Folklore: Is folk song really political?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 01:37 PM

why don't people listen to lyrics Dame asks..well, I don't especially...I listen to the tune...I enjoy reading the lyrics and I must say that verse of McBride is new to me...if someone had sung it it might have rolled right through my head and out the door...people have different modes of getting information...I am generally left with a vague impression of a shipwreck or someone is in love...but I do believe in the "nice sound" value of music the most..or why bother...just print up the lyrics and pass them out...but I guess that wouldn't work for people who get information auditorily ...they do better hearing something..that probably also explains why some people can listen to ugly tunes and not be bothered..they are probably listening for the information as opposed to the prettiness...who knows...mg

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,theleveller
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 12:25 PM

I like 'personal is political'; that's right at the heart of folk music and a lot of other music as well.

As Oscar Wilde said to Whistler: 'I wish I'd said that'.

And, as Whistler replied: 'You will, Oscar, you will.'

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 03:34 AM

OK, I was wrong. In your case, the personal isn't political nor even personal.
It's nothing but a bag of washing.

And no, I didn't say me and those musicians you mention were drinking together.
We were in the pub . . . 'working'.
You do have this knack of picking up the odd word you recognise and launching off tangentially into orbit, dontcha? As Trevor Carter wrote in The Tower of Babel:

Then the henchmen fetched their flipcharts, they were in no doubt
They could motivate the workforce through discussion frank and full.
But they found that when they tried to speak, these alien words came pouring out
Like something from the arse-end of a bull.

A very political song, all about local government (don't tell Georgina).



And you forgot to say #100.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 03:10 AM

Ah, Diane....one can always count on you for utter nonsense, empty slogans ("the personal is political") self-aggrandizing BS (I've been answering all along with concrete examples; I was drinking with Martin Carthy, Tyger Hutchings, and Linda Peters"), and gratuitous abuse.

Good on ya, you don't disappoint.

I'd still love to read some of those articles you've written, though. Just point me in the right direction.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 02:11 AM

Charles Parker once said that a well-sung traditional love song is a fist in the face of the establishment - a prole saying "listen to me - I'm me".
If you want to hear politics in singing you should try to get hold of the recording of Harry Cox singing Betsy The Serving Maid and spitting out at the end, "and that's what they think of us"; or his long, bitter monologue on land ownership and transportation after he had sung Van Deiman's Land to Alan Lomax.
"Now, I can cheerfully ignore such bollocks" - now there's a new thought to conjure with Princess!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 11 Oct 07 - 01:36 AM

the important question is not "is folksong political"

But it's the question being asked here and which I've been answering all along with concrete examples (to repeat):

Songs that people make up which describe their lives: work, a bystander at a historical event, a retelling of a tale heard from someone else or else their own story, whether sad and desperate or triumphant and self-fulfilling; these are all political because the personal is political, without a doubt.

Steve just talks about whatever's tumbled from his filing cabinet, whether relevant or not, and whinges that nothing Georgina Boyes or myself has said contradicts him. Now, I can cheerfully ignore such bollocks but he really should be careful about crossing Ms Boyes!

Like Martin C put a certain speculation about a song in his sleeve (cos that's what we call them here) notes. Yes I know. He's also told a million journos down the years, in my case it was in a Kings Cross pub when, if I recall, Mr Hutchings (that chap Steve's never met) was too, and probably Linda - then - Peters (now that should date it . . . ) was also propping up the bar.

Jesus. Alistair Cooke ain't alone in the boring old git 'I'm a f*lk luvvie' department. I wonder if the bodysnatchers will get Steve too when he's 95?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 07:19 PM

Diane, you flatter yourself. Martin wrote that the song was from East Anglia in his liner notes--remember liner notes?   Lisa Null's husband, Charlie Baum, posted the bit about Paul learning it from Mrs. Grover's version, to Mudcat. (Oddly, Lisa never told me herself, even though she has had me sing "Arthur McBride" for her. I plan to get out the reference copy of Mrs. Grover's version and give it a listen soon!)

I agree that "Arthur McBride" has political implications...and could fairly be called "a political song." My main point is ALL songs have political implications, and there's really no such thing as a song that can't be "a political song." "Happy Birthday" is, when sung by small children on state TV to Fidel Castro, or when sung outside a prison to commemorate the birthday of a political prisoner, etc. (Si Kahn points out that "She works hard for the money" and "My baby takes the Morning Train" are labor songs.)

Given that, the important question is not "is folksong political," which becomes fairly meaningless. It's "how is each song political," or "what are its political meanings?" Those change, not only for each context, but for each listener, and to simply say "it's about British colonialism in Ireland" or worse, "it's political," is simply too vague.

By the way, I would read your cuttings, Diane, if I could find them. I'll read any well-informed articles on folk music. (Okay, now I'm flattering you) What publications do you write for? I work in the largest library in the world, so chances are I could find some articles if you give me a hint on where to look.

Finally, Alistair Cooke was a remarkably interesting man, who was also always a supporter of both folk and jazz music. Like MacColl, he was from Salford, but moved away and changed his name!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 06:11 PM

Steve's been shuffling through my cuttings again, quoting bits of my interviews with Mr Carthy when he speculated on Arthur McBride being set in an East Anglian turkey farm and with Mr Brady who told me in the Enterprise one night that he'd nicked his version from a book while in America (never mentioned Ms Null).

Of course I know the thing's been collected all over the place. I simplified the plot (which is military imperialism) for whoever it was that insisted it was an Irish not an English song and thus somehow inappropriate to the discussion. Point is, it doesn't matter where it's set. It's a political song about a ubiquitous and universal issue. Which is what we are supposed to be talking about. And Alistair Cooke was a really boring old git, Any fule kno that.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 05:35 PM

Say, what do you guys think. Is gray REALLY part white, as we have always been told? Or is there some other explanation? Is it really related to black?

Or just undecided?


A

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 05:33 PM

Diane's quick and rather dismissive statement about "Arthur McBride" is a prime example of what I was saying when I first joined this thread. The political meanings of a song are largely a matter of interpretation by the hearer. Diane says that "Arthur McBride is similarly a profound condemnation British imperialism and colonialism in Ireland," and assumes anyone who disagrees has not listened to the lyrics. In fact, because Arthur McBride is a folksong, there is no standard set of lyrics, which is one problem with approaching it as though it has a single, monolithic meaning. Someone can be listening to different lyrics and therefore hearing different meanings! However, even listening to the same lyrics one may come to different interpretations.

Diane's comment would be a more appropriate statement to make about the similar ditty "the recruiting sergeant," with its line "let Englishmen fight English wars, it's nearly time ye started, o." "Arthur McBride" is more ambiguous. Martin Carthy sang a fine version of "Arthur McBride" in the 60s despite the fact that he was unaware of Diane's interpretation, and believed the song to be from East Anglia.   According to Bert Lloyd, the earliest claim for a version of this song comes from Devon in the 1830s, and the earliest collected versions come from England as well (1892, Baring-Gould collection). The preponderance of versions come from Scotland, according to Roud's database, and the preponderance of broadsides from England, with some from both Ireland and Scotland. In the archive where I work we have a field recording from one of my favorite, little-known singers, Mrs. Carrie Grover, from Maine—her ancestors were from Glamorganshire, Wales and from Scotland, via Nova Scotia. According to a previous Mudcat thread, it was this American version (sorry, Diane!) that Paul Brady learned, while on a visit to my neighbor Lisa Null.

In short, Arthur McBride may have had nothing to do with Ireland in its origins. It may be English, or Scottish. The lyrics of most versions never mention Britain, Ireland, colonialism, or imperialism. The British military presence in Ireland is not mentioned. Although most versions mention a shillelagh, as Malcolm Douglas has pointed out on another thread, that's no guarantee of an Irish origin. Where protest is involved, it's protest about the liberties taken by the army against the civilian population.

Most versions of "Arthur McBride" are about two men who come across a recruiting party and do not want to sign up. The recruiters appear to be as Irish or as English as the civilians in most versions. Paul Brady has the sergeant saying things like "I'll have no such chat, for I neither will take it from Spailpin or brat." (As an aside, most broadsides do not have this wording, and I haven't listened to Mrs. Grover's version lately...I wonder if Paul B. changed this to make it sound more Irish....)

The civilians are not politically revolutionary. When the sergeant says "good morning," they do not say, "Piss off, you bloody tool of English imperialism." The exchange goes like this:

"Good morning ! Good morning!" the sergeant did cry
"And the same to you gentlemen! " we did reply,
Intending no harm but meant to pass by
For it being on Christmas morning.

There they are, "intending no harm," calling the soldiers "gentlemen," one might say politely accepting the military's presence. In many versions, too, the civilians and the military men know each other; the civilians identify the captain and corporal by name, although the latter two do not introduce themselves.

Even when the sergeant tries to recruit them, they do not tell the man off as a colonial oppressor, they politely point out that the enticements of a military life (decent food, decent clothes, and hence a good chance to woo "a charming young wife") are hollow when put next to the loss of freedom and the likelihood of being killed that go along with life in the army. (Other versions refer to the low pay in the army, and may have reflected protest of soldiers against their wages).

Everything to this point is cordial. Next, however, the sergeant takes offense, or at least pretends offense as a thin excuse for attempting to conscript Arthur and his cousin. In any case, it is only when the sergeant insults the civilians, and then threatens to hurt them, that the civilians are mobilized to action.

While it is possible to read Arthur's actions as a political response to oppression, it is equally possible to look at it as an angry response to rudeness. The fact that rudeness on the part of the sergeant is at least one of the issues is suggested in the ending of the song, where the victors, Arthur and his cousin, adopt a parody of politeness in addressing the now-unconscious recruiting party:

"And so to conclude and to finish disputes
We obligingly asked if they wanted recruits."

So, where there is protest in the song, it can be interpreted to be about the British presence in Ireland, but is more explicitly about the specific practice of conscription, and the arrogant behavior of recruiting parties, and sometimes the falseness of the recruiters' promises, in a context that may be Irish or British.

Which is all to say...one can listen to the lyrics, and still not agree with a particular interpretation about British colonialism in Ireland.

By the way, speaking of rudeness, while it's a bit rude that Diane persists in claiming I said things I never did say, about Ashley Hutchings "owing everything" to America, about Americans "handing" music to English people, etc., it is far more rude to refer to the late Alistair Cooke as an "old git." She's just lucky Arthur McBride's not here!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 12:31 PM

Well Redmax, I agree that the folk scene audience is skewed towards us older people (I am one of them) but I do get to a lot of folk events and I see loads of young people and "folk" it is getting quite - well whatever the word is these days for "popular".

If I could predict the future to know what is going to happen to the folk scene in ten years time I would not be here!! One thing is for certain - whatever the prediction is - it will be wrong.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,redmax
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 09:27 AM

Sorry, the above is in response to Folkiedave's comments

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,redmax
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 09:26 AM

I really hope you're right, but I'm 37 and at most folk events I attend I'm the youngest person there. And while it's nice to be called a "young chap" at singarounds etc. I'd feel more secure about folk's future if I saw more people deserving of that description! There are young performers, but the audiences I've seen are mostly in their 50s and 60s. A couple of decades on, what will the scene be like?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 09:23 AM

"however if there were this great groundswell of support - where has it evaporated?"

I think the biggest factor is the change in live performance generally, and people's expectations of that experience. As it has become the norm across most types of music to provide more professional event management, and more mainstream venues programme a diversity of musics including folk, the average punter has grown to expect the venue experience.

We're thinking about introducing an acoustic cafe on Sunday afternoons - comfy seating, nice food and drink on offer...it's the intimate performance exprience, but on a slightly different level to the folk club.

These are the rigs of the time.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 09:05 AM

however if there were this great groundswell of support - where has it evaporated?

There is an assumption there that it has. Frankly it hasn't.

When there was this great groundswell of support there were about four festivals to go to nationwide. There are now about 300.

There were very few instrumental sessions. There were few ceilidhs and there were few record labels.

The posh Italian melodeon makers together probably import as many melodeons in a week now as they used to do in five years; concertinas were around £20.00 for an expensive one and few people played expensive guitars.

More people participate in, go to and play folk music than ever.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,redmax
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 09:02 AM

That's me told, then! :-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 08:59 AM

Our Captain Calls All Hands is a highly political anti-war statement. It's ingenuous in the extreme to take it as merely a whingeing woman telling the bloke not to go to war.

Arthur McBride is similarly a profound condemnation British imperialism and colonialism in Ireland and thus an equally political anti-war statement.

Why don't people actually listen to lyrics?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 08:46 AM

well I am not in the business of attacking other musicians particularly as some of the people I have in mind are no longer with us, and their memories are no doubt special to many.

however if there were this great groundswell of support - where has it evaporated?

i was a very enthusiastic supporter of the folk club movement throughout the 70's, attending folk clubs most nights, running clubs and helping out as best I could.

Its only when it was made plain to me through years of rejection of myself and the singers I loved, that the whole edifice was there to protect some weird fantasy of tradition dreamed by a gang of characters in sleeping bags in the ping pong and prance society library - rather than being a living artform for the british people. That was when I decided to sling my hook.

Giok was laughing at me on another thread, because I started the message with 'When I was a country and western singer; thirty years back, I had a residency in a gay bar in Barnsley.'

You want to know where your audience went, it was out there, but you weren't interested in them, just this 'tradition'.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 08:45 AM

[Erm, you mean what Arthur McBride said to the recruiting sergeant wasn't political?

Says Arthur, I wouldn't be proud of your clothes
You've only the lend of them as I suppose
And you dare not change them one night or you know
If you do you'll be flogged in the morning.]

Fair point, but I did stress that I was only talking about the English tradition, that's an Irish song, isn't it?

[Or what the woman being left behind said when the captain called all hands:

What makes you go abroad, fighting for strangers?

was purely self-seeking?

Sounds like quite vociferous political protest to me.]

Self-seeking? Did I use that phrase? I just said that the songs often speak from a personal point of view. The girl is saying "What makes YOU go abroad...when you could be safe at home" which isn't the same as from "Why should ANYONE have to go", a sentiment which tends to be found in songs like And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.

My point was that I felt there'd been a transition from personal laments about the awfulness of war to protests about its futility, a challenge of "why the hell should ANY sod have to die for politicians?". Did the latter grow more prevalent after the 1914-18 war, I wonder?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 08:33 AM

Well, hurrah for Keith & Sylvia but was it political?
(I suppose in the map-drawing sense of extending the boundaries of Derbyshire to the sea it was).

I was in a venue not long ago when the racket Dick G + noisy cohorts kicked up with No Gods & Precious Few Heroes produced complaints from the karaoke downstairs. Couldn't take the politics.

Venues come and go. In the East Midlands Loughborough used to be dire but it's doing OK now with concerts, ceilidhs and a very fine new festival. Depends who's doing the organisation I suppose and yes, Steve, it's an American . . .

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 08:33 AM

it was never standing room only in the traddy clubs - apart from on Carthy nights, he could always put bums on seats.

Errr...I helped run a traditional music-based folk club in the 60's and my experience is in direct contrast to that.

We could fill the club most Sundays. The only difference between some artists and others was the size of the queue before the pub opened.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 08:16 AM

I agree with the artists that Diane mentions who could fill the traddie clubs and I'd add Archie Fisher, Dick Gaughan, Sean MaGuire, John Kirkpatrick and Martyn Wyndham-Read to that list, but not about the venues. At least not in the East Midlands as with regard to the few Arts Centres/mini conceret venues which have been presenting folk music the one in Nottinghamshire has closed (for the second time)while the one in Derby exists on 90% tribute bands with Nick Harper being the nearest to folk that they are presenting this year.Meanwhile in the freezing, upstairs shithole in which we run our traddie club Keith Kendrick and Sylvia Needham pulled in 50 odd for a singaround on Sunday night.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 07:13 AM

well all I can say is you have a very selective memory - I can remember some very thin nights with some of the people you mention.

They had a powerhouse of publicity in the enthusiastic way that Karl Dallas built them up in Melody Maker and it brought people in - really expecting something sensational - which many of them couldn't deliver.

It was around this time that the saying about acts that could empty a room faster than trapeze artist with diarrhoea became current.

Jasper talked about the city we lived in and loved. he was folk - he didn't have to invoke traditions. he could take of himself though - pity about some of the others that these narrow predjudices sent to the wall.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 05:52 AM

Erm, you mean what Arthur McBride said to the recruiting sergeant wasn't political?

Says Arthur, I wouldn't be proud of your clothes
You've only the lend of them as I suppose
And you dare not change them one night or you know
If you do you'll be flogged in the morning.

Or what the woman being left behind said when the captain called all hands:

What makes you go abroad, fighting for strangers?

was purely self-seeking?

Sounds like quite vociferous political protest to me.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,redmax
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 05:32 AM

My knowledge is mainly limited to traditional English song, and it's always seemed to me that 'the folk' mainly liked songs of love and songs of adventure; or ideally, both in the same song. Songs of protest seem to have been in the minority, but doubtless that's a reflection of England's overall stability and prosperity compared to, say, Ireland's.

Someone mentioned earlier that songs about war could be seen as inherently political, but I wonder if that's true. It strikes me that in songs like High Germany or The White Cockade the lament is on a more personal level, the woes being for a soldier boy and the grievance against the recruiting sergeant. The inevitability of war rarely seems to be challenged like it would be in the protest songs of the 20th century.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 05:01 AM

it was never standing room only in the traddy clubs - apart from on Carthy nights

It was for the Dransfields, Nic Jones, Tony Rose, The Watersons, the Coes and Peggs, the Young Tradition and others of that ilk, all of whom started off doing some US material at a time when the US was a 'secret culture', until they discovered a tradition of their own. Jasper Carrot came later. He sent me an image of the back of his head for inclusion in the Folk Directory. I didn't use it.

Revivalists played the clubs because that was the network that existed after trad jazz fled the ramshackle back and upstairs pub rooms for better premises such as cellar bars and community/arts centres which, surprise surprise, the more enterprising trad music organisers are making use of now. This means that people who'd rather stick pins in their eyes than go near a 'f*lk club' are getting exposed to their own cultural heritage and realising that they do like it and can identify with it.

Too right I'm pissed off at Steve's patronising assertions that Americans handed us the music just because a few wannabes did PPM covers. Next he'll be trotting out his usual chestnut that Mr Hutchings owes everything to the US because he once played in a jug band and started off Fairport as a Californian clone band, as he did in one of his earlier rants during which he admitted he and the Tyger had never even met. Don't suppose Steve ever met Jeannie Robertson either but just read somewhere that she'd complained how Edinburgh was a hotbed of bluegrass and banjo picking. It was and she did. It took one of these banjo pickers (Clive Palmer) and a self-taught bluegrass fiddler who played with Tom Paley (Robin Williamson) to help turn first the Scottish revival then the world towards the old songs and tunes that the travellers had never stopped playing.

Another Fred Woodism was that musicians have to start somewhere and that is not always, or even usually, the right place. But the vital point is that musical influences travel in both directions and musicians pick up and absorb them from everywhere and incorporate what's fits with their own roots. He and Karl Dallas and Eric Winter and I, from our differing political perspectives, used to discuss these themes all night long and Bert Lloyd would give me marks on my pieces. Funnily enough though we never mentioned that old git Alistair Cooke because what we were talking about was what was happening right then in 1970s England, not America in the 1930s. Now, had Steve been there he might have had a slight chance of trying to prove that English country musicians owed all to US blues merchants. Why, we could have shown him Bob Copper playing the blues down on the Sussex coast (which he did). That would have clinched it.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 03:29 AM

Diane seems determined to misunderstand and mischaracterize what I say. Too bad.

I never said America had the same kind of club scene as Britain. I said there wouldn't have been such a scene in Britain without American influence. This is because the Carthys, Killens, etc., who sang at the clubs wouldn't have been singing folk songs. These musicians were inspired by American music, or by Brits singing American songs (like Lonnie Donegan) and then turned to their own tradition.   This is confirmed by my own conversations with Carthy, Killen (and also Ashley Hutchings, Maddy Prior, Alan Reid, Andy Irvine, and many others I've spoken to over the years).

It's also well documented elsewhere, and non-controversial, and was noted by such early revival historians as Fred Woods in 1979. Woods, in Folk Revival, p. 54, writes of the folk clubs, "the repertoire was initially transatlantic, and derived from songwriters such as Leadbelly, Big Bill Broonzy, Uncle Dave Macon, and Woody Guthrie, and American folksongs." He also describes folk groups like the Kingston Trio and Peter Paul and Mary as "the main inspiration to the up-and-coming revivalist singers."

In Ailie Munro's admirable book about the folksong revival in Scotland, she calls the second chapter "The Story of the Revival: Beginnings in the USA." She begins with two quotes, from Andy Hunter and Robin Munro, both of whom say that the main material sung in Scottish folk clubs in the early 60s was American. Hunter says Jeannie Robertson complained about this.

Munro also points out that the precursor to the wartime and post-war radio shows that both Georgina and Diane cite was Alistair Cooke's brilliant radio series from 1938, I Hear America Singing, in which he presented American field recordings from the Library of Congress--in many cases, the first time they had been heard anywhere outside the Library. Munro quotes Hamish Henderson to the effect that they were the first field recordings most British audiences had ever heard. (She could have added to this Cooke's 1936 series, New York City to the Golden Gate, which he created for the BBC after his time in the US on scholarship, but before he emigrated in 1937.) Both of Cooke's shows were on the BBC, presented to British audiences, long before As I Roved Out or even Country Magazine.

It seems pointless for me to continue to justify what most historians of the second revival have been pointing out since the second revival itself. Diane will continue to argue that American influence was unimportant. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. A nerve has apparently been struck.

I do note one more time how political (indeed, romantic and nationalist) Diane's fierce defense of native British revivalism is, and point out once again that the whole idea of folk music is inextricably entwined with politics.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 03:03 AM

'The folk club movement demolished itself over two decades ago when it became overrun by comedians and wannabe popstar snigger-snoggers.'


all I will say is that you had to turn up early to get a chance of seeing Jasper Carrot - it was never standing room only in the traddy clubs - apart from on Carthy nights, he could always put bums on seats.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 02:46 AM

WMD
"Child" ballads - "Childe" had "Harold" after his name!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 01:03 AM

You said: A couple of radio shows and the Opie's books are not a real second revival.

I was saying this is total crap, there were considerably more than 'a couple' of BBC radio programmes and that the Opie's books (and others) were very influential and popular. The 'American influence' (such as it was) consisted mainly in an interest in blues which was regarded not as part of the revival but as, what was then, an alien, exciting, secret culture from a land before it became a cesspit of cultural ethnic cleansing and corporate globalisation we knew little about. Peggy Seeger's stance at the Singers was to tell people to stop pretending to be sharecroppers and cowboys and examine their own cultures, for which many (notably Martin Carthy) thanked her.

My experience of US radio (PSB or not) is minimal (though vastly in excess, apparently, of what Steve knows of UK broadcasting). What I do know about the US airwaves, having listened some of the shows he mentions, is that output comprises mainstream, MOR, celticky, countrified shit. No better than R2 in fact.

The Americans gave us the club singing scene, did they? Odd, I've never encountered anything remotely like it in the US, not that I'd advocate its adoption there, given the state it's in. The folk club movement demolished itself over two decades ago when it became overrun by comedians and wannabe popstar snigger-snoggers. English music carried on regardless in sessions, ceilidhs and certain festivals. In any case, fashions for how music is presented commercially change, but what doesn't is how it survives, thrives and develops in communities who share and adapt it. This continues, regardless of which (if any) 'revival' folklorists imagine they're living under. It mirrors people's lives, their experiences, successes, failures and tribulations. It might grab some bits from the Brill Building/Tin Pan Alley but it's not manufactured within them. People determine it, not musbiz whims and that's what makes it political.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 08:40 PM

I have no idea what Diane's talking about. I never said the UK second folk revival barely happened. I said it wouldn't have happened to anything near the extent that it did, and wouldn't have developed a club singing scene, without American influences. She seems to be supporting me by pointing out how central Peggy Seeger was in this. Thanks, Diane!

Her question about PSB (sic) radio is irrelevant, and also ignorant. Irrelevant because I wasn't saying that the US is more supportive of folk music than the UK, as her attempt to compare the radio shows in our two countries suggests. I don't know if one is more supportive than the other, and don't much care, really. I hope both countries get MORE supportive!

As for radio, in the US we don't have a national radio service comparable to the BBC. For folk music, as for other genres, you can go to many local stations in many places all over the US. Nationally, we have producers like American Public Media, which does things like "A Prairie Home Companion," NPR, which carries "World Cafe," "Thistle and Shamrock," etc. while these are mixed bag shows, they often have folk or roots music in excess of an hour a week. On Satellite Radio, we have American Routes, as well as whole station of folk music, XM 15 the Village, hosted by my friend Mary Sue Twohy, which is carrying a special by me this month, by the way! (In many US cities, there is also an array of both African and Latin roots music programming, if you know where to look.) The amount of folk music on radio is dwindling here, as thoughtful radio becomes more about talk and popular radio becomes more and more aural wallpaper for people to leave on while doing other things. The same is true of many other genres, alas! I expect the same is happening in Britain.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 02:03 PM

is morris dancing reactioary, or radical in intention?

are there conservative elements in the childe ballads?

which foot does Martin Carthy kick with?

Read on........

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Peace
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 01:55 PM

It was because of your post I arrived at that conclusion, Cllr. Thank you.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Cllr
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 01:47 PM

Peace, exactly

only you managed to say it in much fewer words than i did cllr

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Peace
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 01:37 PM

"Is folk song really political?"

Is sculpting/painting/dancing/ really political?

Maybe.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Cllr
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 01:32 PM

labeling, you have to love it

punk rock can be considered to be political (anti-establishment)
classic example God save the Queen by the sex pistols , however while Sids version of "my way may" not be inherently political it is still part of the punk genre. depending on your choice of view on whether or not by belonging to the genre makes it political informs where you stand in relation to folk.

Chumabawamba may be classed as folk and or punk or both, I saw them once do a support for Steeleye span and Robb johnson do a support for them!

I suppose i would say that some folk songs are political some are
not, if you look at some of Robb Johnson finest love songs like "you dont have to say goodbye" in itself it's not political despite being penned by an ardent leftwing political activist


Unless you believe the genre itself has a political status which then imbues whatever is produced under its banner with some sort additional quality then the answer is some of it is and some of it isn't.

However if you are going to argue that anything that involves people has an impact or "effects of socio-political changes" you can make the argument everything is political.i will leave it there because we then get dangerously close to asking the question of what is folk.

I dont think there is a correct answer to this because in the final analysis the question becomes a philosophical debate and is reliant on your own standpoint.
Cllr

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 12:49 PM

Just finding that hat I don't put on much, that labelled 'Defender Of The BBC And Cultural Programming'.

Georgina described only the very beginning of this post-WW2 broadcasting. It continued with Peter Kennedy's highly acclaimed and popular As I Roved Out source recordings on a Sunday morning which everyone at my kindergarten listened to and regurgitated on Monday. Later, all children took part in the schools radio programmes Singing Together, Time & Tune and Music & Movement, which was for many their first and only introduction to both formal music teaching as well as their cultural heritage. Songs were culled largely from The National Song Book, every bit as awful as Rise Up Singing, but nevertheless, a starting point.

While I was bunking off school prep and sneaking, very much under age, into High Level Ranters sessions, the BBC were running a programme known unaffectionately as Country Swamps Folk which morphed eventually into the blessed Jim Lloyd's Folk On Friday. It's 1969, I'm working at C# House where Jim (who later became EFDSS Artistic Director) and the once blessed (before she was elevated to R2 supremo status) Frances Line were more or less in residence. This was the heart of the English revival. All the performers Steve names practically lived there too, with the addition of Ashley Hutchings and all the rest of Fairport who researched Liege & Lief, followed ever so rapidly by the embryo Steeleye Span who I think kept sleeping bags in the sound library. The other ventricle of the heart was Leader/Trailer records around the corner, which subsequently moved into the C# studio for a while before relocating to Halifax.

It was at this time that Louis Killen decided to emigrate to the US and clean up the Hudson River. Ever so worthy, I'm sure but now he's back in Gateshead he's taken to doing gigs based on his alternative Hank Williams/Willie Nelson stylee repertoire and needs Mike Waterson to keep him in order. However, I digress.

The 'second folk revival' in the UK was massive. One of my jobs was to produce the Folk Directory which entailed trekking for two years throughout the land to just about every venue. And it was at Ewan & Peggy's Singers' Club venue that more encouragement was meted out than at any other that I saw to English revival hopefuls to explore their own traditions. And that came from Peggy, an American. One of the jewels of our revival (which Steve imagines barely happened) was the first series of Radio Ballads produced for the BBC by Peggy, Ewan and Charles Parker. Charles ended up fired because they were considered too political. Not so the recent second series, but again, I digress.

The BBC has continued (after a fashion) to devote one hour a week to what it (sometimes surprisingly) calls 'English language f*lk'. While this is predominantly mainstream crap, there is nevertheless much on channels other than R2 which presents English trad in a more normalised setting (R3 Late Junction etc and R4 Factual Programmes in particular). All this is available on the replayer (when it's working). What is there, comparably, on US PSB radio?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Cats at Work
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 11:30 AM

I think that whenever you choose to sing something you are in empathy with it [unless you are just trying to make a nice noise and couldn't care less about the content], so, in effect, every time you sing you a taking a 'political' stand. On that level, the songs you are singing are 'political'. Then there are the 'Political' songs which carry a determined message, be it about work, conditions of service, war, strikes etc. You don't have to agree with the stand these songs are taking but they would have been written with a 'Political' intent to get a message over. So, if you are singing, e.g. The Ox Plough Song, you are empathising with the life and conditions of the various workers in it just as much as you are empathisisng or even supporting the miners in 'Old Soldiers' which was written about the 1984 - 1985 miners strike or 'The Last Fisherman' about the decimation of the Cornish, and now national, fishing fleet.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 11:01 AM

None of what Georgina or Diane has said contradicts what I said. I said "no real second revival." A couple of radio shows and the Opie's books are not a real second revival. In fact, the Opie's books have had very little influence on the folk music scene, and it's puzzling to bring them up in this context.

"During and after the War, BBC Radio programmes like 'Countryside Magazine' featured traditional singers and versions of recently collected songs sung by professional singers, whilst newsreels and radio feature programmes recorded customs." This is not the same as creating a revival singing scene. What Georgina describes is really more a continuation of the first revival than anything very new. Almost all of the singers we associate with the second revival were in fact influenced by Americans, as well as Diane's "Ewan and Bert." Was this influence "limited and specific?" Of course, all influences are. Huge, but limited. Widespread, but specific.

The heart of the second folk revival was the thriving club scene, with Louis Killen and Martin Carthy and Nic Jones and Anne Briggs and Bob Fox and the High Level Ranters, and Ewan MacColl with his American partner (what was her name? Seeger or something)? Would this have happened with no American influences? No one can say, but it seems unlikely.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 08:55 AM

Bloody hell Diana, I agree with you. But when my Grandpa came back from WWI....he put on his flat cap and went t' Gas Board, and kept it on even on the beach at Margate.

I stood and watched children in the playground of an infants' school one lunchtime recently, regrettably known as "dinnertime" in schools, and they all seemed to be playing games, each group doing something different. I suspect this has always been going on.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 07:43 AM

I was trying to ignore Steve's piffle about skiffle but since Georgina has mentioned the limited and specific influence of American imports (and remember that Lonnie Donegan came up through the Chris Barber Jazz Band, not the burgeoing folk revival), I'll have another go at putting a tin lid on this bollocks.

I really do despair of the 'folklorist' who declares a day, time and year when some English tradition 'died out'. Like hammer dulcimer playing. Bob Davenport has this story of how X (I won't say it was Kenny Goldstein cos it might not have been and I can't be arsed to check) made this very assertion and Bob remarked that he must have been hallucinating when he saw one being playing down at Hoxton Market that very afternoon. No-one had told the musician he had to stop because the text book said he didn't exist, and only start again when someone with a tape machine came along (which happened).

My grandfather used to play accordian for Morris and longsword until the outbreak of WWI. He got back from France but the rest of the side didn't. End of trad dancing in North Yorkshire in many but not all areas and his tradition had indeed been revived recently. But no-one told him either to stop playing and once he got a wireless and had the electricity put in, he played along to brass bands. He died just as the second revival was kicking in but didn't consider himself part of it. Nor do many hundreds of trad musicians who play up and down the English countryside, regardless of fashion. The English tradition was, and still is, largely hidden from public view, while any 'revival' is in parallel and largely unconnected. As such this music is an important historical chronicle and a reflection of the effects of socio-political changes on people's lives. Hitherto 'unknown' traditions are still being 'rediscovered' today (like customs, ceremonies, playground games). New traditions are being developed on our streets and wherever people from different cultures in today's Britain gather and share their heritages. How can anyone say that's not political?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 07:30 AM

Oh for clapton's sake, does it really matter - although it keeps the trendy lefties happy especially the ones who hold their knives "that way"!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Georgina Boyes
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 06:56 AM

Nerd's proposal that - without American involvement - there wouldn't have been a Revival in England after World War II isn't justified - though it IS widely believed.

During and after the War, BBC Radio programmes like 'Countryside Magazine' featured traditional singers and versions of recently collected songs sung by professional singers, whilst newsreels and radio feature programmes recorded customs. The Opie's work on children's folklore began just after the War and owed nothing to American influence.

The arrival of American singers and a greater availability of American music - via American forces radio and recordings - was important, but it changed rather than created an interest in folksong, dance and tradition.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 06:43 AM

Oh diane lets run off together to a Mudgather.......sounds like dirty fun to me!

Its been a largely uneventful life, and a bit of conjuntos at my of life would do me the world of good.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 05:01 AM

Spirit?

The sun must be over the yardarm somewhere and it's becoming remarkably urgent to pour some.

Nowhere did I mention big-time rap stars, but musicians playing their music (whatever it is) in their own communities, rooted in their own traditions.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 04:52 AM

However (as O'Reilly the builder said in Fawlty Towers) - I love a woman with spirit!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 04:49 AM

Not really fair Dianne. You talk to most Yank strummers and they're as screwed by the Big Money system as we are. Most of them earning as much in a year as would keep a big time rap artist in drugs for an afternoon.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 02:15 AM

Rise Up Singing? Yeah, looked at it once. It's ever so self-worthy, christian and white. WASPish, in fact.

What I'm concerned with is the vast range of peoples and their cultures who live out there in the real America: Cajun and Creole in Louisiana, hip-hop, rap, house, grunge and gospel in New York, the blues of New Orleans and Chicago, theTejano blend of Mexican and European in Texas, the music of immigrant communities such as Italians, Ukrainians, Poles and Swedes in the major cities, Armenians in California, Conjunto and the local and regional musics of indigenous communities. This is all highly political and real yet scarcely ever gets a mention on Mudcat.

But the forum is awash with ethnically-cleansed, ironed-out, dumbed-down mainstream from US-corporate-sponsored mainstream festivals, summer camps and coffee shops produced by identikit backwards-facing baseball hats chewing on McRubbish. I skim over it because I'm NOT INTERESTED. It's cultural colonialism and thus anti-political.


Oh, and Steve, I don't give a toss whether you call me a communist or not. I spent seven years writing for a communist newspaper, so it's fairly moot. I'll leave others to refute your mangled potted 'history' of the English revival. Sounds a lot like 'Pete & Woody are bigger and better than Ewan & Bert' to me.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 02:12 AM

absolutely fascinating! Thankyou M.Ted.

I often wondered if there were any inheritors of that Sydney Carter vibe. I was brought up a Quaker, but I was hopeless at it!

That sort of goodness of intention is a real talent. I think its the one I buried in the garden - as the parable goes......

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 02:08 AM

M. Ted is quite right that Diane Easby's views reflect certain communist ideologies--which is not the same thing as calling her a communist. They also, and more interestingly, reflect the perspective of Romantic Nationalism out of whch the concept of "the folk" emerged in the 19th Century.

This is almost inevitable for anyone talking about folklore, by the way...the whole idea of "folklore" and "folksong" and "folk" is political, so there is no way to avoid folk songs having a political dimension--simply to decide whether it is a "folk song" or not is an interpretive move that requires political interpretation. Without a certain political perspective, "folk song" wouldn't mean anything, and we'd have nothing to argue about in this thread!

It strikes me again that there is a political dimension to the answers on this thread that is in many ways more interesting than the original question. The question was pretty well answered by several people. But now, we're talking about "my own tradition" and "an entirely different tradition," surely the "self/other" "in-group/out-group" "us/them" dichotomy that is at the root of all politics.

To respond to Diane, one could argue historically, that if it hadn't been for Pete and Woody, and Leadbelly, and others, there would have been no skiffle, and hence no real "second revival" in Britain...so indeed, the British folk scene is there because of Pete and Woody, among others. (The First revival primarily resulted in a revival of dance and the introduction of folksongs into books, classical arrangements, and schools. It did not create much of a singing scene as such.)

It's equally true that Pete and Woody were there because of earlier developments in Britain, of course; Woody, for example, sang a version of "The Gypsy Laddie" that he learned from his mother, and other traditional British songs, and therefore can't really be considered a "songwriter from an entirely different tradition" from the British tradition.

I'm not saying this to claim that either American or British traditions are more important than the other, just to point out that both the English and Anglo-American traditions and their respective revivals were intertwined to such an extent that separating them can only be arbitrary. Is this a political statement? Of course!