Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 06:06 PM

Several of Pleyel's tunes were published in dance music collections from the 1790s on - William Campbell, Corri & Dussek, and most influentially Aird. Is the Pleyel tune people are talking about here the one in Aird volume 4? - it's on my website at http://www.campin.me.uk/Aird/Aird-v4.abc .

Song "ownership": this idea has passed its use-by date. Whatever function it may have had 100 years ago, what it does now is encourage repetitive lazy bores to repel newcomers to the folk scene with their three-song repertoires. If you can't learn something new, learn how to sing with conviction out of a book (it isn't that difficult) and use that. And if you've got somebody in your scene with a three-song repertoire, learn them all and pre-empt them till they get the message.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Hawker
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 06:37 PM

Just a comment from me, and it may just be me, but Im not too worried about what song is sung, yes some have been done to death, but if sung well then I dont have a problem. What I have a problem with is people singing irish songs with an irish accent (unless of course they are Irish) and the youngsters who think that it is necessary to sing everything in a mid-atlantic accent. Grrrrrr!
Cheers, Lucy

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 07:05 PM

Speaking of possibly inappropriate material for folk clubs, many years ago I used to treat our poor unsuspecting audiences to my rendition of "Telstar" on a soprano crumhorn - no-one ever complained :-)

Anybody got an ABC for "Telstar"? If it fits a crumhorn it should fit my new chalumeau. (I keep getting it mixed up with "Highland Cathedral" when I try to remember it)

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Smokey.
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 07:26 PM

You might even manage the key change on a chalumeau. It repeats a fourth higher on the original, which isn't quite possible on a 1 key crumhorn. Besides, after playing through it once, I have to admit I was well and truely fucked, and I don't mean in the biblical sense. They say I often turned purple - oh to be young and daft again..

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: mousethief
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 07:52 PM

I haven't found being daft to have left me.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 08:08 PM

Just listened to Telstar on YouTube. I didn't remember the bridge section, that might be tricky.

Should work on the stylophone, though.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Smokey.
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 08:11 PM

Hmm... on reflection, best make that "oh to be young again"...

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Smokey.
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 08:13 PM

Jack, don't be put off, the bridge section's easier than the well known bit. Go on - 'ave a go.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 01:47 AM

My old band ERIC used to use Telstar as an encore, on 3 concertinas. (we kept the crumhorn in reserve for Take 5)
The one good thing about the band was that we were always pretty confident that no-one else would do our material as a floorspot. Indeed, why would they want to??!

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 02:53 AM

Anybody got an ABC for "Telstar"?

Telstar kept me going after my father died. I spent a few days not going out of the house or talking to anyone, as far as I could manage, and occupied myself scoring Telstar in Noteworthy Composer. I should still have it somewhere - I'll dig it out and put it through Bryan Creer's ABC converter.

(After my mother died, on the other hand, I got back into folk music - but that's another story.)

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,FloraG
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 04:09 AM

Back to the theme - I think you all have it wrong - the most important thing in a folk club is the raffle. It keeps most clubs afloat.

I have noticed a tendancy for more and more clubs to survive on well known main guest + a few floor singers as support. The audience varies according to who the main guest is - so floor singers make little difference - quality or content - so sing whatever. However, mainstream songs do seem to go down better with this type of audience.

I personally do not like over long guitar introductions or too many self penned songs, but variety is good and occasionally you get a gem.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Smedley
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 04:32 AM

The whole point of 'Telstar' is the production techniques used on the priginal recorded single. (As executed by the great Joe Meek.) Cover it as a novelty item by all means, but to my mind it's a very bizarre choice.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Smedley
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 04:33 AM

Erm, original not priginal!! Mudcat needs an Edit facility. Or I need to stop typing so clumsily.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 05:05 AM

Mudcat has an edit facility, it's called 'Preview'(See bottom of this box).
Editing after a post has been put online would risk having replies to comments which have subsequently changed!

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 05:12 AM

Songs you shouldn't sing in a folk club? Absolutely anything which involves accompaniment on a banjo-ukelele. After an unfortunate occurrence last night, I can say that with something rather more than my usual depth of feeling.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: TheSnail
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 05:17 AM

Jack Campin

Is the Pleyel tune people are talking about here the one in Aird volume 4?

That's the one. The original tune is buried in a much longer piece so I wondered how it had escaped as a dance tune. I rather hoped that Aylemore had played in Pleyel's orchestra and picked it out for himself.

Pip Radish

I'll dig it out and put it through Bryan Creer's ABC converter

I shall be honoured to play my small part in this noble endeavour.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 05:19 AM

Smedley Old Bean.
ERIC.....Novelty?
We were a very serious beat combo.
If you'd said the Hackney Martians, then I might have well agreed!
But ERIC were legends in their own lunchtime (which normally served up Millet Dansak!)

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: mandotim
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 05:59 AM

Re; the banjo ukulele. If you ever get the chance to listen to Jolly Jock of Biggles Wartime Band you may revise that opinion. His version of 'Addicted to Love' in a broad Yorkshire accent while inexpertly accompanied on said instrument is pant-wettingly funny.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Acorn4
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 06:04 AM

We had a performance of "Anarchy in the UK" on ukelele recently at a local club.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,LTS on the sofa
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 06:24 AM

Is here the right place to point out that Mozart's German dances (which by a scary coincidence have JUST come up on shuffle) were based on German folk tunes?

Thought not..


Gervase - I remember you doing Papageno, and doing it very well... we didn't even know you played the melodeon til then!

LTS

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,LTS onthe sofa
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 06:25 AM

Er... when I say 'doing Papageno' - you know what I meant don't you....















I'll get me blankie.

LTS

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 06:40 AM

Re; the banjo ukulele. If you ever get the chance to listen to Jolly Jock of Biggles Wartime Band you may revise that opinion. His version of 'Addicted to Love' in a broad Yorkshire accent while inexpertly accompanied on said instrument is pant-wettingly funny.

Is that the same Jolly Jock who purports to play the trombone and brings light comic relief to certain jazz events? I would go an awful long way out of my way to avoid him.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: The Sandman
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 01:14 PM

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: The Borchester Echo - PM
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 07:45 AM

Jackie Oates' rendition of WHATFG, a New Year gift to all her Facebook friends, sounds gloriously fresh and new, a prerequisite for anyone with thoughts of putting out yet another version of some old chestnut. But what is even more appalling, tedious and ill-mannered than trotting out yet another hackeyed copy of the like of what is listed above are those floor singers who upstage the booked guest by decimating the setlist by selfishly and unthinkingly knocking off their best-known numbers lifted directly from said guest's recordings.
well said,this is really getting to piss me off
please note, just as the tide is flowing,On one april morning.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: mg
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 02:49 PM

Well, I haven't read everything here, but a fair amount. I think whoever runs the club should state preferences..if you are a collection of folklorists you want something different than what people want to sing after a rugby game. State your preferences. If new people come into an established club and sing today while the flowers etc. it will drive the traditional ones out. Especially if they come with the you know whats and say turn to page 141. There is absolutely a need for that sort of grouping..but it should be started that way and not by people with good intentions and no knowledge of the unspoken rules taking things over and having massive attrition of those who prefer another style.

All preferences are wonderful. THey just need to group together and people must, must, must be honest about their preferences and directed to other venues if they don't match up. Now, I have seen people who asked specific questions about Seattle Song Circle being told what was not the dominant thought at the time..which is sing anything, it is all the same to us, we love everything. Except it was not true. Just ask to sing today while the flowers and see 30 people pretend they have never heard of it. Try Irish eyes are smiling. Try home on the range. But of course people who love those songs should have a place to sing them. But more than a few per session and those with other preferences will not say a word..they will just go elsewhere, privately, and you will never find out where they go. I never have anyway and I only sing Irish eyes on SPD.

So be honest. Ask questions, and answer questions honestly. mg

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 04:12 PM

Rolf Harris got it over the phone from an Australian singer in the 1970s

Actually Rolf had a Christmas no 1 with it in 1969. Still a great song.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 04:38 PM

Something is puzzling me here.
Last night as I listened to the abovementioned Jackie Oates on Folkwaves singing "Fair Flower of Northumberland" a song that I and numerous others have known and been singing for over forty years; however since she has recorded FFON (and I didn't know she had done until last night) does this make it "her song" and even though I have been singing it long before she was born, should she ever be booked at our club do I avoid it like the plague?
Just wondering?

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Peter Stockport
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 05:25 PM

After reading this thread I announced at The Midway Folk Club Stockport last night that certain songs were now banned on the orders of the Mudcat fascist folk police. There was outrage! Try it for yourself, people don't like the thought that some songs shouldn't be sung...
Here's the songs we sang last night in the order we sang them...

Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme
Last thing on my mind
Manchester Rambler
Taggle Taggle Gypsies
Streets of London
Man you don't meet
The Boxer
Frankie and Johnny
Me and Bobby McGee
Country Roads
Fields of Athenry
Fields of Gold
My old mans a dustman
When the saints go marchin in
Swing Low
Bill Bailey
Kumbaya
Down by the Riverside
It takes a worried man
This little light of mine
Dirty Old Town
Where have all the flowers gon
Don' think twice it's alright
Take your Glasses to the bar

We had a great night,most of these are fantastic chorus songs, that's why they are popular.
I'd recommend every singaround to have a night of banned songs.
It makes for a very jolly night!
So.... There are songs you shouldn't sing in a folk club but these old chestnuts ain't they!
Think again
Peter

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Brakn
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 05:30 PM

Let's hope that youngsters don't read this thread.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 07:26 PM

It seems to me that the only people who qualify for the description "Fascist folk police" are people who use terms like "fascist folk police" - try adulthood sometime sometimes - it's very refreshing.   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 08:05 PM

Well they used to have the "Fuzz Folk" in Edinburgh, the Police Folk Club. One of them, Ian Green, went on to found Greentrax, a very well-known record label in Scotland, with many wonderful recordings and artistes in his catalogue.
Oh but I drift from the thread subject.................
The definition of 'done to death" and therefore shouldn't be sung strikes me as, for many songs, being very geographical. A song that bores the pants off everyone in Yorkshire folk clubs may be greeted with interest up here as so rarely heard. On my annual forays to Sidmouth festival, I hear a whole encyclopaedia of songs which everyone there seems to know very well, but very few people here do, and if i sing a well-known (to Scots) song it's quite likely it will be little known down there. (may even require translation!)

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 08:19 PM

just been to a club (in the UK) where someone sang (with great gusto)this land is your land etc........

Give me a break

Betsy

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 09:42 AM

The Folk Police

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 09:47 AM

Betsy, its called solidarity. many peoploe, from al around the world. were moved by Seeger and Springsteen doing this for Obama.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 12:32 PM

Yep, Betsy, on (possibly your) Independence Day 2009, I dared to sing that song in our lovely city of Edinburgh in a public place. We do get a lot of American tourists here, and there were some in the audience who were delighted that we did it - all the verses. So give ME a break!
And just in case you want to watch it again (no, not me!)it's here, thanks to a GERMAN TV company!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5KnYADCSms

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: peregrina
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 12:46 PM

Betsy, if you are going to object to a song by Woody Guthrie, then... why sing at all?

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Peter Stockport
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 03:35 PM

Jim Carrol !   What do you mean "try Adulthood"? Do you mean laughing up your sleeve at people who sing "Where have all the flowers gone" is adult?
Or "Green Fields of France"? No I didn't think so, but that's what portions of this thread seems to be implying.
Peter

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 03:51 PM

I'm with Betsy! I wouldn't sing "This land is your land" because it clearly is a patriotic American song, and the "my" of "my land" is an American. The "Where have all the flowers gone" and the "Green Fields of France" reference doesn't make any sense, in this context.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Howard Jones
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 04:12 PM

In reply to Dave Sutherland, of course Jackie Oates having recorded "Fair Flower of Northumberland" doesn't make it "her" song or give her sole performing rights. However if she were to appear as a guest at your club then it would be the height of bad manners towards the guest for you to perform it, knowing that she has recently recorded it, and that it is likely to feature in her current repertoire. I also think it would be bad manners towards the audience, who can hear you sing it any time, but will only have that opportunity to hear her version.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: peregrina
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 04:19 PM

I'd say that 'This Land is your Land' is at the same end of the national song spectrum as Hamish Henderson's 'Freedom come all ye.'

--TLiYL's not about attachment to a nation, but about the idea that the land is of all. (The one to NOT sing would be the song that TLiYL reacts to, namely, 'God bless America'.)

You might not feel that TLiYL suits a UK folk club, and it may be that UK audiences don't have the connection to the song that comes from growing up singing it in the contexts where Americans learn it

or maybe there is such a sense of alienation from the idea of owning land in the UK, from a history of serfdom, enclosures, land owned by landed gentry and toiled on by others, that... the idea needs introducing--sing it!!

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 04:51 PM

You are just mistaken, Tunesmith. It is not a patriotic American song...the singers were international socialists, they were talking about class and common ownership, not patriotism.
   Anyway, people sing, irrespective of nationality, irish songs on patrick's day, and Scottish songs on Burns night, as a sign of respect community and solidarity.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Howard Jones
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 04:54 PM

Perigrina, "This Land" has very geographically-specific lyrics. I'm aware that the song has been re-written to incorporate other locations, including the UK, but I suspect the singer referred to previously was singing the original US-centric lyrics, which can sound a bit incongruous as we're rather short of redwood forests on this side of the water.

As for your final point, approx 70% of Brits own their home and most of the rest wish they did! Indeed, an obsession with property-ownership (which for most people involved incurring massive debt) is arguably one of the reasons for the current economic mess we're in.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 05:23 PM

I also wouldn't sing " I belong to Glasgow" and " Maybe it's because I'm Londoner"; however, I have sung "The Leaving of Liverpool" but wouldn't sing "In my Liverpool home". Also, I would - and have - sung Pastures of Plenty" because I see that as "story song" in the folk tradition.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: peregrina
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 05:40 PM

Perhaps the songs about the Kinder Trespass are the analogue to TLiYL.

Howard, yes, the stats on Home Ownership are there, but I think the point of TLiYL isn't about 'owning' the land per se (after all, there's that verse against private property), but about some connection with the wilderness, with a vast landscape, and a right to be there traversing it. And there's something very intriguing about such attachment to owning a dwelling ("a property"), rather than emphasizing ownership of a patch of land,

And yes, there are versions rewritten for Canada, Ireland, elsewhere, and I'm sure Woody would be pleased. Still, I think there's a difference between songs that people think should not be sung because they have become too familiar, and songs that singers might not choose because they might feel they can't inhabit them in in some necessary way.
TYiYL in the second category, but a lovely song for singing alone to, vivid descriptions set in a kind of loping, inevitable meter and melody.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Peter Stockport
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 07:02 PM

Tunesmith.
Where have all the Flowers gone is a reference to an earlier post, nothing to do with Woody Guthrie.
"My Land" is a great song, Wiki gives the English version as

This land is your land, this land is my land,
From the coast of Cornwall to the Scottish Highlands,
From the sacred forests to the holy islands.
This land was made for you and me.

or the Welsh version as
Mae'n wlad i mi ac mae'n wlad i tithau,
O gopa'r Wyddfa i lawr i'w thraethau,
O'r De i'r Gogledd, o Fôn i Fynwy.
Mae'r wlad hon yn eiddo i ti a mi

there's an excellent article in Wiki - Nothing wrong in singing a good song with alternative lyrics. As someone else said, Woody would have loved it.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 07:13 PM

Looking through my repertoire list (also known as all the songs I've forgotten) the only song I wouldn't sing in a folk club (or anywhere else) is "The Engineer". Nowadays I usually sing "Where have all the Flowers Gone" in German, especially if there any native German speakers in the audience, and the last time I did in English I found I was back translating. As for the Fields of King's Ford, it's a fantastic song to sing at Croke Park with 80,000 Irishmen (just as part of the crowd), though I'll usually sing it if anybody's sung "Caledonia".

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Bert
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 07:49 PM

This land is your land, this land is my land,
from Stoke Poges to Canvey Island...

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Mark Stevens
Date: 03 Feb 10 - 09:08 PM

I sing and play most of the songs that Richard (Bridge) mentioned !! Mind you, I've not been to a folk club for a long time now,
but I might go to Elsie's again one fair and distant evening ...

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Feb 10 - 04:13 AM

" What do you mean "try Adulthood""
I mean if you want to argue, do so and don't indulge in infantile name calling.
'Folk police' is on the same level as schoolyard invective with a nasty edge, and the 'fascists' were the ones were the ones who gassed millions of human beings in their concentratuin camps. Equating either term to holding an opinion, any opinion, on music puts the argument in the gutter.
I certainly don't "laugh up my sleeve" at people who sing 'Flowers' - (I'm rather fond of it as being a part of my political youth), and I have been known to sing 'Green Fields' before now. I put up the parody as an indication of how it is regarded here in Ireland nowadays.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Feb 10 - 04:31 AM

One of the singing morris sides in Kent nearly always did drunken sailor as part of the after dance entertainment in the pub on a stand night. It allowed the non folkies in the pub to join in and the not so confident/ competent guitar and melodeons to work on getting their chords right.

It was the song that nearly always got the biggest round of applause in the pub.

I would not expect to hear it in a folk club but bands that get regularly booked into the local pubs have been heard to do it - even Sur Les Docks - a very popular French group that often play in North kent - do a version. Horses for courses.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Marje
Date: 04 Feb 10 - 04:38 AM

I'm with Jim here. I find it tiresome and juvenile when the following happens:
1. A question is asked about the most (or least) suitable choice of songs/style of singing for a particular type of venue, region or event. It's usually (as in the above case) someone who wants to pick the best material to please their audience.
2. Various respondents give their views and ideas, which are intended to answer the question and give some helpful suggestions.
3. At this point, a few others jump in and start shouting "Fascists! Folk Police! How dare you tell me what I can and can't sing? I sing just whatever I like, in any way I want, and I don't care what anyone else thinks of it..." etc etc.

If you can't answer the question that's been asked, or you don't think it should have been asked in the first place, then you clearly have nothing to contribute. If the idea that some songs and performances are more appropriate, more skillfully delivered, more enjoyable to the audience, is one that makes you uncomfortable, why not just move on to another thread and leave the discussion to those who are interested in it?.

Marje