Repeating the first verse at the end

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: johncharles
Date: 13 Mar 14 - 07:36 AM

Summer's 1972 recordings in the ship feature multiple versions of the black velvet band, the wild colonial boy,and the nutting girl. There are also multiple versions of the song referred to as slap-dab (The Amateur Whitewasher).
I fear that neither the songs nor the singing would have persuaded me to stay for a second pint.
john

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Mar 14 - 07:05 AM

"Jim,its a good idea to check facts before posting"
And it's equally a good idea to pay attention to what people write and respond to it honestly.
You never stop do you Dick?
What happened pre-BBC intervention as far as what was sung there - which is what I referred to if you took the trouble to read what was posted, is well documented, as was how the BBC sessions were set up to record exclusively 'Folk Songs' - it was an 'anything-goes session as far as repertoire was concerned.
I believe The Countryman Magazine carried an article on it.
Please stop nausing up discussions with your small-minded vendettas.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Mar 14 - 05:20 AM

Indeed, Dick: and he would constantly call for "Lovely order, please!", which I always found most delightful phraseology.

~M~

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Mar 14 - 05:08 AM

The sessions at the blaxhall ship were not a free for all, a gentleman by the name of wicketts richardson was keeping order as can be clearly heard on the recordings.Jim,its a good idea to check facts before posting

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: GUEST,FloraG
Date: 13 Mar 14 - 04:39 AM

I am thinking that it might be a good MA/ PHd study for someone on the folk degree to look at how much of songs are listened to/ understood.
FloraG

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Leadfingers
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 06:49 PM

I was trying to actually remember which songs I regularly did a "repeat First Verse' on , and couldn't until this afternoon , walking back to Faversham Station from Andy Perkins banjo place , and sang "Wild Goose Shanty' - Repeat first verse seems perfect on THAT one .

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 06:32 PM

'The Streams of Lovely Nancy', oddly enough, is one of few songs in DT printed with the first verse repeated at the end; which, I suppose, makes that, Mudcat-wise, official.

Insofar as such a concept, in context of Mudcat, can have any actual referent!

There, as Humpty Dumpty might remark, is glory for you!

~M~

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 03:52 PM

Much as I love narrative songs, I've always had a soft spot for 'The Streams of Lovely Nancy', as random a collection of floating verses as you could wish for. I'm sure you could mess with the order of those without causing undue damage"
I agree, most of the verses can be exchanged around with the exception of possibly the verse that is usually sung last.
Jim, it is not of importance to me when i make a decision about how I perform, what some long dead traditional singer thought about singing the last verse of a song again, neither am i interested in your activities as a researcher ,when it comes to making a decision about performing.
I certainly do not think would Walter Pardon have approved of me singing the last verse of The Candlelight Fisherman again, I base my decisions on analysis of the lyrics and what works performance wise, and that is how it should be if you are a performer.
JIM CAROLL, said"I stopped visiting most clubs when folk clubs turned themselves into musical versions of Woolworths, and confined myself to venues that went in for what it said on the label"
Typical, sweeping generalisation about folk clubs.
nobody is able to define folk music we all have different varying ideas, but what you say is just another of your ill thought statements, no one on this forum has yet been able to define successfully, that which is folk music.
Have you thought about taking up collecting butterflies, they are dead, and they can be carefully labelled, when it says red admiral on the label it is a red admiral, evrything is ordered and labelled ,unlike folk songs they do not attempt to evolve, your collected red admiral will always be in its case for you to look at, just like your collection of long gone traditional singersand songs, preserved, unchanging, labelled, here is what Walter Pardon said in 1975,it must be gospel, very different from tradtional folk songs, which by their nature evolve.

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: johncharles
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 02:49 PM

perhaps clearer definitions of what any particular club is offering would help.
1. Historical Song Club (folk) - songs collected and recorded on wax cylinders and magnetic tape. Usually, unaccompanied singing.
2. Folk Club (modern) - songs as above and any other song that you can play guitar to.
3. Folk and Roots Club - as above plus any other instrument; credit will be given for Tibetan or Peruvian instruments.
3. Folk Roots and Acoustic Club - all of the above plus pop songs and obviously you will be able to plug your guitar into a powerful amp.
hope this helps. john

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: GUEST,LynnH
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 02:46 PM

"In Sir Patrick Spens I clean forgot the 42nd. verse
so I sang the 27th. once again and twice as loud
And no-one noticed....."

Fred Wedlock 'The Folker' on audiences not following the text.

As to the actual topic here, I think it depends upon the song being sung and what works for the singer. For me, for example, the perfect way to close Paul Metsers 'Farewell to the gold' is to repeat the last verse but without the refrain:

"I'll pack up, I'll make the break clean........."

...and out.Applause. Other singers may consider that ending unacceptable.

On the other hand, repeating verse 1 doesn't work for 'The female drummer'in my opinion.

Richard Thompson's 'Withered and died' is written with a repeat first verse (or part thereof) at the end.

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 02:37 PM

Meant to say Walters notebook was dated 1947
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 02:09 PM

"And that younger singers preferred the newer stuff, while the old boys stuck to things like 'The Outlandish Knight'"
Walter Pardon said exactly the same thing.
He said that when his cousins abandoned the old songs (Walter actually called them "folk songs" for the new ones, he decided to put together all his family's songs.
He carefully wrote them down in an exercise book, memorised the tunes on his malodeon and checked them out with the surviving family members.
We have his books; with a couple of discrepancies, they are catergorised into folk and non-folk - not named that way; that's the order in which they come.
We hope to be recording a ninety odd year old man shortly with a repertoire to die for (Lord Bateman, Keach in the Creel, Constant Farmer's Son, Pat O'Brien, Lord Lovel, Banks of Sweet Dundee, Green Wedding, Suffolk Miracle....)
He stopped singing thirty years ago because he disapproved of how his songs were being sung by "the younger lot" and now says he is "too old to sing", but at least we hope to interview him on - to borrow a phrase from Martin Carthy's radio programme, "How the old songs should be sung".
To say that the older singers do not discriminate is simply inaccurate
"I value different things about the tradition within which I make music."
Too often these discussions are taken as disapproval and criticism - they certainly aren't with me.
I have fairly catholic tastes but like to chose when and what to listen to.
My activities as a researcher requires some degree of accuracy, but it has nothing to do with my taste.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: IanC
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 01:37 PM

Jim

I wonder if you can understand that I value different things about the tradition within which I make music. To me, it isn't always the song that you sing but about how and under what circumstances you do it.

There's a difference between songs that people sing and ones that they listen to. I don't see any slippery slope out there.

I go round to The Rose & Crown and sing songs I like to sing, with other people who like to sing songs, often different from the ones I like to sing. In doing this, I happily accept that they'll occasionally be singing songs that I don't even like very much or I don't think are really being sung in the right place. Fine. I don't have some automatic right to decide for them.

I went to folk clubs for a fairly short period of time because I thought they were singing songs I liked to sing and to hear. I stopped going for a different reason than you. Because of the snobbery about singing songs like "The Wild Rover" and people telling other people what they should and shouldn't be singing.

When I stopped doing that, I reverted to what I now recognise as the tradition I was brought up in and started a music / singing session in The Rose & Crown. I wish I hadn't called it folk, but that's what it is known as now.

I'd honestly rather listen to a bad punk band in a pub than have it full of piped muzak, which seems to be the other option.

I get pleasure from researching songs and knowing about their background but it's singing them that gives me most pleasure and that's why I do it. I really don't get a buzz out of ridiculing other people or trying to make them look small, nor do I find it helpful when other people do.

Ian

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Brian Peters
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 01:10 PM

We know from Flora Thompson's account, reproduced in The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, that participants in a particular pub did absorb newer material over the passage of time, and that younger singers preferred the newer stuff, while the old boys stuck to things like 'The Outlandish Knight'. On the other hand, Jim is not the only one who will tell you that traditional singers, when asked the question, did differentiate between the older songs in their repertoire and the newer ones, often placing a higher value on the older repertoire.

And, talking of 'The Outlandish Knight', I notice that higher up this thread an anonymous Guest, who was otherwise correct in saying that songs have often borrowed verses from one another, put forward the idea that this ballad stole its 'Parrot Coda' from 'Young Hunting'. The same theory was advanced by, coincidentally, another anonymous Guest in
this thread about the BBC Cecil Sharp initiative. I did think I'd managed to debunk it there, but it still seems to be flapping around on its broken wing. Sorry, but it ain't so.

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 01:07 PM

"Perhaps you can sing Lennon/McCartney and Ray Davies songs within that tradition."
After you pay copyright costs you can, that's why they'll never belong to 'the folk'
You're slithering rapidly down the 'singing horses' slope, which is what robbed us of our right to choose what we listen to in folk clubs in the first place - sorry; I prefer to know what's in the tin before I open it.
"I'm not at all sure that all singers of folk songs really had a concept of the difference between "real folk songs"
Some did, some didn't, but they all knew that 'Searching For Young Lambs', 'Please Please Me' and 'Nessun Dorma' came out of different stables - something that seems to have gone over the heads of many folkies.
Don't think I know the story of Paggy Lee(sigh) and Miss Piggy Guest.
That woman messed about with my adolescence something rotten (not Miss Piggy, I hasten to add.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: IanC
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 12:28 PM

Jim

We're talking here about verses and choruses in songs.

I'm sorry you seem to be ridiculing my idea of what is traditional. I'm not at all sure that all singers of folk songs really had a concept of the difference between "real folk songs" and what they were singing within what I'm calling the tradition.

Perhaps you can sing Lennon/McCartney and Ray Davies songs within that tradition.

Ian

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 12:08 PM

You realise that Miss Piggy was Frank Oz' revenge on Peggy Lee, after she had him booted of a flight when he was a student so she could fly?

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 11:37 AM

"Can you sincerely tell me that people didn't sing pop songs at home too"
No - of course can't - if you go to South Wales you will find miner's choirs singing Verdi arias - no doubt those that had them bunched around the Joanna ans sang them at home - what's your point - that they are all folk songs - surely not?
Taking your argument to its logical conclusion we may as well abandon any attempt at identifying out music and call it....what exactly - music maybe?
Back in the sixties we all came together to sing, listen to and promote a certain type of song and music - not pop, not jazz, not music hall, not light opera - we called it folk and by and large we knew what it was and where to find it.
I stopped visiting most clubs when folk clubs turned themselves into musical versions of Woolworths, and confined myself to venues that went in for what it said on the label
Folk song, like "honesty", seems "All our of fashion" - the Rigs of the Times, perhaps?
My point about the old singers is, whatever they sang they had a name for the songs we choose to call "folk songs".
Now where did I put my album of Peggy Lee (sigh!!) folk songs?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Brian Peters
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 11:26 AM

Interesting to hear what Sam Larner had to say, Jim. I would agree that pub sessions were never the be-all and end-all of traditional singing - as some people brought up on folk clubs might assume - and that many singers were proud of their craft as soloists and storytellers. However, a song like 'Jones's Ale' surely owed its undoubted popularity to its rousing chorus, as did many others. Social singing wasn't just confined to pubs either, as Bob Copper and Walter Pardon told us.

I was interested in FloraG's point about people not paying attention to the narrative. I must admit I first got excited about folk music because of the way it sounded, and only learned to appreciate the stories later. I think that's something that takes a while, given that modern popular music doesn't usually have a strong narrative, so I'm not surprised that schoolkids couldn't follow the Rochester recruiting sergeant. They (and indeed most adults) would probably have needed a bit of a history lesson to make any sense of it at all. Who is this Marlborough dude anyway?

Much as I love narrative songs, I've always had a soft spot for 'The Streams of Lovely Nancy', as random a collection of floating verses as you could wish for. I'm sure you could mess with the order of those without causing undue damage.

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 11:24 AM

Jim, stop being silly, provide some evidence that the songs sung at the blaxhall ship and eels foot were not folk songs.
you made a racist remark, I have no time for any sort of racist remark, however, I do not insult people who have different opinions, you frequently do ,please stop it.

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: IanC
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 11:01 AM

No Jim, I don't want to go there, but what we're talking about here, in my eyes at least, is what is a traditional thing to do.

If the free-for-all is traditional, that's what's traditional. Can you sincerely tell me that people didn't sing pop songs at home too? Is what you're calling a folk song still a folk song when it's sung by an operatic tenor?

Just for the sake of differentiation, I'll call it traditional but I don't think it's very reasonable to dismiss what people have done in pubs for centuries as untraditional or somehow wrong.

On the contrary. Traditional singing has always, but not all the time, been about joining in.

Ian

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 10:26 AM

"For me, though, Jim the free-for-all is the folk."
Not to the folk we spoke to Ian - nobody ever bothered to sang them what they thought of what they sang so we ended up with the "Singing horses" nonsense - but we don't want to go there, do we.
Was some of them had to say is housed at the British Library with our collection.
"Keith A." is receiving his come-uppance on another thread at this moment - you seem to be using an openly declared racist in support of your own behaviour - tsk, tsk!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 10:26 AM

"For me, though, Jim the free-for-all is the folk."
Not to the folk we spoke to Ian - nobody ever bothered to sang them what they thought of what they sang so we ended up with the "Singing horses" nonsense - but we don't want to go there, do we.
Was some of them had to say is housed at the British Library with our collection.
"Keith A." is receiving his come-uppance on another thread at this moment - you seem to be using an openly declared racist in support of your own behaviour - tsk, tsk!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 10:21 AM

'But calling "The Fair Flower of Northumberland" a ditty.......'
.,,.

That's how it would have seemed to Deloney, tho, Dave. Have you seen the length of his songs!

~M~

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 09:58 AM

"You want to be treated with respect - show some respect for others - you have a record of not doing so"
the pot calling the kettle black. I could find many examples of your lack of respect TO OTHERS on this forum particularly to Keith A. The singing sessions that Brian quotes are very good examples, the cause is irrlevant it happened way back in the fifties it is not anything new.of course they were folk songs stop being silly Jim, to say they were not folk songs shows yopu do not know what you are talking about

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: GUEST,FloraG
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 09:13 AM

We did a dance session in a primary school and to break it up sang the Rochester recruiting sargent. When we asked the children what it was about very few had listened or understood - I'm not sure which - to tell us. We've not been able to repeat the experiment with adults but I suspect that few actually listen with any degree of intensity.

Would it matter to most if you did the verses in a random order? It would be an intersting experiment.
Florag

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: IanC
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 09:00 AM

For me, though, Jim the free-for-all is the folk.

:-)

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 08:47 AM

"East Anglian pub sings such as Blaxhall and Eels' Foot were full of joining in"
With respect Brian - what happened at Blaxhall, Woodbridge, Winterton and all those other singing pubs had little to do with 'folk song' as such - they were free-for-alls where everything was sung.
Sam Larner described them, and the fishermen's concerts he attended up the East coast just like that and said "the serious singing was done at home or at sea".
The exclusively 'folk' performances were done for 'the man with the microphone'after the Beeb took an interest.
Exactly the same was claimed by the older singers in Ireland
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 08:41 AM

I have always repeated the first verse at the end of "Little Musgrave" as I feel that it rounds the ballad off nicely following the high drama climax. That's just my opinion and in the last forty years nobody has challenged me over it. In similar fashion I always repeat the first line at the end of the ballad "Alan McLean" again feeling that it brings to a close a particularly sad tale. But calling "The Fair Flower of Norhumberland" a ditty.......

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Brian Peters
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 08:36 AM

"And it's hey but her love was easy won... "

And so is mine, by flattery like that!

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 07:56 AM

Take more'n that to blow your cred, Brian. Y, U R A Nashunal Treshur!

~M~

And it's hey but her love was easy won...

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Brian Peters
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 07:39 AM

"Thomas Deloney!"

Whoops, of course. I copied the name along with the quote from a third-party source, without taking the trouble to engage brain. That's my credibility blown.

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: IanC
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 07:14 AM

Thomas Deloney!

:-)

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Brian Peters
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 06:45 AM

... or, going back a little further than Suffolk pub singing:

"The maidens in dulcet manner chanted out this song [The Fair Flower of Northumberland], two of them singing the ditty, and all the rest bearing the burden [refrain]"

John Deloney, 1597.

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Brian Peters
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 06:34 AM

I've been looking recently at 'Through Bushes and Briars', which is often sung these days with the first verse repeated (the song itself is partly a Vaughan Williams confection anyway). I think it rounds off quite nicely a song that doesn't have a strong narrative, although there's no evidence that the small number of traditional singers who knew the song used to repeat the verse. On the other hand, such a device would only be appropriate to a performance context, so a singer faced by a toff with a notebook probably wouldn't have bothered anyway - and who's to say the collector have noted it, even if they had?

And I know it's off topic, but I really can't let Jim get away with "Folk song has never been about joining in."

East Anglian pub sings such as Blaxhall and Eels' Foot were full of joining in, to the extent that singers would deliberately repeat the second half of each verse to serve as a chorus. Cyril Poacher's 'Green Broom' is a classic example (I've always been tickled by such an old magical ballad being turned into a singalong number), but only one of many. He sang the repeats in the pub, but not when recorded at home. Not quite the same as repeating the first verse, but still a participatory invitation quite unneccessary to the narrative.

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 05:50 AM

"everyone else would appreciate it"
It was addressed to you Cap'n, not everyone else
Richard makes the point that there are two of us involved "but sorry that it has given GSS and Jim another subject to cross swords about"
You want to be treated with respect - show some respect for others - you have a record of not doing so
Over and out
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 05:44 AM

Jim, if you could be civil on this forum everyone else would appreciate it, it is quite unnecessary to insult someone who has a different point of view.
I have explained my point of view a number of times my position is not moronic.

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 04:43 AM

That's fine from a musicians point of view Flora, but how does it help the listener to follow the story?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: GUEST,FloraG
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 04:30 AM

If Im playing along its really useful. I usually know the first verse but not always the others - so I know its about to end.
FloraG

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 04:09 AM

"but sorry that it has given GSS and Jim another subject to cross swords about."
No from me Richard - one moron is enough to cope with on this forum without following the Cap'n down his particular rabbit hole.
I've made my points about repeated choruses and I've sad all I intend to say (here) on what I consider to be a deplorable habit of joining in uninvited on what is essentially a solo interpretative art.
I'm happy to drop the latter as it is off-topic, but I would be interested in any feedback on my views on repeated verses.
I may be totally off-beam, but we did go to some lengths over the last thirty odd years to ask as many of the old singers we could how the singing tradition worked.
JIm Carroll

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 12 Mar 14 - 01:57 AM

Luciano Pavarotti used to hate it when I joined in with him at La Scala on "Che Gelida La Manina".
It's really cool done as a round, repeating the first line just after he'd sung it, and so forth all the way through.
Bugger had me thrown out more than once, especially when I stood up and tried to get all the people around me singing along too.

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Mar 14 - 04:38 PM

The main reason for repeat lines is typified in Breton music, it's so the song is reinforced in those who know it and learned line by line by those who don't. It's the core of oral transmission. Anyone teaching by ear does exactly the same, mostly they run through it once to give the shape, again to teach the detail, and a third time to hold the learners' hand. Then a few times to perfect it. A few more to play with it to make it your own and find the balance against the others doing the same. And suddenly it's not quite the same as taught. Folk is at work.

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Mar 14 - 02:08 PM

there is evidence that people have always joined in some narrative ballads, that is why some ancient narrative songs have repeat lines so that audiences can join in in appropriate places.
repeating the first verse is not always nonsensical, it depends on the lyrics of the song.,
and the particular situation the performer find him/herself in, there are not hard and fast rules that have to be obeyed, much depends on varying situations, experienced performers are able to be sensitive to diferent situations and they adapt,
there will always be grumpy old bollcks who appear to want to lay down rules, whats new?

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Mar 14 - 01:49 PM

Jim, there are no inanities,
what you have shown on this thread that you are capable of making racist, generalised remarks, that you know nothing about performing. you cannot make hard and fast rules that do not take into account individual differing circumstances that have to take into account differing performing situations.
you seem to forget that people go out to hear folk music and enjoy it, if the majority of people in a club are enjoying people joining in and you are not, you are in a minority what you should do is leave and subsequently write a letter to the organiser, voicing your dissatisfaction
if you are in a majority at the time then say something to the organiser.
its very simple if you are in a minority, you have a number of options put up with it or leave and write a letter to the organiser. can we now get away from your red herring and return to the discussion of the last verse repetition.

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 11 Mar 14 - 01:31 PM

Having started this thread I am pleased that it has generated some active discussion, but sorry that it has given GSS and Jim another subject to cross swords about.

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Mar 14 - 11:41 AM

"he has every right tactfully to ask the person to desist,"
He or she should never be put in the position of having to make such a request - it should be taken as read that he or she is a solo performer until it is shown otherwise - as is the case with every other performing art
You have been given the reason for this fact already - respond to this or go away and stop nausing up a discussion with inanities.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 11 Mar 14 - 08:27 AM

JHW said
"Could be (in general) that one singer copies what he heard another do without giving thought to the effect."

That probably accounts for many instances, and would be a particular instance of a wider phenomenon of singers not always paying attention to the sense of the words that they are singing. (And that's not only revivalists: it applies to some of the old traditional singers too.)

On the other hand there can sometimes be some justice in what Michael Flanders said about Donald Swann's singing of To Kokoraki, which (if my memory isn't too far off) was something along the lines of "Personally I don't worry about the words too much: I just look on it as a jolly pleasing noise".

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Mar 14 - 07:30 AM

"It is surely a matter of courtesy to take one's lead from the performer",
exactly the point that i made, the performer encourages or gives a lead, or if he is in a situation where something he doesnt like occurs, he has every right tactfully to ask the person to desist, whether it be a club or singaround or irish song session, I had to do this with a tourist who was not english who was playing random notes on a harmonica to a set of tunes, at an irish pub session, i explained nicelt fuirst time that it was a good idea to know the tune but if not to play quietly,[he took no notice]so i had to ask him again, this guy was just playing anything regardless of the tune or key, but that is a bit different from people repeating the last verse of a song.
I am in effect partially agreeing with you , with the proviso ,it can vary on ciurcumstance.

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Mar 14 - 06:47 AM

"This conversation has gone a bit off-thread, though, Jim "
You are right of course, but in way they are linked in what has happened to folk songs in the hands of people whose involvement with them appears to be very different from their makers and those who have kept them as part of their lives for centuries.
That said, I'm quite happy to leave it there and let the topic proceed uninterrupted by my particular béte noire
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Repeating the first verse at the end
From: JHW
Date: 11 Mar 14 - 06:20 AM

Occasionally it has become standard practice with certain songs.

Mervyn Vincent never returned to the first verse of Sailing Time. As the last verse ends 'haul away for heaven, God be by your side' surely that is the way the song writer intended to leave it but far more prevalent has become the first verse repeat.
Mary Ellen Carter ends with a variant chorus but you're very likely to get a finisher of the regular one.
(Here I prefer a finisher of the variant chorus repeated)

Could be (in general) that one singer copies what he heard another do without giving thought to the effect.