20th. Century songs to save.

Subject: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: Bert
Date: 15 Jan 14 - 08:46 PM

The Victorian collectors did a great job of preserving old songs that they thought should not be forgotten.

Here is your chance to list 20th. century songs that you think should be remembered.

Here's just a few on my list.


Butterfingers
Oom Pah pah
Ballad of Bethnal Green
Both Sides Now
Big Iron
Any Old Wind That Blows
Song for a Winter's night
Back home again
The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
Battle of New Orleans
My Bestest Friend
Big River
and many more


Well sheesh, don't just list them. The only way that we can save them is to sing the bloody things.

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 15 Jan 14 - 09:23 PM

Falling in love with love (from The Boys from Syracuse)
My White Knight (from the Music Man)
The Green Cathedral
The Little Shoemaker
Que Sera Sera

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: GUEST,.gargpyld
Date: 15 Jan 14 - 09:28 PM

"That is a mighty gay marble Mr. Bert."

www.chillingeffects.org will give you them all.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

The above quote is a rendering from Mr Twain ...as Nigga Jim speaks to Tom as they negotiate the white washing of the fence.

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 15 Jan 14 - 09:51 PM

There are literally millions of songs from the 20th Century that have already been saved, by way of recording. Thousands of them are in our each of our record collections. Which ones that will actually be remembered, listened to, and rediscovered is a question that is out of our hands.

As to whether the Victorian collectors actually did a good job, that is a moot point, since we have no way of knowing anything about the songs they didn't preserve.

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: Bert
Date: 15 Jan 14 - 10:00 PM

That is an interesting website Garg, me ol' buddy, but it doesn't tell me which songs that you would like to have remembered.

Stim, what I am trying to say is that it is not out of our hands. The songs that we sing are those that our audiences will be hearing. Good point about the songs that the collectors missed. Of course we will never know, and then there are those that they Bowdlerized. But without them we would have had a lot less. Perhaps you should start a new thread "Songs that the collectors missed".

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 14 - 04:50 AM

Its not just the Victorians who Bowdlerized songs. They thought it a good thing to remove sexual references, we think it a good thing to remove racial ones.

There is nothing wrong with sanitizing material for publication as long as the orignal version is available for reference. (see threads passim about the "N" word)

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: Brian Peters
Date: 16 Jan 14 - 06:20 AM

As to whether the Victorian collectors actually did a good job, that is a moot point, since we have no way of knowing anything about the songs they didn't preserve.

Apart from the thousands of printed broadsides, that is.

Incidentally, Cecil Sharp and many of the other collectors came after Queen Victoria.

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 16 Jan 14 - 11:10 AM

Well said, Stim! There's no answer to that.

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Jan 14 - 12:00 PM

Save all of them, of course.

Any listing is personal preferences.

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: Bert
Date: 16 Jan 14 - 02:13 PM

Personal preferences! That is what I am looking for Q.

Which is why I said...

Here is your chance to list 20th. century songs that you think should be remembered.

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: Lighter
Date: 16 Jan 14 - 04:40 PM

> As to whether the Victorian collectors actually did a good job, that is a moot point, since we have no way of knowing anything about the songs they didn't preserve.

Moot only in an absolute sense, especially since they often described the sort of songs they didn't collect. (And they collected much that they didn't print.)

Obviously they did a great job of preserving what they thought merited preservation and would never have been preserved so well (if at all) if they'd stayed home. What those few collectors appreciated and preserved has delighted millions.

Many of the music-hall songs they rejected seem to have been preserved on broadsides and sheet music. Some have undoubtedly been lost, but those not printed were probably not very interesting even to the publishers.

It seems reasonable to imagine that what they didn't preserve would not, by and large, be very impressive even today. Bronson demonstrates how many versions of Child ballads are dull, fragmentary, and repetitive. But even these were collected by someone.

Criticizing the collectors for not having done enough is kind of like blaming Thomas Edison for not having invented the airplane. (He concluded in 1895 that heavier-than-air flight was impossible.)

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: Joe_F
Date: 16 Jan 14 - 06:36 PM

Here are the 20th-century songs on my Magical list -- just the A's:

Ai, Ai, Paisano
Ain't Gonna Grieve My Lord No More
Ain't She Sweet?
Ain't We Got Fun
Alexander's Ragtime Band
All Aboard for Blanket Bay
All Coiled Down
All the Good People
Always
Amelia Earhart's Last Flight
America the Beautiful
Anchors Aweigh
Angus Hempstead
Armadillo
Aunt Clara
Aunt Shaw's Pet Jug

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: 20th Century Is Almost Over (S Goodman)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 01:25 AM

Steve Goodman's The Twentieth Century Is Almost Over made me wish the century would never end.
Other than that, I liked songs by the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel, by all the Girl Groups, by Irving Berlin, George & Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael, and Rogers and Hart.

And lots more.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 03:14 AM

Personal preferences! That is what I am looking for Q.

Which is why I said...

Here is your chance to list 20th. century songs that you think should be remembered.


Isn't at awful Bert when you open a thread in good faith and people start knocking it immediately

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 03:47 AM

"Isn't at awful Bert when you open a thread in good faith and people start knocking it immediately"

Perfectly dreadful, of course. But maybe because Bert started this thread having piled in immediately with a negative post on the 'Cecil Sharp's collection' thread?

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: GUEST,van
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 04:13 AM

The absolute point of moot is what?

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: MMario
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 09:28 AM

I suspect that the tune from "Gilligan's Island" theme song, and also the one from "The Beverly Hillbillies" will end up as "folk tunes"; I think there are already a significant number of people who recognize the tunes as "familiar" who have never seen either of the tv shows or even the movies.

Of course, since they are now talking remakes of the remakes the latter may change.

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 11:51 AM

Not famous, but great to sing anyway:

Didn't I Dance
Old Smoothies (Steve Goodman song about 70-year old skaters)
Don't Go Lookin for Trouble (also Steve Goodman)

Three favorites for when I'm cleaning up the kitchen

When I lost I baby, I almost lost my mind
Old Devil Moon
I get a Kick out of You
=========
It's amazing the lengths some people will go to to avoid playing any music. Bert starts a thread encouraging people to sing. Others criticize him for starting it. Other others criticize the first others for criticizing Bert. And so it goes...

Me, I'm going to YouTube to listen to the theme song for 'Beverly Hillbillies.'

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: GUEST,Sarah Wood
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 12:14 PM

I think Kilkelly, Ireland is a nice little song that's relatively new.

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: Eldergirl
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 07:50 PM

The Canny Shepherd Laddie of the hills.
Mollymauk
Set you free this time
No regrets, but only if Tom Rush sings it.

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 09:41 PM

it seems to me a project fraught with hazard. suppose you learn a song to sing it so it will be remembered, and unexpectedly you die.
or even someone learns a song off you - and you think - now it is immortal. but they peg out.

not that I want to put you off the idea....

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 Jan 14 - 10:32 AM

"not that I want to put you off the idea...."

I'm glad you said that, Al. I wouldn't want to think that you had joined the forces of the Great You Shut Up.

What are your favorite 20th C songs?

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 18 Jan 14 - 01:40 PM

Wow, what a task.

I'll See You in My Dreams
For All We Know (not the Carpenters one, Harold Arlen I think)
Love Walked In
Lush Life
Since I Met You Baby
The Thrill is Gone
Begin the Beguine
Night and Day
I Could Write a Book
Here I'll Stay
A Pair of Brown Eyes
Fairy Tale of New York
Beeswing
Souvenirs
If I Needed You
Pancho and Lefty
Semi Crazy
He'll Have to Go
Big Iron (I agree, Bert)
Someday Soon
Respect Yourself
Everybody's Everything
As Time Goes By
'52 Vincent Black Lightning
Summer Wages
A Change is Gonna Come
People Get Ready
It's Alright
Feein' Alright?
Love Minus Zero No Limit
Like A Rolling Stone
Keep On Pushing
You Must Believe
Are You Lonely for Me Baby
Teardrops Will Fall Tonight
Our Love is Here to Stay

For me that's the tip of the tip of the ice berg.

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 18 Jan 14 - 03:06 PM

One More for the Road
Fever!
Dream a Little Dream of Me
She's Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage

Those are all commercial songs, of course, but the OP
didn't make clear to me whether the "songbook" intended
was to be folk only or could also include commercial songs.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: 20th. Century songs to save.
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jan 14 - 05:04 PM

Predictably, my posting on the CSH thread turned into an orthodoxy question - it's why I opened the door somewhat.
The question of collectability should be objective. As this is a folk site, it should be something which is actually folk, so something you've inherited from somebody else. Happy Birthday To You could be a classic. Will they still sing it in a hundred years time? It gets adapted for each celebrant, and there are slight variants as everyone remembers it a tad differently.
What you could do, for example, is open separate memes for American and English Folk, and maybe others including Transatlantic. That way you avoid cultural questions about the evidently divergent definitions, so C&W may enter into the US meme but not the English.
Another point is that Cecil Sharp did NOT record the standards of his day, he was after the older songs which were at risk. The contents of the Great American Songbook are not threatened species!