Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: mousethief
Date: 19 May 10 - 05:05 PM

Indeed why bother with a slavish recreation of the source? Pipe your iPod through the PA system and go have a fag.

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 19 May 10 - 05:10 PM

check out Bob Gibson's version of Sweet Betsy From Pike. A good song but a whole other tune and attitude.

Someone put together the song I got from old cowboy Del Bray and I called it and recorded it as The Cowboy's Barbara Allen. --- BA is a great old folk song. C.B.A. is just charming, and rather bizarre.

Spider John Koerner doing Shenandoah ain't nothing like the Norman Luboff Choir---but it is pretty wonderful.

The best Shenandoah I ever heard was Jo Stafford's---with her husband Paul Weston leading the orchestra.

One guy's opinion. When it's done well, it is simply done well!!!! A rose is a rose...

Art (I like my Shenandoah too.)

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 19 May 10 - 05:49 PM

Bess Lomax Hawes in her wonderful autobiography says that the nature of the folk arts
is based on stability and change. Stability identifies the art form. Change must be there to ensure its continuance.

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 May 10 - 06:27 PM

Let's see: "Greensleeves" dates about the time of Hank the 8. How do we know that the words and melody are the same as when it was first played/written?

I'm reminded of the story of the old abbot down in the manuscript storage room, weeping and saying, "It says 'celebrate'!"

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 May 10 - 07:03 PM

its worse than sacrilege,its vandalism.
I suppose the next thing will some bright Spark will rewrite Lord Randall,and we will all have to be bored to death with 21st century Ennui,instead of ancient Ennui,God spare us.
I thought this music was supposed to be enjoyed

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 May 10 - 07:12 PM

Sorry,but these rewrites of the raggle taggle gypsys,dont meet up to the original,lets take MARJES,all these os just sound incongruous in a modern setting,and then we have lady o rhyming with RADIO, ready o and teddy o,its like Enid Blyton,please desist.

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 May 10 - 07:16 PM

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Richard Bridge - PM
Date: 18 May 10 - 07:54 AM

I thought it was the Daimler that was not so speedy as the MGB
why not the funeral hearse?the song has been destroyed why not bury it for ever,its outrageous

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: GUEST,Goose Gander
Date: 19 May 10 - 08:55 PM

What exactly is the 'original' of Raggle Taggle Gypsy?

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: theleveller
Date: 20 May 10 - 03:32 AM

"What exactly is the 'original' of Raggle Taggle Gypsy?"

Exactly! There must be dozens of quite different versions. Adapting a song doesn't mean writing over it and destroying the original, so Dick's cry of 'vandalism' is a blatant over-reaction. People have talked about the King James Bible, but others would contend that it is a modern translation of the Latin, Greek or Hebrew texts. When Tyndale's Bible first appeared, people were burned as heretics just for posessing a copy. I think Dick wants that to happen to anyone who changes a traditional song (does that include adding a concertina accompaniment?). Put the thumbscrews away, Dick, and save the bonfire for Guy Fawkes night - I thought this music was supposed to be enjoyed.

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Bert
Date: 20 May 10 - 03:40 AM

What exactly is the 'original' of Raggle Taggle Gypsy?

Why the FIRST ONE of course.

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: theleveller
Date: 20 May 10 - 03:42 AM

My 10-year old daughter has commented that my version won't be a patch on the Waterboys' recording! Cheeky minx!!!!

I'm also reminded that that vandal, Robbie Burns, used the song for his poem Sweet Tibby Dunbar. Sacrilege!

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Marje
Date: 20 May 10 - 04:10 AM

Listen, Dick, I'm very pround of getting lady-o and radio to rhyme. In many versions (and in some of my other verses) nothing rhymes at all except the "O".

I think your remarks are also something of a slur Enid Blyton, who would be quite shocked to be associated with a tale of an immoral runaway girl who ends ups smoking god-knows-what with the hippies. If Enid Blyton had re-written the tale, the girl wouldn't have gone further than the end of her back garden, perhaps with a bottle of ginger beer and her pet dog for company.

And if you can't see that the "incongruous" sound of the modern details is part of the fun, you're really missing the point.

Marje

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 May 10 - 08:06 AM

you are of course free to do what you like, whether your efforts will stand the test of time remains to be seen.
what has adding a concertina part got to do with this?
I thought we were talking about rewriting traditional songs, and it seems like you are talking about modernising them.
I am of the opinion that good traditional songs have a timeless quality they do not need to be modernised.
it is good job I am not in charge of running the world I would have ,all the Rupert Bear doggerel merchants put in the stocks.
   Most of the efforts I have heard to date have been unconvincing,the result is similiar to people putting in plastic mock georgian windows on a genuine Georgian house.
by modernising a song you can easily lose the timeless quality of the song

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Marje
Date: 20 May 10 - 08:20 AM

I offered my version simply for comparison because the other, better-known "modernisations" of the tale had been quoted or alluded to. I said in my post that it wouldn't, and wasn't intended to, stand the test of time - it was very much a song for the time when it was written and is getting out of date already (as are versions that refer to "beatniks" etc).

I didn't mention concertinas, but presumably the person who did was suggesting that adding a concertina accompaniment might not be strictly traditional either, in a song that's old enough to pre-date concertinas.

But fortunately most of us are not such purists that we'd take that attitude, are we?

Marje

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 20 May 10 - 08:56 AM

"I decided to adapt the song and called it The Scarborough Gypsies"

That doesn't seem any more objectionable than taking an old ballad about an Elfin Knight and rewriting it as 'Scarborough Fair'....

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: theleveller
Date: 20 May 10 - 09:05 AM

"it seems like you are talking about modernising them"

No, I never mentioned that. This is what I wrote: "just really relocating it rather than updating it and certainly not a spoof".

Please don't put words in my mouth.

And what's this obsession with standing the test of time? I write songs for me and t'missus to sing. I couldn't give a stuff if no-one's interested in them after we're gone. If they are, fine - if not, nothing lost.

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: GUEST,Jon Dudley
Date: 20 May 10 - 09:27 AM

We heard Tony Barrand and John Roberts' parody of 'Thousands or More' whilst on the East Coast of the USA and enjoyed it enormously, eg...'if you ask for my credit cards, you'll find I have nine, but they are maxed out for most of the time'...and more in that style. I don't know if they wrote it.

For his writing in the traditional vein, a very distant relative of my wife's, Mr.Sid Kipper of Trunch has created some excellent material.

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 May 10 - 11:00 AM

leveller here is your original post.
What's your opinion on changing, adapting or rewriting traditional songs?
I am giving you my opinion, on one particular aspect of that on rewriting songs in a modern manner,if you dont want different opinions why ask for them.
I believe rewriting traditional songs is a dificult thing to acheive successfully.
Bert Lloyd managed to pass off songs as traditional[we think], it is something that is not easily done successfully ,neither is altering traditional songs and making them still sound as if they were traditional an easy task.
if you are determined to do it anyway why ask for others opinions?

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: theleveller
Date: 20 May 10 - 12:27 PM

"I am giving you my opinion, on one particular aspect of that on rewriting songs in a modern manner,"

Fine, but, as I have pointed out, I said nothing about modernising and you implied that I had. Perhaps if you read other people's posts before replying you might understand what they are saying before you jump in with both feet.

"if you are determined to do it anyway why ask for others opinions?"

Becasue I wasn't asking for permission, I was asking for opinions.

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: GUEST,Goose Gander
Date: 20 May 10 - 12:30 PM

You brought up the example of Raggle Taggle Gypsys. There are literally hundreds of versions of this one, we don't even know what the 'original' is, but it's clear that there's been plenty of changing, adapting, and rewriting of this one.

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: GUEST,Gabriel Hound
Date: 20 May 10 - 01:27 PM

Thanks Kitty. It is not always easy for me to get on the internet to defend myself.

Jim

I am certain that he was proud that his songs were the same as the printed versions. Unfortunately most of my life is in boxes at the moment otherwise I would be able to quote to you verbatim. He did believe from what I read of what he said that he believed his songs were proper folk songs because they were exactly the same as the printed sources - whether you would choose to call them broadsheets or not. I remember reading that one member of his family could read music. I don't disagree with you that he got the songs and tunes off members of his family, however, he did not think much of people altering songs from the printed versions. He might have been too polite to tell you - he was quite shy and introverted - and like many Norfolk people inclined to keep himself to himself.

Do you think it is possible Jim that Walter picked up the concept of adapting songs etc, the folk process from you or those in the folk world he came into? He did learn/fill out some songs for folk festivals and recordingss etc - but wasn't he nudged in this direction? I think you can be too close to something and see it only through your own window.

I only remember seeing him a couple of times in North Walsham - I think it was at the Orchard Gardens or the Black Boy? I can't remember - not my regular haunts. Cliff Gobold who had brought him to the folk club told me that Walter had at the time distinct ideas of what made a proper folk song and he that he could recognise what he thought were or weren't. He did not think that a lot of the songs he heard at folk clubs were proper folk songs. He had his won sense of tradition.

I read that William Kimber when he introduced people to the concertina, was quite specific about people not mucking about with the tunes adding 'feather notes'etc

Personally I like adaptations and people can do what they like, as Greg says there are no rules. In fact the older books of tunes have divisions and changes of tunes in plenty - it was expected. Perhaps we need some people who are faithfull to the tradition and some who play with it. What is remarkable is the continuity over time of not just songs but ways of life until the 20th century.

By all means have fun adapting and changing put also take care not to loose the links which connect us to our tradition and roots, otherwise I would be tempted to agree with Walter.

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Marje
Date: 20 May 10 - 01:46 PM

To take this discussion in another direction:

People do adapt traditional songs for all sorts of reasons. If that never happened, there would only be one version of each traditional song in circulation. "Modernisation" is one reason, and may be done for comic effect. Parody is another (overlapping) reason, and one that requires the original version to remain in good health, otherwise the parody will not work.

But there are plenty of other reasons to change a song:

- people may mishear or misunderstand archaic or dialect words and substitute something that makes sense to them, without realising they're doing so.

- as above but on purpose: if a word or phrase seems clumsy and old-fashioned, or sounds as if it means something else now, the singer will sometimes change it to make the meaning clearer.

- adding or omitting certain verses. These may be "floaters" that don't much alter the song's meaning, or the song may simply be too long/short for the singer or his/her audience, so an abridged or extended version is created.

- place-names or personal names may be changed to make the song seem more relevant to the listeners. The might include changing the gender of the song's main protagonist(s).

- gory or gruesome songs may be softened up a bit by changing the ending or omitting some lurid details.

- songs may be "translated" from one dialect to another, which could entail changing certain words.

- singers may find that the "given" version that was collected doesn't rhyme or doesn't scan at some point, and will tweak the song to their taste.

And so on ... I'm sure there's a thesis there, and it may even have been written. All I can say is that I've done some of the above, and tried hard to avoid doing others (which sometimes means avoiding certain songs rather than mess with them).

There's plenty of ideas there to discuss if you're all getting tired of Raggle Taggle Wotsits.

Marje

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: olddude
Date: 20 May 10 - 01:57 PM

The songs survived for exactly that reason, they were sung and adapted. I doubt anyone can know what the original really sounded like. It is the folk process. If one does a version and it is great, it will probably survive as another version of song x ... takes nothing away from the 100's of other versions of whatever song it is.
Good Grief how many version and different lyrics are there to Wabash Cannon ball ... you would need a year to write em down.

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 20 May 10 - 03:11 PM

Sacrilege. Brendan Grace is on live 365 right now singing Ringsend Rose but he changed it to Irish Rose. Takes so much away from the song once you heard the original, by Pete St. John. If it is about Ringsend, why make it generic? I am going to turn my speakers off for a few minutes. He otherwise does a great job of it. Why did he have to do that? mg

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 May 10 - 03:55 PM

Why does he have to do that? Hank Marvin was asked why he changes guitars during a performance, and his answer was because he can!! So that is probably the the answer to your question.

Everybody will have a different opinion of Leveller's question, but nobody's is necessarily the correct opinion.

My opinion is why should he not be changing, adapting or rewriting traditional songs - let's face it some are pretty useless anyway. Fairport made a good living out of it!!

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 20 May 10 - 05:10 PM

Well, this is a recent song. mg

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 May 10 - 05:26 PM

Gabe,
Walter first heard his songs at family parties at Christmas, just prior to WW2. He lived at home with his parents and his Uncles, one of whom, Billy Gee, being the main singer of the family.
Some time in the thirties he began to take an interest in what he always referred to as 'folk songs' - he said other family members of his age "Were not interested in them and went for the modern stuff", and he was afraid of them dying out so, after he returned from the army in 1946 he began to write them in a notebook - he never came across any of them in print (with the possible exception of 'Bonny Bunch of Roses').
Billy was dead by this time and he relied on his mother and an aunt to fill in the gaps in his memory; he got his mother to sing the tunes and he memorised these by playing them on his melodeon.
In the mid seventies his nephew, Roger Dixon, introduced him to Peter Bellamy, and Bill Leader recorded him for two albums. Following this he was asked to a number of folk clubs (the Orchard Gardens was actually set up by Cliff Godbolt and others around the fact that Walter lived a few miles away).
Walter decided to fill in the gaps in the songs he only partially knew to sing them at the clubs; Cliff and others gave him texts and books when he asked for help, but the idea came solely from Walter himself.
He asked us to find him the words of Dark Arches, and he discovered 'Parson And The Clerk' in Peter Kennedy's Folksongs of Britain on our shelves while he was staying with us in London - again, he asked us to copy the text for him - no persuasion from us. One of the last songs he remembered and gave us was 'The Steam Arm', which he recalled for us one night when we were visiting him, but he decided he wasn't quite satisfied with one of the verses, so he went off and found a substitute. Walter was not just a song carrier (rememberer of songs), but a sensitive and creative singer.
He was proud of his family's songs, but not because they were 'accurate', but rather because he believed them to be good songs.
If you met him you would have known him to be a Thomas Hardy fan - he even put a tune to Hardy's Trampwoman's Tragedy and sang it for us.
We were friends with Walter for around 20 years and we sat in his cottage and recorded him singing and talking many times over that period. Most of this information is on those recordings (now housed in The National Sound Archive at The British Library).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 20 May 10 - 05:40 PM

Stability and adaptation.

Verses are changed over the decades. In America, Barbara Allen finds herself walking the highway home. There is a cowboy variant that's interesting, as well.

The cryogenic approach to folk ballads doesn't exist.

Some claim that the printed version of a song determines its origin. Not necessarily.
Variants might exist prior to the printed date.

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 May 10 - 03:45 AM

"Variants might exist prior to the printed date."
They almost certainly did.
We recorded a Traveller singer, Mikeen McCarthy, from County Kerry in S. W Ireland who worked at what was known there as 'ballad selling', selling songsheets at the fairs and markets in rural Ireland; the trade lasted there right into the mid-1950s.
He described how, in the 1940s, he and his mother would go into a printers and recite the songs over the counter to the printer, who would write them down and run off a batch to be sold. The songs all came from the family repertoire, and included 17th century pieces like The Blind Beggar right up to pop songs like Patsy Fagan and There's No Place Like Home. Mikeen said he never knew of a song that was specifically composed to be sold on the songsheets.
"cryogenic...."
I hope you mean cryptogenic - don't know many 'cold' songs.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: theleveller
Date: 21 May 10 - 03:46 AM

"I believe rewriting traditional songs is a dificult thing to acheive successfully."

I agree, but that's no reason for not attempting it.

Writing is my profession (although that may be too grand a title) and has, in a wide range of forms, been how I have earned my living for over 40 years. It's also my passion, which has, more recently, taken the form of songwriting – not for profit, but purely for the pleasure of doing it, with the added bonus of being able to perform the result.

I believe that writing is a craft that, on rare occasions, can become an art form. I liken myself to a craftsman who might work in wood, stone, metal, or whatever. My material is words; when people ask what I do for a living, I often tell them that I rearrange the letters of the alphabet. Adapting a traditional song is, as you imply, a particular challenge, and if you can see the joins, or the new bits stand out against the patina of age, you haven't done a good job. So I'm just waiting for the glue to dry on my adaptation, then I'll stand back and see how it looks, listen to how it sounds and perhaps put in a bit more work. Then it may, or may not, get a public airing. Or it might just sit in a corner of my song file until it moulders away, in which case, it will have plenty of company.

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 21 May 10 - 09:55 AM

Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny wrote amazingly well in the style of traditional songs!

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 21 May 10 - 10:22 AM

I remember practicing in the front room when I was a teenager still living at home. I was learning a few traditional songs at the time and happened to be working my way through "Our Captain Cried All Hands," and playing the excellent Therapy version on my mum's old Radiogram.

My mum's friend had turned up and was in the next room with my mum having a cuppa. She heard it and told my mum it was wicked, and nobody should be allowed to use tunes of hymns for non religious songs.

So; of course it is sacrilege to some people. Even if the song is older than the hymn in this case.

A strange example of the traditional song being called the usurper!

(My dear old friend Tom Brown used to have problems with people changing traditional songs, even if they were just parody, such as Land Rover (Wild Rover.) I put it down to his age, just like the old witch who thought my mum had spawned the devil....)

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 21 May 10 - 05:34 PM

...and I used to sing The Fox:

The farmer's wife jumped out of bed,
Out of the window she cocked her head...

Art

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 May 10 - 06:03 PM

I am no longer here,this post is a figment of your imagination.

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: GUEST,Curtis
Date: 21 May 10 - 07:23 PM

I play a lot of English trad songs, and I love finding and comparing the various incarnations of a song such as Geordie aka Georgie (1 version from Martin Simpson, 2 different versions from Martin Carthy), Clydeswater aka Drowned Lovers (3 versions = Martin Carthy, Nic Jones, Kate Rusby). Changes here and there are part of what makes a song a living breathing thing.

Curtis

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 21 May 10 - 07:50 PM

Undoubtedly true, but if a few people do it over 200 years, probably OK. If everyone and his brother does it willy-nilly, it becomes musical chaos...mg

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 21 May 10 - 07:57 PM

What's wrong with musical chaos?

Subject: RE: Adapting trad songs - OK or sacrilege?
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 22 May 10 - 05:53 AM

It's worth bearing in mind that some trad songs were collected, or otherwise arrived in the 21st century, in a 'damaged' state. But that I mean that they no longer have the integrity and power that the original writer intended.

While this 'patina' has value - (the story OF the song may be as interesting or even more interesting than the story IN the song) we shouldn't forget that if a song is to be sung out (as opposed to merely residing on some dusty shelf in a book or recording) it needs to work as a song, and not just as an historical document.

The oral tradition was often as destructive as it was constructive, and we probably have the 'better' versions of some songs as much because of a bit of judicious repair along the way, by someone who understood how songs work, as by any accidental adaptation.

Obviously if we all radically rework the classics just for the sake of it then we're doing the tradition no service, but if a singer (as opposed to an archivist - though these may be the same person wearing different hats at different times) encounter a rhyme, line or even a whole verse which jars or is unnecessary, then - if they're planning to sing the song out - I think they do have a duty to try to fix it, while admitting the change and the source for anyone who wants to go back to the original, (or decide if the fix works or not)!

Anyone who resists or resents this is failing to take on board the reason that songs exist in the first place.

Also, I'd like to point out that most of the comments in this thread seem to refer to changes made to the well-known, 'good' trad songs.

Most of the major modern reworkings have been made from more obscure songs.

The truth is that a majority of trad songs are neither well-known nor good (I have a shelf full of books here to prove it). Anyone taking one of these (as I did with The Discharged Drummer and The Ballad of Long Preston Peggy, for example) and making a new work from it is committing no crime...

Though, as ever, it's up to the listener to decide if the new version an improvement or not.

On the whole, it's the versions that work best in performance that tend to carry the day

Tom