Personal Growth - songs with positive outcome?

Subject: Personal Growth
From: Abby Sale
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 11:45 AM

What with the High Holy Days coming up, my rabbi asked if I knew any traditional songs that showed Personal Growth, especially with a positive outcome.

My song list has 425 songs and no, I don't seem to.

Lots where someone regrets what he's done (but you get the impression he'll do it again, eg, next time he's in port).

Often in a Goodnight song he recounts his deeds (bragging, mostly) and warns _you_ to "shun bad company lest you come to hell with me."

Sometimes someone acts bravely or morally but there's a bad outcome. He's been warned or should have known better, the dumb-dumb. Even if it's a good outcome, it's just chance or the way he always acts, anyway; not growth,

Very occasionally someone gets tired his wild and wicked ways and goes home to the family or parents. But I don't ever get much feeling of "Personal Growth" just hard lesson (eg Spencer the Rover or Wild Rover.)

I'm not actually surprised. High-level Personal Growth, political correctness and modern mysticism don't seem part of folk tradition.

Still, if anyone has suggestions, I'd be very interested and appreciative.

Subject: RE: Personal Growth
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 12:28 PM

Well, it's not a folksong, but when Dylan sang "I was so much older than, I'm younger than that now" you could say he was at least claiming to some kind of "personal growth"...

But if "personal growth" isn't about life teaching you hard lessons, I don't think I know what it means.

Subject: RE: Personal Growth
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 12:43 PM

Tam Lyn?

Subject: RE: Personal Growth
From: Abby Sale
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 01:31 PM

Thanks both. I think that's why I'm seeking actual trad material, not urban singer-songwriters. Something containing a moral statement that had carried over a few generations.

I'm not so sure what it means, not having experienced much myself since puberty. But I think the issue regards moral and/or mystical and/or wisdom growth, not simply learning that it hurts when you stick your hand in the fire.

Maybe I'm missing something - Tam Lyn doesn't seem to grow - he just accidentally gets caught up with the fairies, follows their rules in the meantime but would like someone to rescue him.

I think Janet always does what she wants - unwilling to give up her ring or gay mantle, she says ok, maidenhead it is; you can have that. Later, she shows some courage but she was pretty strong from the beginning, going to the woods and then telling off the old knight and her father, the king. She just follows Tam's instructions and wins her love, the father of her fetus.

Subject: RE: Personal Growth
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 02:04 PM

Lord Bateman gets in a situation where you expect him to behave like a typical aristocratic arsehole - take the keys, head off home and dump the Turk's daughter - but he doesn't. Happy ending. (There'd be more overt growth if he started out described as a selfish pillock, but the audience for ballads tends to expect that anyway).

Subject: RE: Personal Growth
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 02:26 PM

There's a certain amount of personal growth implicit in "The Foggy Foggy Dew". Maybe just mourning a lost fling, though...

Subject: RE: Personal Growth
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 03:32 PM

The Wild Rover pledges to give up Wild Roving!

Subject: RE: Personal Growth - songs with positive outcome?
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 03:39 PM

Probably doesn't quite fit, but the Tennessee Stud has a positive outcome with a little rough and tumble "growth" along the way. Not sure how old or trad it is, though.

Subject: RE: Personal Growth - songs with positive outcome?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 04:04 PM

Boston Burglar..

Subject: RE: Personal Growth - songs with positive outcome?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 04:22 PM

The Ugly Duckling! Quack!

Subject: RE: Personal Growth - songs with positive outcome?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 04:56 PM

AMazing grace

Subject: RE: Personal Growth - songs with positive outcome?
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 05:10 PM

Manitas, the "Wild Rover" may have originally been a song of (ficticious) personal growth, but the version that is now of Mudcat infamy contains the line "... and if they forgive me, as they've done before ..." - illustrating exactly Abby's "someone regrets what he's done (but you get the impression he'll do it again ...)" - and that is the very reason why the song is so popular!

Unfortunately for Abby's rabbi, the same can be said of many stories from the Hebrew Bible; think of the Uriah episode.

Subject: RE: Personal Growth - songs with positive outcome?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 01 Aug 12 - 06:30 PM

Calton Weaver?
Sporting Bachelor (...I swear I'll never marry any more.)

Subject: RE: Personal Growth - songs with positive outcome?
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 02 Aug 12 - 06:35 PM

mg, I agree with you that Amazing Grace does refer to some personal growth -- although the idea of it being used in a programme marking the Jewish High Holy Days is an entertaining one...

Subject: RE: Personal Growth - songs with positive outcome?
From: Abby Sale
Date: 04 Aug 12 - 11:56 AM

Ok. Thank you ALL. Maybe Folk just don't have Personal Growth, just regrets. I can live with that.

Subject: RE: Personal Growth - songs with positive outcome?
From: Elmore
Date: 04 Aug 12 - 12:18 PM

Spencer the Rover.

Subject: RE: Personal Growth - songs with positive outcome?
From: Snuffy
Date: 04 Aug 12 - 01:33 PM

Kipling's THE LADIES (An' I learned about women from 'er!)

Subject: RE: Personal Growth - songs with positive outcome?
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 04 Aug 12 - 05:58 PM

In Judaism and in many other religous systems, there are calendar rituals of repentance, which imply that people "will do it again". On the average, poetry, folklore, and religion do foster personal growth, but do not expect it to take place all that rapidly.

Amazing Grace of course refers to St. Paul. If the Acts are complete, he no longer participated in religious persecution after his "conversion" (he had no chance, being in a small minority), but many of his followers certainly "did it again". And you can still go blind in Damascus nowadays.

Subject: RE: Personal Growth - songs with positive outcome?
From: Janie
Date: 04 Aug 12 - 06:11 PM

Personal growth nearly always occurs from the experience of pain, loss or heartbreak from some source or another. From challenges. One huge measure of personal growth is acceptance of what is. Any trad song that implies acceptance of the pain of living is a song of personal growth.

Subject: RE: Personal Growth - songs with positive outcome?
From: GUEST,AliTFirefly
Date: 04 Aug 12 - 07:05 PM

Thomas Rhymer? Admittedly he doesn't much like the idea but his other nickname does suggest he took it on board...

Subject: RE: Personal Growth - songs with positive outcome?
From: GUEST,dick grenhaus
Date: 04 Aug 12 - 07:59 PM

Old Settler's Song (Acres of Clams)?
"No longer the slave of ambition, I laugh at the world and its shams..."