publication does a doubtful service to folksongs

Subject: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 01:33 PM

Publication does a doubtful service to folk songs .it preservesthem;
but it preserves them dead,like stuffed animals in a museum,it brings them to awide audience,but this includes so many of thewrong people,from school teachers,to hill billy addicts.the wrong people are those who are bent on taking folksong out of its natural surroundings.Folksongs belong in the home,in the pub,in the focsle,in the back of atruck or a friendly verandah;not in the list of set peices at an Eisteffod,not in the schoolroom unless as a rare
treat,not between toothpaste advertisements on radio or television.In the alien atmosphereof the concert hall it takes agreat artist to preserve the life and spirit even of his own folksongs let alone those of other people.
J s.Manifold,Queensland 1962[compiler of Penguin Australian folk songs]
this raises some interesting points,that are worthy of discussion.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 01:51 PM

From my perspective I see no reason why we can't have both. There is no way that it can be taken from 'the people.'

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 02:03 PM

"Folksongs belong in the home,in the pub,in the focsle,in the back of atruck or a friendly verandah;"

Most of what I hear ( from non-folkies) in these places have been popular songs ( Beatles, etc) that (probably) do not qualify as "folk"

(NO, I do NOT want to get into a discussion of what is "folk music"!)

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 02:11 PM

Throw away the past and what remains? damnlittle.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 02:17 PM

It also seems to me that a number of those "folk" songs are those of people who are NOT in their "home" area- refugees/immigrants, men at sea, wanderers of all sorts. What are the " natural surroundings" for a song by a person from a mountain community who is in a large city, singing about home?

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Nick E
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 02:19 PM

Poems come alive when read aloud, should we not put them on a page?

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 02:24 PM

Any 'live' folk songs heard lately?

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Goose Gander
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 02:28 PM

Many (most?) English-language folk songs are derived from printed sources if you trace them back far enough. So folk songs are still-born?

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 02:32 PM

If folk songs hadn't been collected and published you, or I, Cap'n wouldn't have very many to sing, would we?

...end of discussion, really ...

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 05:05 PM

I presume Manifold ,means they should be passed on orally.,and if they are learnt from a book,the learner should try and hear someone singing the song in the flesh,preferably a source singer.
Or he might mean we should hear a shanty singer, singing a shanty while working at the capstan.
Shimrod,I dont know,its possible they may have survived in the oral tradition.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: oggie
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 06:04 PM

With a very few exceptions they did not survive in the oral tradition. Within those exceptions very few variants survived. How many "source singers" are there now? How many instrumentalists haven't used a tune book?

Thirty years ago Bob Pegg suggested that rugby songs were possibly the last example of the folk process and got howled down. Are you suggesting he might have been right? and in the larger scheme of things does it matter? The music has survived, anyone here wishes it hadn't?

All the best

Steve Ogden

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 06:17 PM

j s manifold is doing the suggesting not me.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 06:23 PM

"Hillbilly addicts"?! Is that something like Cowboy Junkies? Backwoods crack-heads?

What's he got against them, and why shouldn't they be allowed to sing folk songs? (Out of books, or otherwise).

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: PoppaGator
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 06:26 PM

I agree that rugby songs and the like ARE the only true "folk songs" possible any more. The subcultures of ruggers, hash-house-harrier runners, etc., are among the very few contexts in the modern world wherein a true oral tradition can still be maintained.

The more conventional or respectable "folk traditions" rely on recordings, if not books, if not academic support and sanction, to maintain their existence. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it is qualitatively different from the way these same traditions were created and maintained prior to the 20th century.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 06:38 PM

Songbooks are a bit like woodpiles. They keep the songs ready until someone is able to bring them alive by using them to make a fire, when there's no wood lying around to be gathered.

The important thing to remember is that the song as printed is just a note of a single variant, or a cobbled together version made up of of different variants. The same goes for recordings. And the same goes for singers. The song itself is something broader than any of these.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Mary Humphreys
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 06:40 PM

Source singers have been known to refresh their failing memories from printed broadsides when they have forgotten their words. Such publications were therefore invaluable to singers, even if not used very frequently.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 07:00 PM

Ithought Hillbilly addicts as amusing along with schoolteachers.
not in the schoolroom,is perhaps the most outrageous.
although I must say, I agree about the toothpaste adverts[Icant give alogical reason,just doesnt seem right].toothpaste shanty

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 09:12 PM

I am constantly being surprised at how far my singing of a song has wandered from a printed source I may have leaned it from. Try picking up a copy of, say, The American Songbag and see for yourself how "old chestnuts" have changed since they first appeared there. Yes Virginia, there is a folk process.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Bert
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 12:01 AM

Folksongs belong in the home,in the pub,in the focsle,in the back of atruck or a friendly verandah...

But when I forget the words I fall back on The Digital Tradition.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 12:42 AM

I hope my sister who taught elementary music for umpteen years doesn't read this!

Sheesh! What a dolt.Music belongs wherever and whenever we can get it there. If folks show an interest, kindle it and watch it grow. What a snob he must've been.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Rowan
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 01:09 AM

Manifold, manifestly, was no snob, and definitely no dolt. In 1962 he was one of very few collectors who thought of Australia as having folk and other oral/aural traditions (songs, music etc) worthy of collecting and was working in a context where much of what little transmission was occurring, of such material, was by school teachers and some music teachers who thought Eisteddfods a fair way of encouraging pupils to learn how to perform for an audience containing more than just their peers or extended family.

By and large, Manifold canvassed most of the arguments that have appeared, a generation later, in Mudcat's threads. Dick knows all of this and is, selectively and for your delectation, "stirring". As might be said, in Ozspeak. to y'all, "Come in spinner!"

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 02:38 AM

James Hogg's mother, when she gave her songs to Sir walter Scott, told him that by writing them down he had destroyed them.
David Buchan put forward the fascinating theory that ballads had no set texts, but were plots and commonplaces which a singer took and recreated each time they were sung.
On the other hand, as has been said, the tradition has relied on print to circulate and preserve the repertoire (in some cases, many of our songs originated from print) - thereby hangs a contradiction.
As for me; I can't wait to get my hands on the Carpenter Collection.
Jm Carroll

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Rowan
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 02:55 AM

And a gentle reminder, intended politely; if you want to start a conversation with what appears to be a contentious quote, it would be a courtesy to the author of the quote to reproduce, exactly, the words and punctuation used by the author of the quote. This has the double benefit of ensuring that the author is not misrepresented and that subsequent readers understand the quote correctly.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 06:08 AM

Rowan,that is what I have done ,Check it out.
Of course this was written in 1962.technology has moved on.
Iam not stirring, Ithought his comments inteesting [some Iagreewith some Idont]and worthy of discussion.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Rowan
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 07:18 AM

Greetings Captain. I regard your response as disingenuous.
However, leaving my pedantic notions of spelling and punctuation aside I offer the following as relevant context in which to posit your quote, which is from the "Introduction" to "The Penguin Australian Song Book" compiled and with notes by John Manifold, published by Penguin Books, Ringwood, Victoria, in 1964. The Introduction, written in 1962, has a total length of 43.4 column-centimetres and the quoted part (3.7 column-centimetres long) occurs after 34.0 column centimetres of discussion of the various geographical, temporal, social, economic and historic contexts of the material, both individual items and genres.

The quote offered by Dick is immediately followed by (in 3.7cm);

"I sometimes wish, in vain, that we could keep up the strict etiquette that was observed by the real bush singers. A young man used to learn his songs from the acknowledged singer of the district, and might eventually earn permission to sing them to the limited 'public' of the bush wherever or whenever the acknowledged singer was not present. Some few songs were common property; others, 'songs from the books', were rather contemptuously exempted from the rule; but in the main this apprenticeship system prevailed, at least among men. When the public performer of a 'treason song' might earn a stretch in jail, it was a point of honour to perform it properly.

"Today I suppose all songs are 'songs from books', and the songs from this book lose their old status accordingly. It would be nice to think that this demotion might be temporary, and that they might walk off the page back into oral circulation again over a wider stretch of country than the old method could cover.

"That this has often been done, can be seen by many of the notes to the individual songs, where I have set out to give the source and background of many oral performances which have led to the inclusion of the songs in this book."

It would appear, from what I have remembered of some of Dick's postings, that John's wish "that they might walk off the page back into oral circulation again over a wider stretch of country than the old method could cover" has been granted, as Dick appears to have sung at least some of them in Britain and Ireland.

1962 in Oz was a time before our participation in much of the feminist revolution of the mid-late 60s and there were precious few singers of what all of us might accept as traditional songs; at the time I was singing songs I'd learned from the oral tradition but, outside the domestic circle, that tradition was centred on singing as done in bushwalking circles which greatly resembled (in character if not material) the rugby singing mentioned in the posts above. The apprenticeship system described by Manifold still operated in such circles and I had to earn my right to sing particular songs and wouldn't lead them when their 'owner/s' were present.

As a collection, Manifold's book was most influential in getting the songs out to a wider public; its shape made it easy to stick in a bushwalking pack and I've lost count of the number I've sent to friends overseas who want a snapshot of where some of the tradition was and came from. I may well have got the last of Angus and Robertson's stock to send to a friend in Columbia SC.

Contrary to what some have inferred from Dick's original posting. I saw that quote as a rather early warning of the dangers that other Mudcatters have also noticed; the likelihood of fossilisation of a dynamic tradition when aspects of it get caught in the aspic of the bound book or the CD and stay fossilised. And I suspect Dick and I agree on that.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 07:20 AM

Stirring isn't necessarily a bad thing to do, either in cookery or conversation.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Rowan
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 07:37 AM

G'day Kevin. Yeah, I appreciate a good stir too. But I was a bit taken aback by some of the responses from people who hadn't a clue about John Manifold. So I got my copy out from under the midden I call my study and cluttered up the bandwidth with some, hopefully explanatory, context.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 07:44 AM

We know that most folk songs that we sing today were derived from printed sources i.e. broadsheets. So is it OK according to what you have just said, if we publish songs one by one?

"Harry had a large collection of song books and sheets...... 'These consisted of newspaper sheets of songs, broadsides, chapbooks (mostly by Such) and songs in manuscript. These latter were written on loose sheets of paper and in two or three school-type exercise books... Overall the collection was quite sizeable - I suppose about 300/400 songs and ballads.' Bob added 'Harry was quick to point out that he did not write or read well - in fact he said he learnt to "draw" his signature so that he could sign documents... though he would admit to having his mother or someone else read the words of songs to him so that he could learn them.'"

From the sleeve notes of the Topic record of Harry.

We know that many songs were taken down from singers by collectors beginning with John Braodwood and passing on to Sharp, Baring-Gould and other collectors like Mike Yates and Jim Carroll. Are you suggesting that these people should not have disseminated those songs which they collected?

Many singers take collated versions of songs from different sources. How would they do this without books?

And finally Dick do you believe that books on music instruction for instruments also simply preserve techniques and that they shouldn't be published.

Finally let me declare an interest - I sell second-hand books about folk music. Perhaps Dick is wanting to put me out of business!!

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: GUEST,Darowyn
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 07:46 AM

Surely, it's not the publication itself which is the problem, it's the tendency for a proportion of the population to regard anything "written down in black and white" as if it was a fundamentalist's Bible.
There is an obsession with the idea of a "correct version" which leads those with such an attitude to cling like limpets to a published version. A key factor in aural tradition is its fluidity, the fact the different versions occur in different areas, in different cultures and subcultures and at different times.
If you look at a published version of a song as holy writ, it has been fossilised as far as you are concerned.
If you look at it and think, "That's good. I could do something with that" then the song is still moving on.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 08:02 AM

Dave ,you misunderstand me ,of course I am not against books. neither have I ever said I am .I thought it was an interesting Thought provoking article.
I am in strong disagreement with Manifold,about his attitude to traditional music in school. I also think folksongs belong to the people,and disagree with his exclusivity,I also said that I didnt feel right about folksongs being used for adverts[it is just a gut feeling].
Rowan,I agree with your last point.
CAN Posters please understand, that just because I start a topic off,itdoes not mean I entirely agree with the authors sentiments.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: EBarnacle
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 08:08 AM

If you look in almost any of the major collections, you will find several variants on almost any of the songs. Many of them are fragments.

A classic example is Sir Patrick Spens. The version we were all presented with in school is woefully incomplete if you go to the collections of either the Appalachian or Anglo/Scottish collections. On the other hand, it is possible to create a concordance from these which recreates something which may be closer to the original--all xx verses of it.

Is the song frozen by the act of publication? No, but at least one version of it is preserved.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 10:36 AM

Jim Carroll-
The James Madison Carpenter collection (original recordings) is available from CAMSCO Music on the Folktrax label. Fascinating collection, but horrible sound quality (recorded in the 1920s on a Dictaphone). 2 CDs, $18.00 (US) per.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 10:59 AM

We were talking the other day of the oral tradition and the idea that by the simple act of recording, by whatever media, the oral tradition ceases. My daughter came up with the best idea I have heard in a long time. Because the past IS important and because, without records, knowing how people did things in the part is impossible, we should indeed record folk music (Whatever that is!). However once it is recorded the record should then be removed from all public domain and be placed under lock and key so that only historians and those interested in what used to happen can see or hear it. Anyone saying this is how it was, is and always should be needs to be locked away with it:-)

I would agree with the premise of the thread title but qualify it somewhat. Publication does a doubtful service to music - But only when those who insist that adherance to the publication is the only way gain control!

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 11:15 AM

Was there ever a purely oral tradition, since literacy became more common than not, about the Reformation? yes, people learned songs at their mother's knee, but whwre did mother get her songs from? Bllad sheets were being published from the 16th century onwards, and though only the tiniest fraction of these has survived, many of the "traditional" songs can be traced back to these. And probably the publishers got them orally from street or pub singers.

And every now and then, someone rooting around in a collection of old books comes across some jovial shepherd's (*) little collection of handwritten songs, whatever had taken his fancy that he wanted to sing.. a little gold mine.

To my mind, it's not the means of transmission that preserves or ossifies the songs, but the authority given to the source. A song is just as surely fossilised if the only accepted way to sing it is in accordance with the source, whether that be written or oral. and written songs come alive when singers internalise them and make them their own.

This is incidentally why I rather disagree with the author of the song in the trhead down there (Dublin in my tears was it?), saying that as he wrote it, other versions must be wrong. He should be flattered that it has entered the traditon, and accept that, as a mark of life, it will change. Though he has the right to protest if people traduce the spirit of the song; and has every right to claim his whack if anyone makes serious money out of it.

(*) or jolly farmer, or tinker, or miller, or collier laddie, or servant girl, or whatever.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Bert
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 12:02 PM

Oral tradition is prehistoric, one has to keep up with the times.

Just look what modern sound equipment has done for American Square dancing. It has allowed it to be a moving living tradition and not just some museum piece.

Sheesh I even write down my own songs.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 12:09 PM

Publication does a doubtful service to folk songs .it preserves them;
but it preserves them dead,like stuffed animals in a museum,it brings them to a wide audience,but this includes so many of the wrong people,from school teachers,to hill billy addicts.the wrong people are those who are bent on taking folksong out of its natural surroundings.

Dave ,you misunderstand me ,of course I am not against books. neither have I ever said I am

Sorry Dick, clearly I made the mistake of believing what you had written.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 12:47 PM

it was written by J.S.MANIFOLD.as I made clear.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 01:03 PM

Folkie Dave,if you had read Rowans post,and the original post properly,it is quite clear who wrote it .I state quite clearly that it is from the compiler of the Penguin book of Australian Folk songs,.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Barry Finn
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 05:31 PM

"The most important music is the music that you bring with you" said by me.

Barry

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 05:41 PM

No Dick - thanks to your somewhat idiosyncratic spelling and punctuation it wasn't clear at all.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: oggie
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 05:54 PM

It is possible that publication does the greatest service of all in preserving what is written, heard or collected. Publication that is in ink on paper. In 50 years time do you expect to be able to read the DT? Will you be able to play an LP? Can you now play an 8-track casstte?

In 1986 (I think that's the right date) there was a school's project to create a New Doomsday Book, by 2000 the format it was stored in was obsolete and at great expense some new decoders had to be written. The problem is getting worse. The only way to preserve, in it's current form, and I accept that's another debate, is to make paper and ink copies. Listen to some of Nic Jones' versions of classic ballards (say "Anachie Gordon") and then tell me it's not been of service.

All the best

Steve

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtfiul service to
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 05:56 PM

Folkie Dave,you are a time waster.
the punctuation and spelling is copied directly from Manifold,its perfectly clear to everyone else.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtful service to folksongs
From: GUEST,IS
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 05:58 PM

Manifold's rant is nonsense. Didn't make sense in '62, doesn't make sense now - and I think (hope) you know it, Birdseye. A serious question for you: why do you raise the matter now? Just something that's preoccupying you? I'd like to know where you stand on the matter.

Respectfully, Guest

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtful service to folksongs
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 06:09 PM

I made my position clear in an earlier post.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtful service to folksongs
From: GUEST,IS
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 06:16 PM

Birdseye, which post?

I don't understand the term 'source singer.' It implies some kind of cut-off point between some idealised Golden Age of Song and now, which I just don't think is the case. I sing songs, and have learnt them from various sources, some of whom you might call 'source singers' and some probably not.

But then, returning to the title of this thread, I have problems with the term 'folksongs' also, and with the word 'folk' more generally.

So, anyway, please Birdseye tell me what 'source singer' means to you.

Guest

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtful service to folkson
From: Folkiedave
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 06:29 PM

The punctuation and spelling is copied directly from Manifold,its perfectly clear to everyone else.

No it wasn't Dick.

Manifold did not write "folk songs .it preservesthem;"

Manifold did not write "dead,like stuffed animals in a museum,it brings them to awide audience,but this includes so many of thewrong".

There are two examples.

Manifold (or his editors) leaves gapes after commas, like most people do.

Manifold (or his editors) understands the use of the apostrophe.

Manifold (or his editors) puts gaps between words and does not run them together.

Manifold (or his editors) does not put one of his initials in capital letters and one in lower case like you did.

Manifold understands the use of a full stop and beginning a new sentence with a capital letter after it.

So please don't tell me that it is copied directly from Manifold - it isn't.

(source HTML corrected [backslash inserted]) by joeclone

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtful service to folksongs
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 08:55 PM

It was also selective and incomplete, and therefore seriously misleading; it misrepresented Manifold in a quite inexcusable fashion. Whether this was deliberate or the result of incompetence is hard to tell.

Rowan has provided the proper context, so I'd suggest that anyone wishing to make informed comment reads Dick's barely legible original post in the light of the rest of what Manifold wrote.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtful service to folksongs
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Jul 07 - 06:28 AM

Malcolm Douglas ,a duplication of ROWANS post ,if you wish to have ago at me,Iwould be happy to meet you personally for a duel[JOKE].
Malcolm,you are unecessarily patronising,as has been pointed out to you before, by another poster.
Folkie Dave ,We must have different editions of the book,in the book in my possesion ,he most certainly does say[Publication does a doubtful service to folksongs.It preserves them ;but itpreserves them dead,like stuffed animals in a museum.It brings them to a wide audience;but this includes so many of the wrong people]
That is manifolds exact words, exact punctuation,so stop wasting time,and stop nitpicking and trying to score points.,
the fact that I used commas instead of semicolons,does not alter the meaning of Manifolds words,The meaning is perfectly clear.
Malcolm Douglas,if you are genuinely concerned about quoting out of context,why not quote the whole article,all two and a half pages of the introduction[particuarly the preceding two paragraphs which deal with Patersons poems/songs and how they walked off into the bush and became folk tunes ].
Rowan himself is being selective,just as I was .

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtful service to folksongs
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Jul 07 - 06:55 AM

Malcolm Douglas,Rowans post is not the rest of what Manifold wrote,there are two paragraphs before that are relevant, here they are .
Paterson made another contributionto our folk music too,quite distinct from this one.Several of his own poems refused to lie flat on the printed page,but walked off into the bushand grew themselves folktunes.Some of Lawsons did the same.
Atthe time,Paterson believed that the bush songs were threatened with speedy extinction.The danger seems to be more imminent today.The old songs are tough,and die as hard as snakes do.Sometypes of song which fill a lot of space in his volume are less common now;we hear for instance,far fewer Jackaroo songsthan he did.Treason songs on the other hand,still clandestine in 1905,have been more easily collected in recent years.Balladswhich he noticed asbeing sung to overseas tunes have since grown tunes of their own.some of his texTs look unweildy,as we havebecome accustomedto versions prunedand compressedby anoyther thirty years of singing.Into the bargain,thereis quite acrop of new ballads sprung from the old stock.But the changes are all normal and natural songs of life.
this just as relevant is as Rowans addition.
and now it is all in context ,it doesnt alter the fact that Manifolds comments about the exclusivity[no schoolteachers,no hillbilly addicts,not to be taught in the schoolroomunless as arare treat are questionable.

Subject: RE: publication does a doubtful service to folksongs
From: melodeonboy
Date: 11 Jul 07 - 07:02 AM

"To my mind, it's not the means of transmission that preserves or ossifies the songs, but the authority given to the source. A song is just as surely fossilised if the only accepted way to sing it is in accordance with the source, whether that be written or oral. and written songs come alive when singers internalise them and make them their own.", says Guest PMB.

Spot on! Those two sentences say far more than all the nitpicking and backbiting and worrying about what precisely Manifold did or didn't say or where he put his semi-colons!