Nominations for 'new' traditional songs

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 11:47 PM

Jim: Returning to Walk Alone; I take it you have seen the new thread on Football/Other Sports Songs, OPd by a Liverpool supporter, which starts with ref to our debate over this, on my side.

Best

~M~

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 11:48 PM

... which just proves the accuracy of its title!

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 08:56 AM

I'd have thought there "You'll never walk alone" is relevant to any "home town" where people have to get by in bad weather and hard times. The fact that it comes from a musical isn't really significant.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: boldreynard
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 10:47 AM

I'd put forward Dylan's "Boots of Spanish Leather".

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 11:55 AM

Les Sullivan's "Jutland"
Mike Sparks' "Thirteen florins on the bar"

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST,Richard I
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 12:53 PM

"Rogers and Hammerstein's You'll Never Walk Alone, made for an Broadway musical, has about as much to do with the lives of the people of my home town as does Mongolian throat singing.
Jim Carroll"

Quite aside from its being sung in the match and before and after in the pub, it's associated with the Hillsborough disaster, sung at memorial events for the Hillsborough victims, and is regularly included in funerals of Liverpool fans.

I'm not interested in pushing for the idea that it should be included in books by folk song collectors (though I have started a seperate thread for football songs), but I would say that the idea that it "has about as much to do with the lives of the people of my home town as does Mongolian throat singing" is demonstrably false. (That is, assuming your home town is Liverpool and Ulaanbaatar, of course.)

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST,Richard I
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 12:55 PM

Sorry, last line should have read (That is, assuming your home town is Liverpool and NOT Ulaanbaatar, of course.)

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 12:58 PM

"communities of interest"
Communities - or more accurately, groups of common interest have always existed - music halls, Vauxhall Gardens, Gilbert and Sullivan Societies, operatic groups - none of these have had anything to do with traditional music as it has been recorded, archived and documented and performed throught the existence of the present revival.
Yours is not a definition, but an abandoning of any attempt to define what apparently we can expect if we turn up at your club.
Hypothetical case - two clubs; one that exists on Elvis etc. tribute acts, the other where you are body searched for instruments and not permitted to sing anthing later than the end of the 19th century; both describe themselves as ;folk clubs' - are they both 'traditional' - they certainly fit your description as described above? How do they differ from the local light opera society - or don't they? What can we expect as potential punters turning up at your club - or have we no say in what we spend our time and money seeking out?
Your 'communities of interest' don't even have anything in common with each other; they can range from Wagner Societies to Daniel O'Donnell fan clubs - what do you offer any potential audience?
The communities on which the definition of our traditional songs have been, and continues to be based on are groups of people who work, pray, play..... exist together. The songs reflect those experiences held in common. In what way does your (non) definition relate to this? Is there any consensus for your re-definition or have you gone UDI?
Dictionary definition
"Tra-di-tion (trs-dish'n) n. 1. The passing down of elements of a culture from generation to generation, especially by oral communication. 2. a. A mode of thought or behaviour followed by a people continuously from generation to generation; a cultural custom or usage, b. A set of such customs and usages viewed as a coherent body of precedents influencing the present, c. A set of such customs followed in a particular art. 3. A body of unwritten religious precepts. 4. Any time-honoured practice or a set of such practices. 5. Law. The transfer of property to another. [Middle English tradition, a handing down, a surrender, from Old French, from Latin traditio (stem tradition-), from trddere, to hand over: trans-, over + dare, to give.]"
Which part of this does your 'definition represent.
Mike
Read the thread (couple of postings so far) with interest - no argument whatever that sporting songs are being written - there was a collection of the published here in Clare 'Ballads of the Banner', not so long ago.
Whether they are taken up and become traditional remains to be seen; but even if they do, that is a little different to the unaltered repetition of a 1940s Rogers and Hammerstein song on the terraces every week. In your opinion, are Land of Hope and Glory, Viva Espaná and The Birdie Song traditional - if not, why not?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 01:18 PM

Jim, I'm not talking about hypothetical communities of Elvis-lovers waiting to descend on folk clubs! That's a pretty extreme and hyperbolic reaction to the point I'm making. I'm talking about the real community of folk enthusiasts, at whose singarounds, whilst you may mainly hear traditional songs, you will also hear songs written by members of that community that sit alongside the traditional songs rather nicely and have in many cases been taken up and sung by members of that community as part of its own tradition. Is that such a big problem? And if so, why?

I'd have thought its fairly clear that the village/family based music making and transmission culture in the old sense doesn't exist anymore - times have moved on and we don't live relatively isolated lives in small rural communities. We have radio, TV, global recording industries, the internet, celebrity culture and all the rest of it. The conditions and cultural norms of our lives have changed beyond recognition. Using that as any kind of yardstick to measure what folk music is now is surely a hiding to nowhere. The folk scene is now where you tend to hear traditional songs in the UK, but people have creative impulses, as they always have, and will therefore feel compelled to add fresh ingredients to the pot. That is surely a good thing, isn't it?

And yes, as you correctly point out, there are all sorts of communities of interest coming together around lots of different sorts of things. I'm talking about the one that comes together around folk music, not opera or Gilbert and Sullivan. But I suspect you know that already...

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 01:46 PM

Whether a song is properly described as a folk song is one issue, and arguably an interesting one. Whether it is "relevant" is not the same issue.

For example, Mongolian throat singing is, of course a variety of folk singing. That doesn't make it particularly relevant to Liverpool.

"You'll never walk alone" on the other hand is more properly described as a kin dof ecular hymn. But it's words and sentiments, however hackneyed Jim might see them, are highly applicable to the circumstances of those who sing it, and highly relevant, especially in the light of their shared historical associations.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 03:06 PM

Jim: A reminder of what I have related before: when I mentioned, during an interview with Bert Lloyd, Liverpool FC supporters' use of the song in question, & asked if they had thus made it into a folksong, he replied "Folk in function but not in form". You, OTOH, say above that is not what it sounds like that matters [11 Feb 0505 AM], but the use to which it is put [there & in succeeding posts]. So you & he appear to give diametrically opposite, and even mutually contradictory, answers to my question, tho both your answers are in the negative.

So, just perhaps, the truth may lie somewhere in between?

~M~

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 03:17 PM

"That's a pretty extreme and hyperbolic reaction to the point I'm making."
Sorry Spleen - what hedge have you been sleeping under - it is not extreme - do you want me to dig out Paul Sweeney's menu of what we will be served up at his club; or any other descriptions of what goes on in clubs describing themselves as 'folk'? From memory, Paul's includes hip-hop (as applied to Lucy Wan by one of our rising young 'folk' stars), heavy metal, opera, jazz.... will dig out the list if you insist. I suggest you trawl through some of the 'talking-horse' postings and see what passes for legitimate fare at some 'folk' clubs.
Going by your own definition - what right have you to suggest that Elvis tributes don't count at a folk club - the club is the community, therefore anything they care to put on is 'traditional' - isn't that what you are suggesting?
The first time I had my attenion drawn to exactly how far the revival has strayed was when a North of England club announced that they had just had a 'Beatles' night.
".....doesn't exist anymore"
No it doesn't, I agree entirely. The communities that once made such music have becom passive recipients of their art and entertainment.
Doesn't mean we can't still enjoy the music they once made and passed on; nor does it mean we can't continue to make music and song using the old models - long may it continue - I've had a lifetime's enjoyment from it. I count as my main musical influence the singer who helped start the present revival, breathed life into 137 of the Child ballads and hundreds of traditional songs and wrote more new songs based on traditional styles than any other single individual on the scene
We are not discusing what we do or what we listen to - we are attempting to define 'traditional'.
In the end this is an academic discussion; traditional song and music is probably as well, if not better archived and documented as any other musical form. Anybody seriously wishing to find out what defines traditional music is free to pick up 'Folk Song in England', or 'The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads', or 'English Folk Songs, Some Conclusions', or 'The Traditional English Ballad' or any other of the many hundreds of works on the subject.
My argumant is not one of personal preference or activity, it's just how we define what we are doing.
There seems to be some sort of a death wish in all of this.
In a few weeks time on the 17th of next month there will be something like 100 youngsters (mostly of school age) in this one street town celebrating St Pat's Day by playing (real) traditional music, most of them to an excellent standard. This hasn't been achieved faffing about attempting to re-define, or even de-define what we mean by 'olk' or 'traditional', but simply by a dedicated few explaining what it is and persuading them how enjoyable it is.
"however hackneyed Jim might see them"
Wasn't aware I'd expressed an opinion on the merits of the song - I quite enjoyed the film and the song worked perfectly in that context - this has nothing to do with my argument.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 03:25 PM

Mike - cross posted
You may well be right that the answer lies between the two; though I didn't always agree with what Bert said; whethr YNWA is traditional or not, I pray I'll never hear it sung at a folk club.
- please answer my last question - is Land of Hope and ....etc..
Gotta go - Casualty's starting!
Jim Carroll.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST,Richard I
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 03:31 PM

Jim, what about other terrace songs (without Rodgers and Hammerstein origins?)

I'm interested in your answer, as someone who has sung football fans' songs at a singaround.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 03:39 PM

Jim: No re Land Of Hope ~~ Last Night of Proms audience not the same sort of ritual occasion for the same sort of gathering as a Liverpool FC match crowd.

Would not, either, urge Never Walk as in any way 'traditional', despite title of this thread. But arguably as 'folk' by, as it were, adoption, by a different sort of process, still perhaps to be defined. Not, indeed, absolutely sure where I stand on question; which, note, both to Bert & you I expressed simply as a question, without necessarily implying any answer of my own; which, as I say, I am not sure of. A form of Devil's Advocacy, I suppose one might call it.

~M~

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 04:19 PM

If no one's done so already, can I nominate When All Men Sing by Scowie & Giff?

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 05:24 PM

Pity this has come to focus on what "traditional" means. I think some people here should agree to disagree with others about that.

However we can't avoid definitions and contexts entirely. For example we're not (I think) discussing songs from modern musical shows that continue to be performed in their original context. If they migrate from that context (as "You'll never walk alone" has), they have some claim to have become some sort of tradition. And, after all, some of the songs that we accept as traditional did start life in stage shows.

So I think we're really trying to focus on songs in the folk idiom (whatever that is, which we probably can't entirely agree about either).

Perhaps the original question should be re-phrased. Which fairly-recently-made songs do we expect will pass the test of time and will be being sung 50 years from now (or are already being sung) by many people, in different places, possibly with some "folk-processing" of the words and/or tunes?

Some of the songs that have been mentioned in this thread are being widely sung at present, even to the extent that some of us become sick of hearing them. In another 50 years they may have been forgotten, or they may have been revived. But some seem already pretty firmly established, such as some of McColl's, Tawney's, etc.

Richard

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 05:25 PM

PS - Am I Paul Sweeney?

I still stand by my (empirically falsifiable) Folk as Flotsam thesis - i.e Folk is as Folk does - simply because that's the way things are, as this forum demonstrates. I also believe people should be allowed to do what they want to do, and what burns in their hearts to make them do such things (I'm talking musically here) and that Folk Club Singarounds are a fine place for the impassioned amateur (in the best sense of the word - and the worst, but that's good too) to go along and share it with other impassioned amateurs, whatever it is, hence the eclecticism of what you hear in (many but not all) Folk Clubs these days.

Can I confess that I once performed John Cage's 4'33" as part of a two song floorspot? It was on (or around) 12th August 1992 & I just got up and stood staring the audience into uncomfortable submission, all of whom sat there in a state of increasingly bewildered expectation whilst I timed myself my the clock behind the bar. I ended the performance at 4'44" by paraphrasing Peter Bellamy - "John Cage wrote that," I said, thus releasing the tension with gales of laughter which I silenced with King Orfeo.

Folk longa, vita brevis; too brevis by far.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 05:49 PM

Richard I
Sorry, you'll have to elucidate - was vaccinated against football at a very early age.
I have no problem conceding that these songs have a place in ritual, but I believe our traditional songs were deliberately made and re-made as a deliberately creative part of community life; they are not just repetitions of what went before, but wherever they land, they become part of the expression of those communities, taking on the vernacular and identities, and often theexperiences of the people who sang and listened to them.
We were recording song we believe to have orignated in, say, Scotland, from Irish Travellers who insisted that they were not just Irish, but Traveller songs. For instance, the song 'Mary on the Banks of the Lee'; we were seriously told that it was made by a Traveller whose wife died in a workhouse fire - it wasn't, but it was an indication that the song had taken root.
If someone were to take Y N W A and adapt it , say, You Never Wore Cologne, the parody would have some claim to have moved away from its beginnings, the re-maker would have put his/her own stamp on it. If then it was taken up by the terraces it could be said to have passed into some sort of a tradition.
This, as far as I know, has not happened with the song as it stands. It remains as fixed as Land of Hope and Glory as sung at The Last Night of the Proms (sorry Mike you're going to have to explain the difference between a crowd turning up for a night's entertainment at The Albert Hall, (or on holiday in Spain, or on a stag/hen night in Blackpool) and one at Anfield enjoying watching Liverpool being beaten again - what makes football so special?))
I mentioned 'Ballads of the Banner' earlier - a fascinating anthology of 172 sporting songs, some dating back to the 1800's, right up to the 1990s, when the book was published; all made about famous sporting people, matches, teams.... Even if they were never taken up generally, they have more claim to represent the communities they arose from than does a song from a Broadway Musical.
There are plenty of sporting songs in the tradition to compare them with - surely the difference is obvious?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 06:12 PM

A couple by Bob Coltman seem to fit in there---""Before They Close the Minstrel Show", "Lonesome Robin" and his masterful retelling of the Patrick Spens ballad "Patrick Spencer" in particular.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 06:29 PM

Hi Jim,

You wrote "I mentioned 'Ballads of the Banner' earlier - a fascinating anthology of 172 sporting songs, some dating back to the 1800's, right up to the 1990s, when the book was published; all made about famous sporting people, matches, teams.... Even if they were never taken up generally, they have more claim to represent the communities they arose from than does a song from a Broadway Musical.
There are plenty of sporting songs in the tradition to compare them with - surely the difference is obvious?"

Sure, the difference appears to be that these songs are Celtic and printed in a book!!

Sorry, I'm being facetious. I'll start again. I am interested in songs that are sung as part of the community of fans that join together in support of a football club. For example, I recently put the words for the song "Poor Scouser Tommy", a Liverpool F.C. song, in a thread on sports songs I recently started.

The history of the song appears to be as follows: the second part of the song "I am a Liverpudlian...", sung to the Orange tune 'The Sash', was sung apparently in the 1960s; later (apparently in the 1970s) the first part "Let me tell you the story of a poor boy..." (to the tune of Red River Valley) was added to the song, to make it into a narrative.

Subsequently, there have been arguments over the words (should it be Libyan sun? Arabian sun? I get thrown out quite a lot or I go there quite a lot?), and various accretions about goals scored by Ian Rush.

So the song is not a mechanical reproduction, but a living process that is still heard in most matches. I would say that it's as close to a "traditional" song as I've learned from oral transmission. You'll hear the song sung at pretty much every Liverpool match. (some people say it's sung too fast, of course...)



Now, ok, going back to "You'll never walk alone". This is just as much part of the Liverpool F.C. canon as Poor Scouser Tommy. Ok, it's not something that the fans made up themselves, but still, it's something that's passed on as part of a community and which is meaningful as part of the shared experience of those fans.

Just as a working hypothesis: would you say that a song that emerges from the fans (like "Poor Scouser Tommy") is traditional, whereas a song that is reproduced from another source (like "You'll never walk alone") is not? I hope this is not seen as an unreasonable interrogation. I'm just trying to get at where you draw the line.


Interesting claim that "If someone were to take Y N W A and adapt it , say, You Never Wore Cologne, the parody would have some claim to have moved away from its beginnings, the re-maker would have put his/her own stamp on it. If then it was taken up by the terraces it could be said to have passed into some sort of a tradition." That would suggest that when fans of Chelsea, etc. sing "You'll never get a job" to taunt Liverpool F.C. fans, that has more claim to being part of "the tradition". Which seems unfair somehow!

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST,Ian Gill
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 07:10 PM

'Coal, not Dole'. The spirit is the touchstone. The ability to say what everyone around feels. Martin Carthy said something similar about 'Palaces of Gold' - another nomination.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 02:29 AM

Jim: Surely you can see the difference between the emotional solidarity of a crowd who have turned up to watch THEIR team play a football match, which is their main purpose & the singing an incidental means to reinforce their fidelity to their team [an emotional feeling, believe me, even if you yourself have been, as you say, inoculated against football as an experience]; and a crowd of students who have come to self-consciously* demonstrate their 'studentiness' by sending up the emotions of a song expressing a now-dated patriotism? To put it briefly, the Liverpudlians are singing YNWA with utmost seriousness; the students singing LOHAG are doing the exact opposite.

If you really can't see a distinction, then I have done.

~M~

* This an instance where I think even Fowler would have agreed that a split infinitive best expresses the semantic intention.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 04:16 AM

"If you really can't see a distinction, then I have done."
Sorry Mike, I can't, I think they are both as set a convention as the days they used to sing 'God Save the Queen' (also seen by a dwindling number as a part of British life) at the cinema, and an expression of "emotional solidarity" at certain times. I don't think I ever heard anything sung with as much (disturbingly vicious) 'emotional solidarity' as I did LOHAG at the time of the sinking of the General Belgrano.
Guest:
If there are songs still being made, taken up and sung on the terraces then they have claim to the tradition; I don't know how many there are and how widespread the reaction is to them, but they are well worth attention. The terraces seem as likely a place to continue to support a tradition as were the schoolyards; I don't know too much about what goes on there nowadays either, but I have been told by teachers that the songs, chants and games that used to happen have been replaced by mobile phones and texting.
It really isn't important that the songs in 'Blood on the Banner' have been gathered and published; many/most of our traditional sporting songs have appeared in print at one time or another. What does make a difference is that some of them started life in print, appeared with the makers name on them and a little (c) so they will always belong to Jimmy Smyth or Peader Kearney or Bryan McMahon, or Joe Hasset or whoever.
BTW - Celtic is a word best avoided in my experience - it tends not to mean too much.
There have been mass movements that have produced songs that might be described as traditional; CND, the 'Troubles' in Ireland and the miners strike spring to mind, but again, modern modern technology has tended to freeze them in the form they were written and placed the owners mark on them. Even by law they are not traditional, they belong to the writer and are not not in public domain. I wonder what would be the reaction of the Rodgers and Hammerstein estate if somebody claimed You'll Never Walk Alone to be in the public domain!
I was interested in your 'You'll never get a job' comment - is it a song, or is it a one line chant? They are different beasts, and are equally worth looking at.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 04:29 AM

Whoops - did I really write 'Blood on the Banner' in the above posting? A Freudan slip; I meant 'Ballads of the Banner'.
'Blood on the Banner' is an account of the Irish War of Independence in Clare (all the counties in the Republic have nicknames, The Banner County (Clare), The Kingdom (Kerry) etc).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 04:34 AM

I have actually long wondered what was the position of the Rodgers & Hammerstein estate. Can they claim a royalty every time the crowd is heard singing YNWA on Match Of The Day or Sky tv? And, if so, do they? And from whom? & do Liverpool pay them anything for having the words inscribed on their gate? And, if not, why not?

You mention CND, Jim. I can claim to be the first person ever to sing The H-Bomb's Thunder, the movement's anthem, written to tune of The Miners' Lifeguard by the sf writer John Brunner, with whom I shared a Hampstead flat in 1957-58. He couldn't sing a note himself, so asked me to sing the first draft out to him to hear how it sounded. It's in DT.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 04:36 AM

The error is to think of community in an historic, monolithic way. Community of nation or region, for instance, is only preserved by intervention from government, The Arts Council, The Film Council, etc. Now we have the gay community, the writing community and the football community, each developing their own traditions and creating new ones.
Telecommunication developments have allowed for a proliferation of micro communities with more allegiance to their particular identity than old ideas of nation state or work type.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 04:47 AM

BTW, Jim. Have you ever been to the Last Night Of The Proms? I was a regular prommer in my mid-teens. I went to Last Night several years running in late 40s, from about age 14-17. Even back then, the student element regarded the singing of LOHAG as a big joke, a demonstration of their don't·give·a·toss studently insouciance. It really did bear no resemblance to all those oh-so-earnest Scouse faces on tv singing YNWA, heartily or as if their ♥♥ would break, in triumph or despair dependent on how the 'Pool are doing. I daresay some people reverted atavistically to a former mode at Falklands time; but that wasn't at the Proms, was it?

~M~

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 04:51 AM

... & a cross-ref: see my post on the Webfooted Friends thread, as to how that was fave song for the all-day Last Night queue behind the Albert Hall.

~M~

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Old Vermin
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 04:59 AM

John Tams' Rolling Home seems to keep going.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 06:04 AM

"Jim. Have you ever been to the Last Night Of The Proms?"
No I haven't, but I tended to watch it on TV.
I don't know how LOHAG was introduced into the proceeings any more than I know how YNWA (via Geryy and the Pacemakers?) ended up on the terraces, but I suspect there is little difference in the motives of the culprits in both cases.
I have to say that the singing at the Albert Hall did bring bile to the throat at the time of the Falklands War.
A confession; I left Liverpool in the mid-sixties and headed east for Manchester because at that time, if you weren't interested in football or the Beatles, there was really little else to hang around for - non-Merseybeat entertainment, work (especially work), decent theatre or cinema.... nowt. Songs like the one in question have always been, for me at least, a part of the campaign to sell Merseyside as a pseudo-independent-republic - a 'feelgood factor' to make a highly anti-establishment people accept the shit that was (and is still being) thrown at them.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Will Fly
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 06:53 AM

Some random observations...

The body of song material we call 'traditional' has an unknown authorship. I personally believe that all songs sprang from individual writers/authors/creators - call them what you will - and that, before the advent of recording media, the song collectors and a more general ability to read and write, the songs were 'recorded' in peoples' memories. And, of course, they evolved and changed through that process, in many cases over a long period of time. That evolving process has ceased, and it ceased, ironically, when the collectors and the note-takers and the men and women with notebooks and (later) tape-recorders started their work. I wouldn't care to put a date on that cessation, not knowing enough of the history, but I know, for example, that Bob Copper was out and about with a reel-to-reel tape recorder in Hampshire in the '50s.

In one sense, therefore, the body of work of that particular orally-transmitted nature is fixed for ever and finite, in this country at any rate. Is it to remain fixed and finite? Will singers of the future - of the next 50, 100, 150, 200 years - who want to sing 'traditional' songs be limited to, perhaps, an ever-receding body of work? If so, that might be a sad and proscriptive future for some fine music. If not - then how is that body of work to be added to? Can we not add to it fine songs in the genre whose origins - authors - we happen to know? I quote (and I've quoted it before) Roger Bryant's great song "Cornish Lads", which touches on age-old themes of locality, loss of work, working-class attitudes and problems, sung to a great tune and with beautiful words which touch people's hearts and have meaning for them. A traditional song in all but the fact that we know the author. And - yes - it won't change because it's been written down, recorded and set in stone. Just like all those songs from a previous era which have also now been recorded, written down, collected and set in stone.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Old Vermin
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 07:18 AM

As someone who has managed to vary the words of "Sorrows Away" to "Troubles away".....


Home, Lads, Home has a set text. Do the words already vary? Will they?

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST,Richard I
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 07:53 AM

Jim, I don't know if there's a complete song known to some fans, but what I've heard sung (by fans of Chelsea, West Ham, and Manchester United, and probably others) is the chorus:

Sign on, Sign on/ With a pen in your hand/ And you'll never get a job/ You'll never get a job

The is a) part of a wider repertoire of "scousers are all theiving/ unemployed" songs that seem to circulate among fans of non-Liverpool teams, and also b) an example of the important practice of taking one team's 'anthem' and turning it against them. Another example of this would be Liverpool fans taking Manchester United's anthem "Glory, glory, Man United" and, in the 1980s, turning it into the 3 verse song "The famous Man United went to Rome to see the Pope", which culminates with the Pope asking "Who the fuck are Man United?" (This song subsequently taken up and abridged by Aston Villa fans)

I would say that in these contexts, the tradition of parodying the other team's song RELIES on the idea of the fans treating the performance of the original song as traditional. But that's just my opinion.


I don't want to stray off topic too much, but I'm sorry to hear about your innoculation against football! It's no doubt impossible to work against this, but I have to say in my experience, I've often found football to be the catalyst to make things happen (I know of music that is sung, political associations that were formed, and magazines that were printed that would never have seen the light of day if it hadn't been for people being brought together in the shared interest of football). I'm not in a position to say whether this is more or less true than the G&S society, as I'm thankfully innoculated against G&S, but I can speak from personal experience by saying that the shared experience of football fans is something that reflects the reality of a community well beyond the match itself...

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Beer
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 08:36 AM

Ron Hynes "Sonny Dream"

"Sonny's Dream is a folk song written by Newfoundlander Ron Hynes in 1976. The song was heard by Hamish Imlach while on a trip to Canada, who modified it somewhat and played it in folk-clubs in Britain. There it was heard by Christy Moore who recorded it and passed it on to other artists in Ireland.[3]

The song is tremendously popular in Atlantic Canada, and has been covered by many other artists, including Hayley Westenra, Stan Rogers, Valdy, Great Big Sea, Jean Redpath,Emmylou Harris and others.
It was named the 41st greatest Canadian song of all time on the 2005 CBC Radio".
Exerpts taken from Wikipedia

ad.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow50JHWW7gQ&feature=related

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 08:51 AM

"I'm sorry to hear about your innoculation against football!"
Must have been all those Manchester City matches I was dragged to by a mate.
Seriously (which is what I've never been able to take football); I have sisters who are identical twins, who live virtually in each other's pockets, rely on each other totally, go everywhere together - and won't speak to each other on Saturday because one supports..... leave you to work out the rest.
Will - am grateful (as usual) for your 'random observations' and go along with most of them, except to say there is no reason why we can't still enjoy traditional songs and to continue to adjust them to our changing times and fashions - that, to my mind, is what the best of our revival singers have done.
I still enjoy Shakespeare's plays even though he hasn't written anything half decent for centuries. Am looking forward to seeing the new 'Tempest' film starring Helen Mirren as 'Prospera'
Nor is there any reason why we can't use the traditional forms to make new songs, though only future generations can decide whether they will turn out to be traditional.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 01:17 PM

Writing future trad. songs sounds a risky preoccupation, like designing a classic car that ends up looking like a Nissan Figaro, all styling cues and nothing from its time.
More likely are songs that don't sound like folk or even 'acoustic' but fit the definition of traditional and will dwell in the lives of the people in future times.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST,lively
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 01:43 PM

i take no issue with aknowleging that the 'revival folk scene' represents a tradition in its own right, but i fear spleen cringe is attempting a linguistic sleight of hand when effectively conflating the 'tradition' of the revival folk scene with 'the' tradition of traditional music and song. Yes, the revival fokk scene has its own tradition, but importantly unlike 'the' tradition, it plays no significant part in the greater community beyond the 'folk scene' whatsoever. Otherwise, i concur with glueman: future 'traditional' songs will be tnose which endure in the popular consciousness and thus unlikely to be drawn from the niche contemporary 'folk music genre'.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE SAINT ANNE OF DUNKIRK (Ron Baxter)
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 02:51 PM

The societal conditions of your Old Popular Trad. Folk Song were defined by unavailable technology, oral / aural transmission, & a distinct lack of copyrighting. These songs were crafted by vernacular masters of their art and sang on, remade, free-styled and made afresh with each performance as they ran amock being fruitful & multiplying in their natural habitat. New songs were made in the image of old and away they went throughout the English Speaking Universe and beyond, their idiomatic morphology determined by cultural craft and by what worked best in the vernacular tongue. Few composers names have come down to us though I believe Tommy Armstrong is a contender to be considered as one such Master of the Traditional Idiom (he certainly was more than casually acquainted with it) and perhaps, on another level, Rudyard Kipling was another, but maybe that is an argument for another day. One thing is clear, these songs did not grow on trees, but are as much the work of human craftspersons as the hedges, ditches, drystone walls, capentry, brick-laying, wheelwrighting, coopering, farriering, smithing etc. etc. - extant examples of which are just as masterful, just as traditional and just as anonymous as the Old Songs.

Self-consciously crafting folk songs in the traditional idiom is a perilous business, but as we've seen on this thread & elsewhere people can & do get it right. Ron Baxter has got it right on more than the one occasion, though to what extent his songs have then become Traditional in & of themselves is difficult to say, though I have heard them sung by people who assumed they were singing a traditional song. Is that a sign of something entering the Tradition? Or just lack of information? Was the original craft of Traditional Song determined by its essential oral / aural medium which invariably doesn't carry composer credits or copyright notice? Maybe so, but whatever the case I think there's more to a Traditional Song than the criteria being discussed here; I don't accept either LOHAG & YNWA to be Traditional Songs because the idiom's completely wrong - musicologically they are something else altogether.

*

Anyway, I'd like to nominate Ron Baxter's Saint Anne of Dunkirk as a New Traditional Song because it's the work of a revival master working in the idiom of Trad. Folk Song, and it's a cracking piece. I'll put up a YouTube in the text few days so you can hear the melody I put to it, which, incidentally, arose under my fingertips from the depths of my own creative sub-consciousness which itself taps into the collective wonder of which all individuals are but manifestations of.

The Saint Anne of Dunkirk, Or The Spanish Ship, Being a Tale of Civil Warfare & Ship-Loss, Written by Mr Ron Baxter & Set to Music, in Seance, by Mr Sedayne

The Saint Anne of Dunkirk by the seas much hurt
Seeking a haven limped into the Wyre
There Parliaments soldiers they swarmed aboard her
To steal her canon it was their desire.
But James, Earl of Derby, of the kings army,
Quickly set off with a troupe of horse, boys,
To stop their endeavour and with them to engage.

The Spaniard he swore this isn't my war
But bold Major Sparrow he would not be swayed;
Orders have come - shot, powder and gun -
To Lancaster Castle they must be conveyed.
So wagons he sought for the guns to transport,
And to defend them he called up his men:
Three hundred troupers were at his command.

He marched through Layton, with pike and gun waiting
But when Derby advanced, oh, he sounded retreat;
Streamed on through Carleton, fled on past Poulton,
Though no shot was fired the rout was complete.
The Wyre did ford and with one accord,
They never stopped, boys, 'til Preesall hill top,
Screaming that Derby was hard on their heels.

And so the Saint Anne fell to Derby's hands
But he had no time for the guns to remove;
For far outnumbered and with guns encumbered
If brought into battle the fight he would lose.
So the guns he did spike Major Sparrow to spite,
And as he retired the Saint Anne he fired,
and left her a beacon to blaze in the night.

As a foot-note to this tale, it's said that the Spanish sailors from the Saint Anne were sent out on their way as vagabonds where their existence on the Fylde is unrecorded but for exeption of several graves in the cemetary of St. Michael's-on-Wyre which are known traditionally as The Soldiers Graves and said to contain the bodies of certain of the Spanish crew of the Saint Anne. How and when they died is not recorded, but given the craftsmanship of the graves and their proximity to the church itself respectful burials can be assumed.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 03:48 PM

If we take traditional to mean music that marks significant events or the turning year and lives beyond the era that spawned it, a number of pieces spring to mind. Jeff Beck's version of Hi Ho Silver Lining has outlasted its original market to become a courtship standard for non-metropolitan youngsters and shows no sign of giving up its totemic status in the face of cosmopolitan scorn.

Wedding celebrations have elevated any number of songs into apparently permanent significance, the B-52s Love Shack, Abba's Dancing Queen and Village People's YMCA among them. I expect many such songs to endure beyond the life span of those who can remember their original release.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 06:48 PM

Gav Davenport's Walkley Anthem...

Kitty

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 11:05 PM

"I don't accept either LOHAG & YNWA to be Traditional Songs because the idiom's completely wrong - musicologically they are something else altogether." ······

So then, Suibhne, you tend more to Bert Lloyd's "folk in function but not in form" distinction, rather than to Jim's assertion that "it is not a matter of how it sounds"?

Have I understood you correctly? If so, why do you come down on that side of the question rather than the other?

I would reiterate that I am, and have always been since my interview with Bert back in 1974, only asking, or perhaps suggesting a possibility, rather than making any actual claim regarding the 'folk' status of YNWA.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 03:57 AM

why do you come down on that side of the question rather than the other?

Because Trad's my bag, daddy-o! And what a fine old idiomatic bag it is...

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 04:15 AM

Most folk revivalists embrace the idiom, it's a performance based form.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Darowyn
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 04:16 AM

"Wedding celebrations have elevated any number of songs into apparently permanent significance, the B-52s Love Shack, Abba's Dancing Queen and Village People's YMCA among them. I expect many such songs to endure beyond the life span of those who can remember their original release. "

That is the trouble with folks!
They will insist on adding customs and ceremonies which fail to meet the approved standards.
It is the duty of every right-minded and properly-educated person to revile and suppress such things, in the fine old tradition of the 19th and early 20th century collectors.
We can't have people making up their own traditions!
"tis flying in the face of nature!"

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 05:58 AM

"That is the trouble with folks!"
Perhaps in future we should just ask Darrowyn when we want to know what the folk are doing - he seems to have cornered the market on the subject
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 06:05 AM

IIRC Darowyn's [only one 'r', Jim: lose a housepoint!] final quote comes from Stella Gibbons' wonderful Mary Webb take-off Cold Comfort Farm, & refers to contraceptives. The quote continues, tho, again IIRC, "Still, it might be worth a try."

~M~

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 06:07 AM

Marsahll McLuhan said 'the medium is the message'. That's undoubtedly true of the folk revival. Almost everyone here holds the idiom in deep affection or they wouldn't be on Mudcat.

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: John P
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 02:50 PM

Josefins Dopvals

Summertime

Subject: RE: Nominations for 'new' traditional songs
From: GUEST,Seonaid
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 03:27 PM

Back to nominations:
How about "She Moved Through the Fair" and "Amazing Grace"?
The one pops up primarily amongst traddies, but the other is all over the place, especially at funerals. (No-one remembers it was written by a reformed slave merchant.)
As to the ongoing what-is-a-trad-song discussion, I'll always go back to the Prairie Home Companion definition of a folk song: it's a song you learned from somebody else and remember the words to, mostly.
Cheers!