it's a horse it will be re-e-al fast or too slow, and you're going to let it swill wine. d. If it's a parrot, you're going to have to bribe it not to tell your mother/father/ or keeper of the chastity belt where you've been.

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 Oct 98 - 10:37 AM

And if the swan survives being shot, the girlfriend has a broken wing, or her left side is full of feathers. And if it is a raven, there are three of them, watching and waiting; and if it is a fish, it either has a ring in its mouth or it turns into a golden girl; and if it is a robin, it weeps; and if it is a whale, it is followed by the blighted lover in lessons 1-50 of this book.

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Ian HP
Date: 18 Oct 98 - 02:09 PM

Alan, your song shows real genius. Wonderful! I don't know if you had a tune in mind, but I find it goes well to 'Searching For Lambs'. I may even try it out. Regards . . .

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From:
Date: 18 Oct 98 - 09:46 PM

It always amazes me how sweethearts fail to recognize their sailor lovers when they return home from sea, usually loaded with gold. I sometimes run into people I haven't seen in twenty years and still recognize them.

This thread also got me thinking -- what happened to Shula?

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 Oct 98 - 11:24 PM

Check out the title song on a strange LP by some F.N. called THAT'S THE TICKET (Folk Legacy Records).

It's a strange little hairball of a broken-token song I regurgitated one night after too much Laphraoig.

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Alice
Date: 19 Oct 98 - 03:08 AM

Hi again, alison, it was me who mentioned this old thread in the folksong writing thread. Thanks for bringing it back to the top. I've been in Denver for three days and unable to get to the Mudcat... seems like forever.

Alice in Montana

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Jennifer
Date: 19 Oct 98 - 05:47 AM

After reading this list and nearly dying of laughter I was inspired to write this song. It combines whaling, murder, whiskey, and of course rebellion into one happy little tune -- all the cliches I could find in the list. So sorry for inflicting this on you, I just want to post it before the creative urge leaves me. Tried to follow the rules here -- I think a new one should be that all placenames have to end with '-O'. Another thing I've noticed -- and tried to use here -- is that rhyming is -never- perfect in an Irish song. Anyone else noticed this?

Jennifer

The Whiskey, the Girl, and the Rebel

My name is O'Reilly, I'm a sailor of yore
I've sailed for the whales from the far western shore
'Twas on May thirty in nineteen sixteen
I joined the bold rebels with their whiskey so keen

My dearest love Sally said "Do not ye go,"
"To the wilds and the mountains of Ireland-O"
"But I must go," I cried, "for my captain so lean"
"Has fled to the rebels, with their whiskey so keen."

My Captain I'd met him in Botany Bay
I found him while wanderin', on a cold wintry day
He cried, "I want a sailor for to hunt on the main"
He signed me and fed me with whiskey so keen

So long years I've traveled now, far on the seas
Beaten and bitten, by the cat and the fleas
So I've gone to Dublin, where me love Sally Breen
Cannot hold me back from the whiskey so keen

Sally cried, "Willie, I pray ye, don't go,"
'Tis treason and murder, tae hell ye will go,"
I said, "You are a Briton and I'm Irish Free,"
"I'll slay you and drink of the whiskey so keen."

She cried, "Dearest Willie don't murder me dead,"
A raven it came to me shoulder in dread.
She gazed at the raven as I drew my knife keen
"I'll come back to haunt you, o'er your whiskey so keen."

Well, Sally was right and her ghost came for me
Wi' blood on her fingers, her breast and her knees
And her ghost's sad screaming, the moans and the keens
It drove me to drinkin' the whiskey so keen

I fled to the mountains, the eyries so high
And fought 'gainst the British for proud liberty
I've killed me some Tommies, but was captured in green
And now I will die without whiskey so keen

And now as I stand here, o'er gallows so high
And wait for to hang, twixt the earth and the sky
Well, I wish I'd listened, tae Sally o' Breen,
For ne'er more will I sip from the whiskey so keen.

I hope this comes out OK and readable. Don't think it was too bad for a Yiddish-American.

Jennifer

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 19 Oct 98 - 11:07 PM

Jennifer,

Nicely done. So typical it sounds like you collected it.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Alice
Date: 20 Oct 98 - 11:17 AM

I tried to re-read the thread to add something new. (Good one, Jennifer.) We haven't covered all the confusion/conflict that relates to families:

a).Lovers needing permission to marry from fathers/mothers, (when denied, double suicide)

b).Brothers and sisters meeting without recognizing each other, usually in the context that the brother is abusing or murdering the sister.

c).Paternity questions abound.... intermarriage to the confusion of realtionship (I'm my own grandpa type of deal) and infanticide/suicide because of incest, or rocking of the cradle when the baby is not his own.

d).Mother's long suffering hope that the son will return and when he gets there, she died 5 minutes earlier. He has to watch her coffin be buried and live in guilt the rest of his drunken days (the ungrateful jerk).

e).A daughter goes astray and hangs out in the tavern getting syphilis until on her death bed she repents and calls for mom and dad to come and get her body and bury it with roses.

f).A son asks his father to tell the REAL story of the family past and it turns out that either he is not really their son, (and is a foundling prince or magical something or other) or that the family once had a great disgrace or persecution that now requires the son to defend family honor.

There is more, but I have to get back to work.

alice in montana

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Alice
Date: 20 Oct 98 - 11:26 AM

oooops, the unknown brother/sisters, etc, meeting, was covered in the very first thread. alice

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Peter T.
Date: 20 Oct 98 - 12:05 PM

I have always wondered what happens if you show your half of the ring, and the other person shows the other half of the amulet hung around their neck. Does this count? Is this a basis for a stable relationship?

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Mo
Date: 20 Oct 98 - 02:01 PM

Or would it just be a case of "you show me yours and I'll show you mine"! Cheers, Mo

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Bob Landry
Date: 20 Oct 98 - 05:39 PM

Thought about writing some lyrics using this comprehensive guide but, as I read, saw more creativity than I could ever muster.

Jennifer, use the tune Sweet Betsy From Pike, add the words "Sing too rali oorali oorali ay." and you've got yourself a hit.

What a thread ... love it.

Bob

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Jennifer
Date: 21 Oct 98 - 01:39 AM

Roger:
You're right. I wrote the song tongue-in-cheek, but it almost works as a real one. Wonder if this means folksingers really -did- have a system! Just figured that my song goes pretty well to Behan's "Patriot Game." According to the database, this tune is also called, "One Morning in May." :) So, new rule:

Any 'traditional' tune may be used if and only if it is named for one of the attributes in the remainder of this list.

Jennifer

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 21 Oct 98 - 07:25 AM

G'day,
Ian HP, Searching for Lambs does work, the tune I had in mind was The Bold Fisherman, only because the song starts with "As I walked out one May morning. The song is in the DT, if you click the link I've given you'll get the DT tune, a rough approximation to the tune I know.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Jennifer Burdoo
Date: 21 Oct 98 - 08:26 AM

Anyone here ever listened to Tom Lehrer? This is his cliche'd version of an Irish folksong, including some things we already have in our list. I include some of the liner notes to explain his reasoning. Hope they look ok as I've typed in a ton of linebreaks.

Jennifer

...
At any rate, for this elite I have here an ancient Irish ballad, which was written a few years ago, and which is replete with all the accoutrements of this art form. In particular, it has a sort of idiotic refrain, in this case rickety-tickety-tin you'll notice cropping up from time to time, running through, I might add, interminable verses - The large number of verses being a feature expressly designed to please the true devotees of the folk song who seem to find singing fifty verses of On Top Of Old Smokey is twice as enjoyable as singing twenty-five.

This type of song also has what is known technically in music as a modal tune, which means - for the benefit of any layman who may have wandered in this evening - that I play a wrong note every now and then, I think I might add...

This song though does differ strikingly from the genuine folk ballad in that in this song the words which are supposed to rhyme - actually do.

About a maid I'll sing a song,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
About a maid I'll sing a song,
Who didn't have her fam'ly long.
Not only did she do them wrong,
She did ev'ryone of them in, them in,
She did ev'ryone of them in.

One morning in a fit of pique,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
One morning in a fit of pique,
She drowned her father in the creek.
The water tasted bad for a week,
And we had to make do with gin, with gin,
We had to make do with gin.

Her mother she could never stand,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
Her mother she could never stand,
And so a cyanide soup she planned.
The mother died with the spoon in her hand,
And her face in a hideous grin, a grin,
Her face in a hideous grin.

She set her sister's hair on fire,
a-Rickety-tickety-tin,
She set her sister's hair on fire,
And as the smoke and flame rose high'r,
Danced around the funeral pyre,
Playin' a violin, -olin,
Playin' a violin.

She weighted her brother down with stones,
a-Rickety-tickety-tin,
She weighted her brother down with stones,
And sent him off to Davy Jones.
All they ever found were some bones,
And occasional pieces of skin, of skin,
Occasional pieces of skin.

One day when she had nothing to do,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
One day when she had nothing to do,
She cut her baby brother in two,
And served him up as an Irish stew,
And invited the neighbors in, -bors in,
Invited the neighbors in.

And when at last the police came by,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
And when at last the police came by,
Her little pranks she did not deny.
To do so she would have had to lie,
And lying, she knew, was a sin, a sin,
Lying, she knew, was a sin.

My tragic tale I won't prolong,
Rickety-tickety-tin,
My tragic tale I won't prolong,
And if you do not enjoy my song,
You've yourselves to blame if it's too long,
You should never have let me begin, begin,
You should never have let me begin.

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Peter T.
Date: 21 Oct 98 - 12:06 PM

Tom Lehrer - the best. And let us not forget his characterization of folk music -- "In folk music there is a fine line between the rustic and the crummy".

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Jerry Friedman
Date: 21 Oct 98 - 03:40 PM

And the obligatory, "The reason most folk songs are so bad is that they werre written by the people."

Most of Lehrer's brilliant songs, including "The Folk Song Army", are in the database.

Dibs on the wrong-broken-theme! ("Dibs" is folk for "copyright".) Unless Peter T. wants it, since he mentioned it first. Unless it's already the Thieme of "That's the Ticket". Unless anyone else wants it, since there's no intellectual property around here. (And not necessarily for lack of property.)

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 12:05 AM

refresh and laugh til the tears roll down! Great threads never die!

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Bonedaddy
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 02:03 AM

Hey, what about hair? You know...my love had/has raven hair or hair as red as fire or how bout the whole "flowing" thing and what about"mane"and tangled,toussled,falling ore her breast/bossom/beating heart, soft as silken thread, and lets not forget........GOLDEN!!!!!!!!! hair thing? I mean, if your going to stab a loved one in the heart down by the river on a summers eve after the train wreck, but before finding out she's actually your sister, at least describe her hair!

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 03:43 AM

... and then she can tear her hair! Also, shoe should have milk-white hands, which she can wring at the same time. It's not often I tear my own hair (other people's is more fun), but I've never managed to do it while wringing my hands (or when holding bricks, but that's another story!).

Steve

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 03:45 AM

Oh, and feet should be tender or pretty little. Except for Clementine, of course, and her song's been written already.

Steve

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 04:27 AM

How about the pregnant pause after a heavy sigh which swells her bosom like a ship being tossed about on the sea of wretchedness; a sigh full of longing or giving up or giving in.

Moving on from the sigh, there's the bated breath,or the heaving which writhes about in the fog of the early mornng dew or the late night fog of Londontown, filling up every crevice, revealing nothing until the passion of the moment is rent by a scream of terror/anger/murder.

As for the hair, don't forget to have him clutch those golden tresses as her lifeblood slips away, or while he bends her back, exposing her virginal white neck, as he watches a thin line of blood stain as her life ebbs slowing away, victim of his oh so sharp knife; or, having her take out her locket, open it up and fondle the small strand of his hair she keeps next to her bosom while she pines away for her sailor-O!

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 06:12 AM

Better not go out in a fog that fills every crevice if your bosom's swelling!

And bravely shone her bosom fair ... I've never seen a shining bosom, although I've had my glasses steamed up once or twice. How come that never happens in folk songs?

Sorry to go on about bosoms so much. I'm a leg man, actually.

Steve

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: SueH
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 07:16 AM

Well, Steve, in that case I think you have to concentrate on the girl seeking her sailor lover, disguised as a cabin boy.

This gives you opportunity to insert lines about tight breeches into every verse.....

I'm glad you refreshed this thread, katlaughing. It's hysterical - & I think I missed it first time around.

Sue

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Roger the zimmer
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 08:04 AM

"Men are always of two types: stevedore or troubadors" (P.G. Wodehouse, allegedly) might apply to FS.

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 08:44 AM

What if the sailor prefers her as a cabin boy?

Stevedor

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: SueH
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 09:54 AM

Well, he could just like tight breeches too.....

Could her name be Bob?

Sue

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 10:53 AM

Are we getting back to swelling bosoms here?

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Jeri
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 11:19 AM

Well, the sex of those 'handsome cabin boys' who don't become pregnant from eating biscuits (never did figure that one out) is usually 'exposed' so to speak when something disastrous happens to cause undressing, and a swelling bosom inevitably pops out.

Go look at: FOR THE LOVE OF WILLY (WILLY-O)

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Alice
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 11:33 AM

Have we covered all the types of cross dressing in order to find the true love? (Oh, a livery I'll wear and I'll comb back my hair, - In velvet so green I will appear, - And it's then I will repair to the Curragh of Kildare, - For it's there I'll find tidings of my dear.)

alice

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 11:35 AM

In the following song scenario, the CAPITALIZED words are generally classic folkie idioms and motifs that should be in a possible folksong.-----

How about a song concerning:

1) Waking up in the morning at 1:00 PM & being so out of it from almost O.D.ING on COCAINE the night before that...

2) ...because of your ADDICTION TO CAFFEINE you must head to the COFFEEHOUSE for an ESPRESSO.

3) JOAN, with the LONG BLACK HAIR and the very revealing textured bodystocking is there and you ask her if it was as good for her last night as it was for you? (You share a cigarette.)

3) She says that SHE IS PREGNANT and needs $5,000.00 to go to the BACK ALLEY for an ABORTION from the unlicensed barber back there who gives those and other sexual favors---not unlike Monica in the back seat of your MG that time in FRISCO after the JAM SESSION in that SMOKEY DIVE of a bar that had those great ITALIAN SAUSAGE SANDWICHES. You tell her, "Hey, this is 1961 and abortions only cost ten dollars." She tells you she knows all that but that you never did pay her for last night!

4) You tell her that you have a GIG that very night on WELLS STREET (this is Chicago) and you'll have the BREAD for her by 4:00 A.M. and, LIKE, MAN, I DIG and things are COOL.

5) She MAKES THE SCENE at four in the A.M. but she never knew that this was a TWO "O'CLOCK"--"IRISH" BAR. (Get it? IRISH bar?--O'CLOCK?) I had SPLIT THE SCENE at 2:00 A.M..

6) By 3:00 A.M. I had JUMPED A FREIGHT for ANYWHERE in the WEST and by 7:00 A.M. that very morning (this was the WABASH CANNONBALL and could do WARP 12)I was in NEEDLES, CALIFORNIA with a NEW WIFE and 13 children (BAD LUCK), all named SILO or MOON TUNA or some f.....g silly name like that. (Wouldn't wanna swear---after all, this is a family show!)

7) By the following Thursday I had had 6 other kids by 5 other "WIVES?" and had written over A THOUSAND SONGS about how COOL it was to be totally IRRESPONSIBLE even though several of those CHICKS had committed SUICIDE since I left them and they ran out of BREAD ($) & couldn't buy any food or pay the rent.

8) But hell, I'M A POET--A SINGER/SONGWRITER and I don't ever sweat the small stuff. I even sang a TRADITIONAL SONG once.

9) 28 of those kids died of a disease I passed on to them in their LEVIS (jeans) before they got to be old enough to DRINK.

10) The rest died from ALCOHOLISM for which they were called up before the HOUSE UN-ALCOHOLISM ACTIVITIES COMMMITTEE (those ims are all the same anyhow) where they were effectively harassed for the last ten years of their lives to the extent that those last years were destroyed by some dumb Special Prosecutor hand-picked by the FASCIST president.

11) That president was impeached and tossed out of office by a Congress that had it in for him ever since the last president from their party had LOST THE CIVIL WAR---over 130 years ago. (Very uncivil if you ask me.)

14) That president (the one who was tossed out) gave his MISTRESS, formerly an intern at the White House, (You didn't think she'd really left the picture, did you?) a rather expensive Cuban "CIGAR" that Fidel Castro had sent him, supposedly with hopes of changing U.S. attiudes toward that island nation and to ensure SOLIDARITY FOREVER. That same girl married our FOLKSINGER later and gave him that CIGAR (it always looked to him like half of it had been put in something wet.) Our folksinger later left yet ANOTHER "WIFE" and gone to fight in the SPANISH CIVIL WAR where he learned and wrote at least a million new SONGS.

15) IN SPAIN he had his ARM BLOWN OFF when an exploding CIGAR his "girlfriend" had given him simply ripped his arm from his body (it was a FAREWELL TO ARMS!!) and tore up his lips pretty bad too. Before he left for Spain he gave the same gal HALF OF A GOLDEN RING to remember him by. He'd been smoking that cigar when he should've been fighting in the BATTLE OF GANDEZA. The arm fell into the EBRO RIVER where it was lost and never found.

16) HIS HAlF OF THE RING was, unexplainably, supposedly on the ring finger of that hand.

17) SEVEN YEARS LATER he came home and, since he was now 95 years old, SHE COULDN'T RECOGNIZE HIM. The explosion (which some had thought was a MINE EXPLOSION) also blew off his DO-NE-AMMA-WHANG-A-DOODLE-DOO-ME-AMMA-DAY.

18) Yes, that is why she couldn't recognize him---because he'd lost his DNAWADDMAD. It wasn't because he had lost his half of the RING. (To this very day they always check ones "DNA" (as it's called) to see if residual bodily residues came from a certain guy. And the common term for that mass of seed is referred to as "blowing your "WAD"! And getting various venereal diseases will make you "MAD"! All those are from the big anagram. In actuality the ring had fallen off long before because anybody with half a brain would know that HALF A RING would never stay on your stupid finger. --- And a PAP TEST was, of course, to find out who the father of your kid was!

19) Years after this famous SINGER-SONGWRITER had joined the HEAVENLY CHORUS, this FAIR YOUNG DAMSEL wrote the quintessential folksong called (get ready!)

---"WHY DO YOU BOBBIT YOUR HAIR GIRLS" !!!!!

20) And she died very rich and so did their son, Silo, from royalties from all his recently composed (?)folksongs---whatever the hell those should more properly be called.

21) Indeed, SILO lived to a ripe old age and was never touched by his fathers disease. Some even will say, in an unguarded moment, that he never did look anything like his father...??!! I guess we'll never really know the truth---whatever that is!

Some day I'll write this song, but for now...

Love,

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 11:49 AM

BRAVO!! ART STRIKES AGAIN WITH BRILLIANCY!!!

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: SueH
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 11:52 AM

Ah, Steve, you're obviously not a Blackadder fan. (and if you've seen it, that gentle hint will tell you what I'm talking about. If not, believe me, it would take too long to explain, except to say that there's a girl dressed up as a cabin boy, she saysd she's called Bob but she's actually Kate.......)

Sorry, with the exception of a couple of people, I'm never sure which side of the Atlantic I'm addressing.

Sue

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Shimbo
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 12:18 PM

Absolutely fascinating! What imaginations you people have! With apologies to my fellow Australians who have already submitted, I suggest the following rules (which can, of course, be added to) for Oz folk songs.

1. A swaggie, two coolibahs, Ned Kelly, several peelers (preferably dead), and heaps of gunplay are mandatory.

2. Sheep should be mentioned, unless you're Tasmanian. I am, so I can make that comment. (For the non-Aussie contributors, many unsavoury jokes are made about Tasmanians and sheep.)

3. The lyrics should be set to a lilting melody (such as The Dead March from Saul), and should be sung on key occasionally.

4. And let's not forget some Aussie slang. It should be hard to understand unless you lived before the depression, and should not be understood at all by anyone under 30 years old. Things like whaling (nothing to do with marine creatures), johnny cakes, lambing down, ryebuck shearers, etc.

I'll leave it there, because it's early morning, and I have a folk practice session later today.

Lest you think I'm running Aussie folk down, I hasten to assure you I sing Aussie songs with great delight ... and I even understand some of them!

Congrats on your effort, Alan of Aus. I'll try and match it later this weekend, if I can muster the energy, and locate the Muse.

Oh, b*gg*r it, I'll try a quickie now:

Say Alan man and did you plan that song that you just writ A bit more work, a chorus too, and you'll have quite a hit CDs, tapes, and vinyl discs will fill your purse with loot But what about a johnny cake and coolibahs to boot. The Lachlan River you have missed, and lambing down as well, Addition of Ned Kelly, and swaggies would be swell A ryebuck shearer, dead police, smoking bushranger's guns Maggie May and Gundagai, it gives a man the ... (time for me to leave)

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: SueH
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 12:30 PM

Don't forget if you have sheep, you have to have shearing too!

And a sheep station

and a river

and grog

and, and and....

Sue

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: SueH
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 12:31 PM

sorry, Joe, forgot the line breaks in my haste.

Sue

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 12:35 PM

Here in Wyoming, if you have sheep, there has to be a very lonely sheepherder. After all, I am sure Wyoming has the market on the slogan, "Wyoming...where men are men and sheep are nervous!"

kat

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: SueH
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 01:27 PM

No, no, I'm sure that's Wales....

Sue

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Alice
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 01:56 PM

umm... Art, shouldn't that be a PAPPY test?

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 30 Jul 99 - 11:37 PM

Kat,

You can't pull the wool over my...

I was almost too sheepish to say that. And what would the Master Of The Sheepfold be if he was also really good at putting bait on fishing hooks? Yep, you get a gold star on your forehead skin.

Art

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Shimbo
Date: 31 Jul 99 - 10:15 AM

Sorry, folks, I'm learning on the run. Now I have worked out that I need to use html, I'll try my "quickie" again. Should be a little easier to follow this time.

Say Alan man and did you plan that song that you just writ
A bit more work, a chorus too, and you'll have quite a hit
CDs, tapes, and vinyl discs will fill your purse with loot
But what about a johnny cake and coolibahs to boot.
The Lachlan River you have missed, and lambing down as well,
Addition of Ned Kelly, and swaggies would be swell.
A ryebuck shearer, dead police, smoking bushrangers' guns
Maggie May and Gundagai, it gives a man the ... (time for me to leave)

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 31 Jul 99 - 08:23 PM

I do believe my broken token parody called "That's The Ticket" is in the data base...

Art

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: GUEST,T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 17 May 00 - 04:52 PM

I enjoy this one so much I thought I'd bring it back for the rest the forum.

T.

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: GUEST,Rich(stupidbodhránplayerwhodoesn'tknowanybet
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 12:26 AM

To those who forbade certain colors etc., simply on the basis that they would be hard to rhyme, I must remind you of the ultimate folk poetic license that says Everything rhymes with -O attached to the last word!

Missed this thread twice! Glad to have the opportunity to get in on it!

Rich

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Alice
Date: 09 Sep 00 - 12:36 AM

I love this old thread. A real Mudcat classic.

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 15 Jul 01 - 11:30 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 01 - 01:19 PM

Of course when you reverse a folksong,

Th Redcoats are victorious,

Johny Todd finds his true love has remained faithfull,

and

Theres a void in the sea bed, 40 miles off Aberdeen.

Gareth

Subject: RE: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 01:26 AM

refish