Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,Goose Gander
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 01:29 PM

"I'm a bit of a stickler for tunes"

I'm pretty sure that in past threads you've told us that you often improvise tunes. And tunes and words go together, so my comments weren't entirely off topic. And my original point remains - Everyone changes songs, and there's no point in singing folk songs if you're not trying to make them your own. Why slavishly recreate someone else's work? They have paint-by-numbers if you like that sort of thing.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 01:38 PM

I've come across some interesting analogues in visual art.

I once met a woman in Greece who did Orthodox icon painting. She was an American convert, so much into Orthodoxy that the only music she listened to was Byzantine chant. She claimed that nobody could tell one of her paintings from one done a thousand years before - the iconography was absolutely fixed. (She also thought this was a good thing).

Some time in the 1980s some arm of the Australian government decided to protect Aboriginal rock paintings as if they were mediaeval church art, with nobody allowed to touch them. This conflicted with what the Aborigines themselves wanted - they would regularly overpaint them as a sacred ceremony. Their position was that as they'd been doing this ever since the Dreamtime, they were the authorities on how those paintings should be cared for. I believe the Aborigines won the argument. This was not quite the same situation as the Greek artist's work. Over 50,000 years, the images must have drifted a bit, even though nobody could observe the change in one lifetime.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 01:53 PM

there's no point in singing folk songs if you're not trying to make them your own...


------
Say what???? That sounds nonsensical to me. There are all sorts of reasons to sing them as you found them. Because your grandmother sang them. Because you like things the way they were in the olden days. Because the words and tune are very pretty. Because there is some important history contained within. Because you have a philosophy that is of preserving them. All sorts of reasons I thought of in about 5 seconds. mg

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 02:05 PM

"I'm not throwing stones, Jim "
Yes you are SO'P and it seems to be one of your favourite occupations.
In the past you have accused collectors and researchers of lying and distorting the information we have collected in order to 'invent' an oral tradition; here you have toned it down somewhat by suggesting we are stupid by allowing ourselves to be conned by a bunch of lying and distorting traditional singers who have fed us the information they believe we wanted.
You never produce evidence to back up these claims - which collectors work have you researched and what have you uncovered to have reached the somewhat low opinion you appear to have of us? I have to say that reading your postings quite often leaves me with the overwhelming feeling of "Why the **** bother; why don't we just archive it and let the future decide".
Regarding the somewhat bizzare distinction between changing words and tune - sorry; don't understand a word of it.
Listening to your recordings leaves me with the impression that the path you have chosen is that of musical theatre - the difference in your approach and that of a traditional singer lies not in alteration of word and tune, but that of a change in the function of a song - it is no longer the narrative piece that is started out as, but has become something else - nothing wrong with that, it just has lost its traditional objective - that of communicating a story.
Mike,
Agree with what you say about Mrs Hogg - to an extent - I believe that literacy and publishing has had an effect on the songs and singing, but not necessatrily as she believed they would.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,Goose Gander
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 02:24 PM

mg, my comments were in the context of a discussion about whether it's "permissible" to change words in songs. My comment in full reflects my point. Here it is, again (12XU!) . . . "Everyone changes songs, and there's no point in singing folk songs if you're not trying to make them your own. Why slavishly recreate someone else's work? They have paint-by-numbers if you like that sort of thing." My friend sings The Galway Shawl, which he learned from his mother. He does NOT sing it precisely as his mother sang it. He has learned more verses, smoothed out the diction, substituted some awkward bits, etc. That is an example of what I mean.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 02:34 PM

I guess I have sort of what we think the Native American philosophy is to the land, and we may or may not have heard it right..but that they are not "our own"...maybe unless we wrote them and even then if we took extreme legal measures somehow. I think they belong to the community, certainly the community they are about or that created them, but also a worldwide community, as in whoever likes them, barring certain sacred songs, can sing them.

It is like going into a forest in a national campground and saying I am going to make this tree my own, not by sitting under it and photographing it etc., but by trimming the branches and painting happy faces on it or whatever. mg

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,Goose Gander
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 02:51 PM

"It is like going into a forest in a national campground and saying I am going to make this tree my own, not by sitting under it and photographing it etc., but by trimming the branches and painting happy faces on it or whatever"

No, it isn't. A tree is damaged forever by such 'improvements' whereas if I change a song that I sing to my dog, no material damage is done and no one really even knows the difference unless I talk about it.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 02:55 PM

Folks, permissible has nothing to do with it.
We do what we do. I never sang a song the same way twice. If the director of my old NPR radio show was telling me we were out of time, I'd figure a way to sum up the song and end it. Hell if a great folksinger decides to be another gender, who is to say anything about permissible??!!

The more things change, the more they get different. It might take an individual a few decades to understand the complete truth of that, but it is the way of this world. Hell, it's the way if this universe------and a few others maybe.

Love,

Art

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Rumncoke
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 03:57 PM

But there isn't 'A tradition' there isn't 'A revival' - not here at my house.

There was only ever singing. My mum sang, so did her mum, they had a piano - in his youth my dad played an auto harp, we had a piano at home.

I have had people come and ask me about the songs I sing, but I can't tell them much about them - I don't take songs off records only hear people singing them and write them down. OK these days I can't manage to remember a song at one hearing like I used to do and it bothers me when I look around for written down words and can't find the rest to the bits I remember.

I know I have put in thee's and thou's in places - my dialect is from Barnsley South Yorkshire - it is my natural way of speaking and surfaces when I get angry. It is not a conscious changing of the words, I just open my mouth and those are the words that come out.

I think there is studying songs and there is singing them and it might be interesting to collect, and being the man on the bicycle seems a bit of a cushy number to me, but I am 60 years old next April and life is too short for such luxuries.

I sing my songs to my grandson, not to pass them on but because that is what a nana does.

And it shuts him up, diverts him from things he should not be doing and lulls him to sleep.

Anne Croucher

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Deckman
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 03:58 PM

The thoughtfull comments on this subject continue! One way that I KNOW I have purposefully changed songs that I've sung over the many years is that I sometimes now emphasize interpretations that were always in the song, but I didn't have the wisdom to recognize them when I was younger.

Maybe I should sue myself, as a blaspherer of tradition songs ... anybody know a good lawyer! bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 04:09 PM

Off topic a little, but can I highly recommend a newly published book on the work and gleanings of the early English collectors entitled 'The Late Victorian Folksong Revival' (The Persistence of English Melody 1878-1903), by E.David Gregory; loads of songs and good commentary which provide an excellent background to our folk repertoire.
It's a meaty book (583pp) at a meaty price, but if you feel like re-morgaging your grandmother, it's available on the net.
For those who havent come across The Book Depository, they have a good stock, including this, and don't charge postage.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 05:07 PM

What was the figure? 90 different versions of "Barbara Allen" found in one county in Virginia alone?

If you learn a song from a collection by Sharp, Lomax, Sandburg, et al., that's the version that that particular collector picked up from that particular singer, who may very well have made changes, either intentionally or inadvertently, from the version that he or she learned from someone else. Who in turn—

Little dogs have little fleas
Upon their backs to bite 'em.
And little fleas have littler fleas,
And so ad infinitum.

And the same goes for learning songs from records. What I said above holds for both field recordings and commercial recordings as well as for books. Many people, including me, have learned, and continue to learn, songs from commercial recordings, a very rich source of material. And there is much variation there. For example, I have two recordings of The Unquiet Grave, one by Joan Baez and the other by Andrew Rowan Summers. They differ. Only slightly, but a word here and a line there. And I believe Baez sings a verse that Summers does not. Along with this, I have texts of the same ballad in several books, all essentially the same, but each one differing a little from the others. The version that I sing is a blending of several of the versions that I have heard and read, mostly this one, some of that one, and a bit of the other.

But all the versions tell the same story and tell it quite effectively.

Check the Child collection. There are sometimes dozens of versions of the same ballad, all telling, essentially, the same story, but with many variations in the way the story is told.

In the late 1950s, I took a class in "The Popular Ballad" from Prof. David C. Fowler in the University of Washington English Literature department. Dr. Fowler has written a book or two on the ballads, and he sang a bit himself. When the class was finished (along with the final exam), one of the students who sang and played the Celtic harp, invited the class to her home to have a song fest. During the course of the evening, Dr. Fowler asked if anyone knew a version of The Gypsy Laddie, Child #200. I knew one: The Wraggle-Taggle Gypsies. So I sang it.

But a couple of years before this, late one night, a singing friend of mine and I sat in an all-night restaurant over coffee, going over the words of The Wraggle-Taggle Gypsies, which, incidentally, both of us had learned from a Susan Reed record. We came up with the notion that if one small change were made in the final verse, it would really add a dramatic punch to the song, which we both felt it seemed to lack.

The second to last verse goes

"Last night I slept in a goose feather bed
With the sheets turned back so bravely-oh.
Tonight I'll sleep in a cold, open field,
Along with the wraggle-taggle gypsies-oh."

The final verse in the "official, ordained, and certified" verse merely repeats the same thing, but in the third person.

Last night she slept in a goose feather bed. . . .

What we came up with at two o'clock in the morning over coffee was to keep that verse in the third person, but change one word. So it came out

Last night she slept in a goose feather bed
With the sheets turned back so bravely-oh.
Tonight she sleeps in a cold, open grave,
Along with the wraggle-taggle gypsies-oh.

Ka-POW!! Maybe that's a bit much, but it certainly gives the end of the song a dramatic punch!

Okay, back to the class song-fest. I'd been singing the song that way for a couple of years, and that's the way I sang it that night.

Dr. Fowler's eyebrows went up.

"Where," he asked, "did you learn that version? That last verse?"

I figured, "Uh oh! I'm busted!" I confessed what my friend and I had done along with our reasoning on the matter, and threw myself on Dr. Fowler's mercy.

"You're right!" he said. "It really ends the ballad with a shocker."

"But," I stammered, "I'm not sure that we should have been messing around with a traditional ballad like that."

"I like it," he said. "I don't know for certain, but there may be versions already in existence that end that way. It makes sense dramatically and it does lend impact to the ending. I don't believe field collectors and scholars should make changes, even though many of them did, thinking they were 'improving' them, or 'cleaning them up' and making them less shocking to the easily shocked. That's poor scholarship, really. But performers—now, I think that's different. Changes should not be made indiscriminately, but if you have a good reason for it, then why not, if it makes for a better story?"

And then he used what I consider the magic words: "That's a minstrel's prerogative. Minstrels and traditional folk singers [Emphasis mine—DF] often altered words for the very same reason you did."

I knew that what Dr. Fowler said was true. I felt guilty and vindicated at the same time.

But before one starts making changes right, left, and center, I think they should ponder the matter carefully and have a darned good reason for making a change. If changing of a word or two makes the line easier to sing and doesn't alter the meaning, then why not? Or some verses may be a bit of a jolt or a distraction to an audience, in some cases possibly eliciting inappropriate snickers from the immature. For example, going back to The Unquiet Grave. The "task" verse in some versions:

"Go fetch me water from the desert,
And blood from out of a stone,
And fetch me milk from a fair maiden's breast
That young man never has known."

I've had the occasional audience member either look shocked or get the giggles at this verse. A distraction from the narrative and from the point of the song. So I've dropped it. And—since the moral of this particular ballad is that one should not mourn overlong for the departed because it was believed mourning overlong would disturb them in their grave and "wet their winding sheet with tears." So mourn, yes. But after a decent interval (a year at most), get on with your life and let the dear departed rest. I included this verse from another version, putting it toward the end.

"Mourn not for me, my own true love.
Mourn not for me, I pray,
For I must leave you and all the world
And turn down to my grave."

Then he asks "When shall we meet again?" and she responds, "When the autumn leaves that fall from the trees turn green and spring up again." Meaning, it isn't going to happen, so let it go. And get on with your life.

A sad lesson, really, but one to take to heart.

The problem with making changes that are simply not well thought out is that all too often someone will not understand a word or two and will change it to something they do understand, not being familiar with what might be, say, a technical term in a sea chantey or other work song. Or certain traditions behind a song. A little ballad scholarship can help avoid this. Learn as much about the background of the song as you can. If you don't really understand a word or a line, probably best to leave it alone.

And some really dumb changes take place sometimes when a perfectly good line containing an evocative image doesn't rhyme. Someone changes a word or two to make it rhyme, producing a line that sounds awkward, is awkward to sing, and at the same time, loses the image. If it doesn't rhyme, probably best to simply let it go.

As Dr. Fowler said, if you are going to change a traditional song or ballad, know what you are doing, and have a good reason for any change you might make.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,schlimmerkerl
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 05:28 PM

My favorite example is that Jon Boden took Feste's song from Twelfth Night, "The Wind and the Rain", completely re-wrote it, added new verses, deleted others, new title ("The Rain it Rains"), and gave it a brand new (very nice) tune-- all confirmed by him in email correspondence. The other night, someone in a local group sang it, completely unaware of the Shakespearean origin.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 05:35 PM

OK. Here goes. I do not think you improved that song. You changed it entirely. You put her from alive to dead. If you want to do that, fine...but I think the audience should have information about what you have done. If I knew a person was doing that willy nilly in all sorts of songs, I would not listen to them, buy their CDs etc. If they have a lot of skill, let them write new songs and make up their own stories. I don't think we should change the story that dramatically...or at all..even if we don't understand what the story is. I don't think you have to announce everything at a concert what you did..but maybe tell people that you have a habit of doing that and yu think that your changes improve the song but that they might want to research other older versions. mg

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Deckman
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 05:42 PM

The above posting by Don Firth is a perfect example of why I love this guy so much. We met in 1953, and he's been teaching me ever since! Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 05:49 PM

Don talks a lot of sense in that comment, but on one point I have to agree with mg - I hate that cold open (mass?) grave.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 06:08 PM

I would like to hear from others who have made changes in songs and have them put it out there for honest feedback as to how people find the changes...not for the purpose of stopping them from doing it; they can do it if they like. mg

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 06:29 PM

I have since re-evaluated the last line of The Wraggle-Taggle Gypsies and some time ago, pretty much decided that the change is a bit too radical. Rest easy, folks.

But I do remind you that Dr. Fowler, as knowledgeable a ballad scholar as anyone I've ever met (including Charles Seeger, patriarch of the Seeger family, whom I met and conversed with at the 1964 Berkeley Folk Festival), thought the change was all right and even remarked that there may be versions that end that way.

I'll do some further research. And if I do find one, I may re-re-evaluate my decision. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 06:55 PM

Way up there somewhere, my esteemed colleague Catspaw told the truth of it...
Folk Music is an art form. It may also be a historical art form. But it's not journalism. And changing a song to reflect a current view of historical accuracy is counter to the true historical significance of the song, which is that the song itself is a piece of living history.
As lovers of traditional music, we owe a certain debt to those who came before us, and a responsibility to pass the music on as we received it.
As musicians, we will no doubt make changes depending on the venue, the audience,or our own sense of ethics and propriety. But if we do so, it should be with the sense that we are in fact the ones tampering with history.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 07:13 PM

To me it is like pulling up treasures from the Titanic and saying..oh I can make that pottery prettier..just let me take my magic markers out and put some daisies on it. There. What an improvement. mg

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Melissa
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 07:25 PM

mg,
I'll give you a non-folk example of one I change slightly when I sing it.

John Denver sang Jenny Dreamed of Trains.
When I sing it, I change the phrasing so it feels more storylike coming from my mouth. His version sounds (to me) like a series of nice phrases in a row. My melody is a little bit different also.

Words:
He sings "No one believed her when she said she heard the trains"
I sing "No one believed her when she told them 'bout the trains"

Why? Because I think it sounds better than repeating the word 'said'


He sings "very next morning, all she could find was a little piece of copper squashed flatter than a dime"
I sing "very next morning, all she could find was a little piece of copper smashed flatter than a dime"

Why? I don't think Jenny needed proof..I sing it that way so the townfolk catch a glance of the magic (or whatever) I like the eerie surprise of Maybe she went on the train..maybe she's still in town and they won't think she's just a little girl acting kind of strange anymore.


I do not change gender in songs.
The reason I don't change gender is because some songs don't switch easily and I don't want to limit myself by skipping out on ones I might otherwise like to acquire..but that don't switch gender easily. It would be inconsistent to switch the easy ones and sing the others without switching.


I heard a couple phrases of Hoyt Axton's Rusty Old Halo, wanted to see the words and wasn't able to hear him sing it.
I got the words and started singing it.
My melody is quite a bit different and my chords do not match any recording I've been able to hear after I learned it.
I would sing Jenny nearly anywhere, but I'd keep the Halo out of situations where folks would be likely to tell me I wasn't doing it right.

Is that the type of example you wanted?

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 07:25 PM

Change is enevitable. Resistance to change is also inevitable.
Nothing in this universe is static; if things didn't change, we would be still in the caves trying to invent fire.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 08:06 PM

Yes..and I will give you my honest opinion..which is that the first change is not an improvement to my ears so I don't understand why it was changed..

The second is sort of a draw to me...if I didn't know which was the original I could go either way but maybe prefer squaushed. mg

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Melissa
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 08:16 PM

Fair enough, mg.
My question in return is whether you think your opinion is any of my business.

Where I live, bugs are squashed.
Coins on the track were squished or smashed.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Deckman
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 08:17 PM

Melissa ... Not being able to hear the two versions, I have to say that I am drawn to your changes. This likely represents what some have referred to as ... "making the song your own." As a singer, this is entirely O.K. to me. bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Melissa
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 08:25 PM

wait..after looking back, I see that I didn't write what I meant.

He sings "all she could find"
I sing "all they could find"

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Melissa
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 08:49 PM

Thanks, Deckman!


If I had to choose between singing the songs the same as these recordings or not singing them at all, I wouldn't want to keep either of them.

In my ear, Denver's Jenny sounds vapid and shallow.
In my ear, Axton's Halo sounds like it would be fun to sing in the car but not in public.

When I sing Halo, I do it in 3/4.

Here's Jenny

Rusty Old Halo

If I had recordings of me, I'd poke them in here too for comparison in case anyone was interested.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,Seonaid
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 09:00 PM

Songs, like genes, live in those who carry them, and it's natural to have old as well as new strains. As the originals of Bach and Beethoven never suffered from the release of rock versions, the virtues of the old traditional stock continue despite imitation, rip-offs and Bowdlerizing. Some were terrified in the 60s that the "Hootenanny" type popularization would obscure the true tradition. Doesn't seem to have happened.
There's room (especially given the constantly widening circle of communications)for everyone. New ways of presenting songs and their ideas can bring the songs to new people, who may well be inspired to look further into the field. (For instance, I started with the Clancys and have researched my way into hard Gaelic, but I often sing translations in order to interest newcomers. That has worked well, BTW, and I *always* refer them to the originals.)
The circumstances of knowing, singing and transmitting a song change from minute to minute (you can't step in the same song twice, etc.).
I believe it's perfectly OK to encourage those who keep the tradition as well as those who reimagine it. As has already been said, that which doesn't work will die out. And meanwhile, we'll get some hot new versions!

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Deckman
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 09:12 PM

"Reimagine" ... neat word ... I'll bet I can get 36 points out of that in a good scrabble game ... I LIKE IT! bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 12 Aug 10 - 10:28 PM

Okay, mg and Pip—

"OK. Here goes. I do not think you improved that song. You changed it entirely. You put her from alive to dead. If you want to do that, fine...but...."

Changed it entirely, mg? I don't think so.

I ran a Google search on "The Gypsy Laddie" and "Child 200" and hit a long list of web sites.

I found many versions of the ballad on one web site alone. The following are the final verses of several versions that end in a manner very similar to what my friend and I came up with at 2:00 in the morning in The Coffee Corral in Seattle's University District bask in the late 1950s.

200A.10
And we were fifteen well-made men,
Altho we were nae bonny;
And we were a' put down for ane,
A fair young wanton lady.

200B.18
They were fifteen valiant men,
Black, but very bonny,
And they lost all their lives for one,
The Earl of Cassillis' ladie.

200C.14
'We are sixteen clever men,
One woman was a' our mother;
We are a' to be hanged on ae day,
For the stealing of a wanton lady.'

200D.14
'Yestre'en we were fifteen good armed men;
Tho black, we werena bonny;
The night we a' ly slain for one,
It's the Laird o Corse Field's lady.'

200F.13
Then we were seven weel-made men,
But lack! we were nae bonnie,
And we were a' put down for ane,
For the Earl o Cassilis' ladie.

200G.11
There was seven gypsies in a gang,
And they was brisk and bonny,
And they're to be hanged all on a row,
For the Earl of Castle's lady.

It would seem that in some versions, the Lord heaves a sigh and simply goes home, leaving his lady with the gypsies. In some, he kills his lady, then either hangs the gypsies who vary in number from three to sixteen. In some, he may or may not kill anyone, but he drags his lady home, kicking and screaming, Or he kills everyone in an unspecified manner.

Here's another variation on the lady's fate:

Oh, soon this lady changed her mind,
Her clothes grew old and faded,
Her hose and shoes came off her feet,
And left them bare and naked.

Just what befell this lady now,
I think it worth relating,
Her gypsy found another lass,
And left her heart a-breaking.

But—let's cut to the chase here. Is this ballad based on a true incident? Yes, it would seem so. And what really happened?

The gypsies were expelled from Scotland in 1541 and then in again in 1609. In 1624 Johnny Faa (a title of prominent gypsies) and seven other men were sentenced to hang and Helen Faa and ten women were sentenced to be drown, but the women's execution was stayed.

Circa 1788 this ballad became associated with John, the sixth earl of Cassilis and his first wife, Lady Jean Hamilton. Before her marriage Lady Jean was in love with "Johnny Faa, of Dunbar". Years later, after she had borne two children, Johnny Faa returned and persuaded her to elope. Johnny Faa and seven other gypsies (which correlates to the 1624 sentence) were hanged and Lady Jean was banished and confined for life in a tower built for her imprisonment. Eight heads, effigies of the gypsies, were said to be carved in the stone tower.

As commentator Paul Harvey used to say, "And now—you know the rest of the story."

So Dr. Fowler was right in his belief that there were probably already existing versions that ended violently, because not only were there, but the incident that inspired the ballad in the first place ended violently. There was nothing in the change that Dick and I made that was not already within the tradition.

Before you get on someone's case for making an unwarranted change in a song or ballad, you might want to do a little research of your own. They might have known exactly what they were doing. Or, at least, had made a pretty good guess!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 03:56 AM

Before you get on someone's case for making an unwarranted change in a song or ballad, you might want to do a little research of your own. They might have known exactly what they were doing. Or, at least, had made a pretty good guess!

Hmmm - is that any excuse I wonder? Seems to me the onus is on the perpetrator to do the research into the variants rather than making any modifications of their own.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 04:52 AM

Don - lucky guess! I wonder if it'd work better if the last verse was in the lord's voice - Tonight you'll lie in a cold open grave, etc.

Here are my own bits of patching (the ones I'm conscious of having done, anyway). My additions in bold:

But the page, he was Lord Barnard's man
And there he would not bide
And he was away to the greenwood
As fast as he could ride

I wanted to emphasise that the page did a triathlon that night (he rode then swam then ran).

The other one is a slightly larger change; it's a bit where I reckon that most versions of the ballad are corrupt, as the normal version of the line doesn't seem to make sense:

Seven long years they were not past
Years had passed but two or three
When she packed up all of her gay gay clothing
She said Lord Bateman she would go see

(If the seven long years had passed she'd have no claim on Bateman any more, so why would she wait so long?)

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 05:13 AM

Must ballads be governed by this sort of pedantic logic I wonder? Such corrections do run contratry to the spirit of the thing rather - the genuine products of more random elements of The Folk Process all of which add to their - er - folk character.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: John P
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 12:34 PM

S'OP and mg, It sounds to me like you shouldn't change the old songs at all. However, as soon as you start telling other people that they shouldn't do so, you've stepped over the line. Mind your own houses, please. Folk Police are not very popular.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 01:01 PM

Listen up. I did not tell people they should not ... I said they could do whatever they want. I reread everything I wrote here..and one place is a little toward that direction I admit. But what I consistently said, and please get it right, is do what you want. I personally will probably not like it and probably lots of other people won't either, but plenty will or will not know the difference. I probably wouldn't know the difference most of the time. I think it is arrogant to change what has been around for hundreds of years, and sometimes in certain locales it is unchanged and sometimes it does have many variants. I don't think the old old songs are mine to change. But our paths will never overlap in person so I am not going to worry about what you do or don't do. mg

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: John P
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 01:26 PM

I think it is arrogant to change what has been around for hundreds of years . . ./

Perhaps you could say something like, "I personally don't like changing old songs . . ." Calling other people arrogant is, whether you want it to be or not, an attempt to get other people to follow your rules. I you said "I think it is arrogant", but that doesn't really matter. If you want people to understand you and not jump to conclusions about what you mean, you might consider your choice of words more carefully.

You see, I don't think it's arrogant. I don't think the folk process ever stopped, and I think that updating traditional songs for modern listeners is part of the process. When you use words like 'arrogant' you are also saying the other person is wrong.

Just out of curiosity, why are you so sure our paths will never cross in person? And why are you so sure that you would dislike what the ways in which I play traditional music? It starts to sound like the scholarship is more important than the musical and lyrical quality of the song.

John

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 01:52 PM

Very few things in the world are beyond change.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 02:42 PM

GUEST,Suibhne Astray, I'm not looking for excuses for making the change. Or for any change I might make in a song. Granted, Dick and I didn't know much about the background of the song when we started diddling with it back in the early 1950s, but it turns out that there is precedent, both in the history of the ballad and in variations of the ballad itself. But since then, if I make any changes, those changes are pretty thoroughly research (after learning how to do the research in Dr. Fowler's "The Popular Ballad" class.

What precipitated Dick's and my late night/early morning discussion was the matter of verses that appear to be extraneous, especially the ones that slow down the drama, drag the song out, and often bore the hell out of the audience. A couple of cases in point:

Greensleeves. Have you ever heard the whole song? All the verses? The song has a lovely melody, but after hearing a couple of dozen verses (as Pete Seeger said, "I gave thee this, I gave thee that" and still she wouldn't hop into bed with him), you want to either run screaming or leap up and strangle the singer. So I sing three verses, four at the absolute most. Enough to get the idea across, but without boring the socks off the audience.

Same with Lord Randal. Very dramatic song. But when you get to the "last will and testament" part as he's gasping his life out, by the time you get to "And what will you leave your third cousin on your father's side's pet chicken, oh, ill-fated one?" one is thinking, "Look, mom, just let the poor SOB die in peace, will you please!??" So I drop these verses, singing only "What will you leave to your mother, Randal my son?" (in days long before Social Security, who's going to take care of his elderly mother when he's dead?), and the punch verse, "What will you leave to your sweetheart?" "A rope from hell to hang her!!"

And I note that many other singers, including Richard Dyer-Bennet and Burl Ives did the same thing. Made the same cuts.

Now, there was a time when a few of the ballads might be a whole evening's entertainment, but modern audiences—including folk music enthusiasts—generally will not sit still for really long songs, particularly ones that are very repetitive, and they (especially folkies) will sit there sighing and rolling their eyes. See many posts here on Mudcat, by folkies, about which songs bore them silly, and why;   the longer ballads tend to lead the list!

So—what Dick and I were thinking of when we came up with that change in that particular version of The Wraggle-Taggle Gypsies were extraneous verses that don't advance the story or add anything in particular to it. For example, why repeat the exact same verse you have just sung ("Last night I slept in a goose feather bed. . . .") in the third person (Last night she slept in a goose feather bed. . . .)?

Two points:

1.   In no way were Dick and I trying to turn The Wraggle-Taggle Gypsies into some sort of "morality tale," warning a woman to stay home and be bored stiff with a husband she didn't love and more than likely didn't chose (married to a "suitable husband" by her parents) rather than seek a freer, exciting, and more fulfilling life, lest she wind up lying dead in an open field along with her lover, struck down by the hand of her righteously outraged husband. Not a bit of it! If anything, it would have underlined the callous brutality of the husband and a system in which a man such as that regarded his wife as mere property rather that a person in her own right. You may not like the change we made, but let's not turn our objection into some kind of feminist tract, because that's far from what we had in mind.

2. Even though I (and many others) sometimes pare down highly repetitive songs to make them more palatable to modern audiences, it's not as if we are "ruining" or "destroying" the songs. The full texts of these songs and ballads are still there in a large numbers of books, so anyone who is so motivated can go and look up all eight-hundred and eleventy-fourteen verses of The Geste of Robin Hood. Or the seemingly endless last will and testament of the ill-fated Lord Randal.

Again. I don't think one should make changes unless one knows a good deal about the song in question and has a well-thought-out reason for making the change. I've seen and heard too many of what I would consider indiscriminate and unnecessary changes made by people who didn't understand the background from which the song came, didn't understand a technical or perhaps archaic term, or who destroyed an evocative image by insisting on forcing a perfectly good line into an awkward and unnecessary rhyme-scheme.

Think! Or as a friend of mine used to say, "Thimk!"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 02:57 PM

SO'P
You still ahven't explained how you rationalise the fact that the way you sing bears no resemblence whatever to the way a traditional singer.
"Folk Police are not very popular."
Neither are those people who would stifle discussion with terms like 'Folk Police' - a good example of 'folk policing' if ever I saw one.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Deckman
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 02:59 PM

AHA ... "THIMK" ... another Waltism? bob

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 03:16 PM

Nope. Dick (Landberg), as a matter of fact!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 04:01 PM

Interesting change there from Don Firth. And it occurs to me that maybe it's not so much a change to the story, but more a question of bringing out one possible meaning that is there all along.

Tonight she sleeps in a cold, open field,
Along with the wraggle-taggle gypsies-oh

might actually have precisely the same meaning as

Tonight she sleeps in a cold, open grave,
Along with the wraggle-taggle gypsies-oh.

After all, sleep often means the same as death in songs - as in

Go dig me a grave, both long, wide and deep
And strew it all over with roses so sweet
That I might lie down there and take a long sleep
And that's the best way to forget her

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Artful Codger
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 05:43 PM

Why is it not permissible to change a word, but condoned--even encouraged--to muck with the tune and performance style? I think that altering the performance style shows greater "disrespect" since it frequently results in anachronistic mutants, as convincing as your father wearing your son's clothing. Before indulging in such adaptations one would do well to listen to modernized folk arrangements from the 40's, 50's and 60's, and consider how cringeworthy they were just ten or twenty years later (while period performances remain timeless). In comparison to this, changing the wording is a trifle.

While I venerate the tradition, I have few illusions about the quality or sanctity of folk songs--as with modern songs, most are doggerel, and can be well served still by judicious editing. That songs are usually improved by the folk process, however, is a myth: the tyranny of mediocrity tends to pull all things to its own level. A single discerning editor can do more good than hundreds of years of "folk processing". Of course, the art of revising should be like legerdemain in a magic trick: it should support the desired illusion while drawing little attention to itself.

I see no particular merit in continuing to repeat misguided corruptions which have "entered the tradition".

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 06:17 PM

That songs are usually improved by the folk process, however, is a myth: the tyranny of mediocrity tends to pull all things to its own level.

A glance at the early broadsheet version of any number of songs which have survived and changed through oral transmission demonstrates that typically this results in striking improvements.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 04:42 AM

You still ahven't explained how you rationalise the fact that the way you sing bears no resemblence whatever to the way a traditional singer.

I don't set out to imitate traditional singers in any other respect than to sing in my own voice, which is what traditional singers did, and quite idiosyncratically so at times. I differ because, like most other Revival Singers, I use accompaniment - although there again I can think of numerous traditional singers who used accompany themselves, and I'm sure you could think of a good deal more. Unlike most Revival Singers I eschew the use chords in favour of drones & doubling the monophonic lines of the melody on whatever instrument I'm using (the fiddle is a favourite right now, which several fiddlers have assumed I've tuned to an open tuning because of the drones; being the boring old traddy that I am, of course, I keep it tuned in 5ths). Also unlike other Revival Singers I favour a certain amount of improvisation, though when it comes to the song itself, rarely do I deviate from the melody, unless for comic effect, such as in M'Ginty's Mean an' Ale. As a storyteller, narratives are first & foremost in my mind, though with ballads I tend to sing, and hear them, in terms of images first, story second; which is to say the narrative is secondary incantatory layer which we know anyway, so it's the images that concern me the most, the language of the thing - even with M'Ginty's Mean an' Ale the narrative is essentially occult and to translate the thing, or else make explicit those elements, would be the ruination of the piece.

When I'm I'm working with my wife, Rapunzel, it's a little different - we sing in evolved diaphonic harmony, using instruments and traditional material in a way which might be considered unusual by revival terms, but nevertheless doesn't really set out to challenge the listener - on the contrary, given the areas we work in it's in our interest to be accesible as possible without going down the usuial easy listening / MOR roads which have mired the revival since its inception. One gig we did invoked the displeasure of a guitarist on the same bill who accused use of using non-traditional elements because we used a Turkish fiddle & an Indian harmonium to accompany ourseves on Come Write Me Down. As I pointed out, in the world I grew up in these instruments were traditional to the immigrant communities I absorbed the influences of in my childhood, likewise the wider frameworks I've been open to since via the Global Media. And besides the guitar is the least traditional instrument of all, likewise the imposition of chords on essentialy modal lines which tio my ears kill the thing stone dead anyway.

Anyway, here's Rapunzel & myself singing Come Write Me Down at our Morpeth Gathering gig earlier in the year; apart from quoting Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart here and there (it was approaching the 30th anniversary of the untimely death of Ian Curtis) all the instrumentals are improvised.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IJQzcyDTQI

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 04:53 AM

I enjoyed your version of Come Write Me Down very much - and I liked the mixing of voices and instruments. Just the sort of thing that I personally find extremely interesting. We can argue all we like on pages such as these but, in the end, live performance in company is the thing. The more the merrier.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 08:14 AM

"I don't set out to imitate traditional singers"
I'm not talking about imitating traditional singers, and I suspect you know that; your basic approach is entirely different to them, as described above - you cease to become a 'teller' of songs, as traditional singers call it here in the West of Ireland, an become a musical 'performer' of songs.
"I can think of numerous traditional singers who used accompany themselves"
Would be interested to see a list - I've always been under the impression that, barring a tiny handful of traditional singers, in the British Isles the tradition was overwhelmingly unaccompanied. There are recorded cases of a few singers accompanying themselves - Bob Roberts, Charlie Bate.... and there are also cases of folkies turning up and persuading traditional singers to accompany themselve when they can, even accompanying the singers themselves (a case of this happening at the moment with one new-found singer).
"Also unlike other Revival Singers....."
Hardly anything you describe here has anything whatever to do with traditional singing - certainly not as I know it.
No problem with any of this as a personal choice but if your approach is permissable, ie - eschewing the traditional FORM of singing for approach which is as remote from the tradition as Peter Pears singing The Lyke Wake Dirge, how can you possibly object to someone else changing a few words to suit themselves - it seems to me you are writing a rule-book for others which you do not adhere to yourself.
I partly agree with Artful Codger on this, but disagree with the mundane bit (there are more things in heaven and earth....)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 08:21 AM

PS thanks for the musical illustration BTW - it made my point far more effectively than ever I could
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: Artful Codger
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 06:07 PM

To McGrath: While some broadsides are "strikingly" improved by oral transmission, others are diluted by it. In preparing my own versions of songs, I consider both broadside and collected versions, and revert to broadside wording or apply my own edits more often than I use folk alternatives. Bear in mind that the collected versions have usually been culled, collated and edited before I see them--they presumably represent "the tradition" in its best light rather than depicting the mean. Of course, many broadsides were dashed off and rushed into printing, leaving ample opportunity for improvement.

Move to a higher-quality original sources--like the average newspaper poet--and folk erosion versus improvement is more apparent. The folk process becomes largely a matter of too many cooks spoiling the broth: faulty memories that dilute the wording, gratuitous substitutions, deletion of critical bits, loss of vibrancy, misunderstandings, continuity violations... What they add in more natural expression, more colorful wording, tightening and such is usually offset by the defilements that also creep in.

Most telling, if improvement were the usual result of the folk process, every folk song would by now be a gem--hardly the case!

But this is getting rather far afield from the thread topic, and I know that assailing the vaunted integrity of the folk process is tantamount to challenging someone's religious convictions or debating ecology with a cattleman.

Subject: RE: Is it permissible-to change a word in an old song?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 08:06 PM

Would be interested to see a list - I've always been under the impression that, barring a tiny handful of traditional singers, in the British Isles the tradition was overwhelmingly unaccompanied.

I was thinking of Bob Roberts, John MacDonald, Davie Stewart & Jane Turriff. Do the McPeake's count? And Margaret Barry? I'm sure I've heard of others too here and there. I was hoping you'd maybe be able to flesh it out a bit. Elsewhere in the English folk song tradition (America / Australia) it's not so uncommon; and singing with instruments seems to have been a pretty standard aspect of human musical activity the world o'er these past 50,000 years or so, so I'm not doing anything too radical.