What makes a new song a folk song?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 07:09 PM

Surrounded by 21st Century corporate popular music culture for the masses;
gotta keep our own specialist biases in perspective....

For most young and new UK listeners and performers,
'Trad' is not the default starting point for entry into 'Folk'.

'Trad' is a small marginal, almost alien, area of interest within the broader folk music genre.
A genre where even bands as unlikely as R.E.M & The White Stripes
can be claimed by journalists to be on occasions 'folk' .

'Trad' requires new entrants to actively make the effort to seek it out and voluntarily opt in....

Yes there are still 'Trad folk families' passing it on to their offspring.
Some may argue they are predominantly midddle class
and almost as insular and preserved in aspic as the Amish and Mennonites...

Not knocking them, hats of to 'em..
but doesn't 'Trad' need fresh blood and more dynamic social diversity...???

Yeah, we all moan the mainstream music biz is nothing but transient marketing, PR, and hype...

But it wouldn't hurt to try and make Trad look just a little bit more appealing and less intimidating
to any newbies who might be making tentative first steps to check out mudcat for info and encouragement....????????

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 05:27 PM

The above criticisms of Peter are really irrelevant (IMO). Whatever else Peter was he was an entertainer and even on the folk scene which essentially is part of the entertainment industry many entertainers, quite rightly IMO, find they become more memorable by adopting some form of, shall we say, affectation/eccentricity in order to stand out from the crowd. (MacColl & Lloyd were masters of this). I have nothing but respect for his work and music. I was also greatly shocked and saddened by his death having just got to know him. Everyone is entitled to have an opinion of his performance style and, love it or hate it, no-one can deny his great contribution to the music.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 05:01 PM

Okay Jim, we'll give you a hard and fast definition of folk when you can give us a hard and fast definition of Country, Classical, Jazz, Blues, Rock, Pop, Disco, Punk..... er that'll do for now.

54 is indeed a definition, though even that has holes in it and can overlap with other genres.

Genres can't have hard and fast definitions as they tend to overlap with each other.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 03:44 PM

"Millions of people worldwide have a fair idea of what folk is"
Well give us trheir definition - you haven't given us anything other than a folk song is any song I choose to call one
"A few pseuds think it is the exclusive property of a bunch of idealist academics"
And a few knuckle-dragging morons can't tell the difference between a song made, remade and passed on by ordinary (whatever that means) people for may centuries and a meaningless money-spinner made and owned by a millionaire musician who would sue the arse off you if you attempted to claim his song to be anything but that - his song.
Far from being an idealist academic, I'm a retired electrical who has spent most of his life, singing listening to, recording and attempting to pass on the songs and information on them because I believe the people who made and passed them down are worth far more respect than people like you and your contempt are willing to give them.
Your areguments haven't got any more logical or any more honest over the last few days.
You are still the bullying, blustering thug you were when I left.
Re Peter Bellamy
I was never a great admirer of his singing, but he had my undying respect for what he did for folksong (not sure how grateful Muskie the Moron is at his helping yet another "tit-trouesrs" in the form of Walter Pardon onto the folk scene - just another crumbly to buy a pint for and introduce to the 'Hits of Fairport')
I wa also impressed by his self-critical frankness when, at a Pardon/Bellamy concert at CSH, he described his own singing as "Larry-the-Lamb impression"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 03:07 PM

Millions of people worldwide have a fair idea of what folk is. A few pseuds think it is the exclusive property of a bunch of idealist academics in The UK in 1954.

Not getting het up about anything. Just pissing myself that you think folk is limited to tit trousers and his acolytes.

I know what folk is. It's a genre of music amongst other things. As recognised by the thousands I mingled with at Cambridge etc. By the millions of albums released as folk, by the myriad concerts by folk acts around the world and the many folk song writers we love and cherish in folk clubs.

And that's where I'm off to. My set is one trad, one Harding, one Thompson and two of my own.

That's all folk!

😹😹😹

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 01:32 PM

"Dave Burland called it a folk song not long after it came out
]Oh well - Dave Burland - that settles it then!
Any more for the Skylark?
"Most songs are copyrighted, you prat"
Folk songs aren't - you pratt - they are in the public domain

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 01:25 PM

... not even if so miscalled in that universally revered and recognised and unquestionably authoritative journal of record -------

Wait for it .... Wait for it

ACOUSTIC MUSIC!

Wowzer!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 01:18 PM

Still and all --- What makes you think that your getting all het up and emphatic and strenuosuly assertive makes them folksongs, Ian,

when they are not?

Not just on your shrieking hysterical say·so anyhow.

So -- how about

YOU live with it

????

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 12:57 PM

...never did like Springsteen wannabe Geldof...

Here's a proper punk rock classic - repurposed for 'folk'
by one of the MacColls, no less....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7aVZ3BHp3k

"Darling, let's have another baby - Johnny Moped

Darling, let's have another baby
Let's make one soon on our second honeymoon
Darling, I need you to be near me
To kiss and to touch, I love you very much
Darling, if you ever leave me
I'll cry a million tears
I'll go to the nearest boozer
And drink ten pints of beer

Darling, let's have another baby
Let's make one soon on our second honeymoon
Darling, I need you to be near me
To kiss and to touch, I love you very much
Darling, if you ever leave me
I'll cry a million tears
I'll go to the nearest boozer
And drink ten pints of beer

Darling, let's have another baby
Let's make one soon on our second honeymoon
Darling, when we have our baby
I'll be quite happy to wash and change its nappy
Darling, oh
Darling, oh
Darling, oh
Darling, oh"

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 12:57 PM

Dave Burland called it a folk song not long after it came out, and sang it at clubs and festivals, showing it was living folk, describing a tragic event for posterity. He described what made folk. Geldoff of course, being an Irish pub singer prior to getting into punk.

The other is a nice song about shagging that my dear late friend Wellsie used to sing.

Most songs are copyrighted, you prat. Your hero used to drag tunes and even sections of words into songs that he then copyrighted. Peggy Seeger's new album I just bought is copyrighted..

Are you saying that lack of copyright makes something a folk song??? Ha! Ha!

Bugger off back to Dublin. You obviously haven't heard enough poor versions of Galway Girl drifting out through the pub door...

Anyway, it's academic. Folk is a music genre, recognised as such by millions and journalists are comfortable with the notion when reviewing.

In Acoustic Guitar this month, Peggy Seeger and Jake Bugg are both listed as folk. Neither singing traditional songs. Live with it.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 12:44 PM

He had another concertina of hi own as well, of course, Jack. A soft-toned Shakespeare iirc. My D one is a wooden-ended Lachenal. My other is a similar one in C. As there seems to be interest in Bellamy, I will put the story about how I cane to lend him that one on the other - Boring Bleating - thread, as it's quite a good tale at that IMO.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 12:32 PM

Just got back from "filling my boots with good films (mostly - 4 in two days) and two singing sessions
"The difference is Jim, I call Banks of The Roses a folk song. You don't call I Don't Like Mondays a folk song"
Nope Muskie You and both call Banks of the Roses a folksong - nobody but you calls I don't like Mondays a folksong
jIM cARROLL


The Banks Of The Roses
Traditional
On the Banks of the Roses me love and I sat down
And I took out me fiddle for to play me love a tune
And in the middle of the tune-o she sighed and she said
Oro Johnny, lovely Johnny don't ya leave me

When I was a young boy I heard me father say
That he'd rather see me dead and buried in the clay
Sooner than be married to any runaway
By the lovely sweet banks of the roses

On the Banks of the Roses me love and I sat down
And I took out me fiddle for to play me love a tune
And in the middle of the tune-o she sighed and she said
Oro Johnny, lovely Johnny don't ya leave me

And then I am no runaway and soon I'll let them know
That I can take a bottle or can leave it alone
And if her daddy doesn't like it he can keep his daughter at home
And young Johnny will go rovin' with some other

On the Banks of the Roses me love and I sat down
And I took out me fiddle for to play me love a tune
And in the middle of the tune-o she sighed and she said
Oro Johnny, lovely Johnny don't ya leave me

And when I get married t'will be in the month of May
When the leaves they are green and the meadows they are gay
And me and me true love we'll sit and sport and play
By the lovely sweet banks of the roses

On the Banks of the Roses me love and I sat down
And I took out me fiddle for to play me love a tune
And in the middle of the tune-o she sighed and she said
Oro Johnny, lovely Johnny don't ya leave me



I Don't Like Mondays deutsche Übersetzung
The silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload.
And nobody's gonna go to school today,
She's going to make them stay at home.
And daddy doesn't understand it,
He always said she was good as gold.
And he can see no reasons
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be shown?

Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
I want to shoot
The whole day down.

The telex machine is kept so clean
As it types to a waiting world.
And mother feels so shocked,
Father's world is rocked,
And their thoughts turn to
Their own little girl.
Sweet 16 ain't that peachy keen,
No, it ain't so neat to admit defeat.
They can see no reasons
'Cause there are no reasons
What reasons do you need. ooh
-ooh-ooh

Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
I want to shoot
The whole day down, down, down... shoot it all down

All the playing's stopped in the playground now
She wants to play with her toys a while.
And school's out early and soon we'll be learning
And the lesson today is how to die.
And then the bullhorn crackles,
And the captain tackles,
With the problems and the hows and whys.
And he can see no reasons
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to die, die, ooh... ooh?

The silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload.
And nobody's gonna go to school today,
She's going to make them stay at home.
And daddy doesn't understand it,
He always said she was good as gold.
And he can see no reasons
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be shown?

Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays
Tell me why?
I don't like, I don't like, I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like, I don't like, I don't like Mondays.
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
I want to shoot
The whole day down.

Writer(s): Bob Geldof <COPYRIGHT: Chrysalis Music, Music Sales Corporation O.B.O. Promostraat B.V. Lyrics powered by www.musiXmatch.com

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 12:06 PM

Powerful performer is an understatement. The first time I saw him live I'd just seen The Art Ensemble of Chicago the night before : fun on, five piece free-jazz ritual Great Black Music Ancient to the Future theatrics with all the trimmings. Peter Bellamy, I thought, could have blown them off the stage, just one man & Michel's concertina!

Thing is with my heroes, I might mutter a few words but shrink from actual conversation, so times I was in his company I was too starstuck to say anything, like when I did the sound for his gig at the Durham Folk Party only weeks before he died. It was the same set as Songs and Rummy CT but to the power of ten, at least. His last ever gig? Somewhere, I have a tape of it but I've moved house so much I've lost track of its exact location. Maybe it's just as well; listening to it having heard of his passing I just sat there, utterly numb, thinking back to that gig because soon as he took the stage half the audience immediately walked out - they'd been waiting to do this, making a real show of it, leaving me to just set the sound (one mic either side of the anglo and one for the voice - hardly rocket science) and run off around the singarounds to raise an audience. 'Come on you bastards! Support this man! You wouldn't be fucking well here without him!'

Why did they walk out? Artistic reasons? Political? Or had he pissed them all off in the past? We'll never know, just as we'll never know what impact that had on the choice he made a few weeks later. Whatever the case, listening back to that tape, what I heard was Peter Bellamy at his most numinous & exultant. And I think he was wearing his Brian Jones t-shirt that night as well, but I couldn't swear on it.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 11:43 AM

"Reasonable"; "preposterous" ···

You know what I like about Musket? He always picks his vocabulary with such extreme care, to ensure he appears so absolutely non-partisan and objective in expressing his opinions. A shining example to us all of the absolutely neutral chairman leading the discussion entirely without bias...


teeheeheeheeheeheeheehee....

Likewise LoL...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 11:37 AM

"As it was, although I'm a similar age to Jack B, I never saw Bellamy in action; in fact I'd never even heard of him till, what, five years ago. Even on so short an acquaintance his death feels pretty raw to me - what it must have been like to those who actually knew him I can barely imagine"
He was a powerful performer.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 11:34 AM

Saw him many times and was saddened when he, like many more performers I have respected, met and got to know, died.

However, this thread asks what makes a new song a folk song.

To date, we have two camps;

The perfectly reasonably "it sounds like folk" and the preposterous "if it went in front of a committee in 1954, the chairman would have donned a black cap."

Not that I'm biased, you understand.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 11:24 AM

I think we were all affected by hearing of Peter Bellamy's death. He was one of ours.

I remember Martin Carthy's eulogy on the folk radio programme. He mention Bob Copper's song The Old Songs, and how it spoke of how a love of the old songs isolated you.

And I thought then - folk music is supposed to be what unites us, what emanates from our culture. How can this be right?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 11:02 AM

If I can turn it up, will refresh the Boring Bleating Old Traddy thread which is actually much about Peter's death, rather than this drift continuing here.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 10:17 AM

Not trying to push self. But as we have drifted to Peter's death, I thought I would mention that he had a D-major Anglo concertina on long loan from me, as I reckoned that as a professional he would have greater use for it. It was carried on the coffin at his Nawlinz style funeral which Jenny organised at Keighley crematorium; after which, when someone told her it was actually mine, she of course returned it. I am still playing it -- so if you want to see/hear a concertina actually played at many gigs and on records by Peter, see some of tracks on my YouTube channel, eg "Our Good Ship Lies In Harbour".

Sorry for drift. Just thought I'd mention it as the topic had drifted this way.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 10:01 AM

You know who I blame? I blame the compilers of "The Best of British Folk Music" (Contour, 1972) for including a fairly austere take on "John Barleycorn" as their representative sample of the Young Tradition. I listened to it once, thought "young tradition? blimey, they don't sound very young!" and skipped to something more twangly and palatable, Steve Tilston or Bert Jansch or somebody. If they'd gone for Pretty Nancy of Yarmouth or The Innocent Hare, my teenage listening could have been very different. Maybe.

As it was, although I'm a similar age to Jack B, I never saw Bellamy in action; in fact I'd never even heard of him till, what, five years ago. Even on so short an acquaintance his death feels pretty raw to me - what it must have been like to those who actually knew him I can barely imagine.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 09:16 AM

Point conceded. I purposely put an e on the end for that matter. I hope this doesn't get me blackballed, I have been supporting EFDSS for far too many years for it not to make my life tragic, empty and meaningless.

Although why I put an e on the end remains a mystery.

Luckily everything else I put was bang on
😹

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 09:07 AM

"Oh shit" said Brother Michael, "I hadn't thought this through after all." .,,.
Saves me a lot of trouble to have my script wrote 4 me. Ta. Bit of a cheapo tho, maybe, eh Musko?
.......

Jack -- I actually did always love him. Literally one of my dearest friends, for all the perverse bloodyminded old sod he could be when the fit came on him. It was my wife Valerie who took the call from Jenny that day. "Peter Bellamy's dead," she said over the handset to me. I bust into tears without waiting to hear any more. "Why, what will you do when I die?" asked Valerie anxiously a bit later when I'd eased off a bit. "Oh I'll cry then too," I assured her. & I did, of course...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 09:01 AM

Genuine 20th Century working class folk culture music...

St Cecilia

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 08:53 AM

Ian -- Out of interest: whom do you think you impress with persistent affectation of inability to spell Cecil Sharp? Don't pretend his name is new to you!

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 08:15 AM

Ultimately Peter Bellamy was too idiosyncratic a Stylist & Ideologue for The Revival to cope with; God alone knows what casual punters made of him! The first time I met him was before I ever heard him sing when I was ligging with my Conservation Volunteer pals at our customary Thursday night soiree at The Bridge Hotel in Newcastle where he was a guest at the famous Folk Song and Ballad Club downstairs but was nevertheless forced to find his own accommodation.

He walked in the bar, calling out 'Is Sean here?' 'He is!' quoth I, with hearty cheer. 'How may I help?' 'I need a doss,' said PB, with quite dignity and acute embarrassment at having been reduced to the status of a bum. 'Someone said you'd be able to put up.'

Awkward! Of course I offered but at the time I lived in the sticks a mile beyond a very remote bus stop. Happily for him, he found somewhere closer. My God, how I dream of how it might have panned out of he had stayed with me that night, especially given the TALES that were told by straight-laced Club Organisers who dared say 'Not all all!' when PB asked if they minded if he smoked, much less the scorn he poured over folky record collections. What would he have made of my collection of Bob Roberts, Can, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sun Ra, Harry Cox, Willie Scott, The Fall, Joy Division, Magma, Henry Cow, Seamus Ennis, Jim Eldon and Davie Stewart??

The following weekend I related the tale to my mate Raymond of the Green and the Oaken, asking if he'd ever heard of Peter Bellamy at which he took out a hefty sheaf of vinyl treasures from his record collection and we spend a merry afternoon immersed therein, which was my initiation into the back-then Very Exclusive Cult of Bellamism (we were both confirmed Eldonists at the time - still a Very Exclusive Cult) and I've never looked back. I've seen whole het up audiences get up and walk out of Bellamy gigs; there was always at least one irate individual took exception to his provocative anecdotage that would give Mark E. Smith a run for his money in terms of purposeful controversy. Naturally, We Loved Him Madly.

I won a raffle once at one of his gigs - first prize, the choice of his recorded wares. 'What do you recommend?' I asked. 'This one,' he said, thrusting a copy of Keep on Kipling at me. 'Best thing I've ever done.' It is as well. Shame Fellside fucked up the CD issue of it with the inclusion of 'extra tracks' that make a nonsense of the original vinyl sequence. Heigh ho. In a fair world it would get a mini-album Japanese edition without the need for sleeve notes & extras.

Of course if only he'd hung on a few years by now he'd be a National Treasure by now, singing with the backing of Bellowhead at his 70th birthday celebrations at Cecil Sharp House with everyone fawning on about how, of course, we always loved him too - but alas, 'twas not to be. There never was, and never will be, anyone quite like him.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 08:11 AM

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.

There is, I notice a mudcat thread about T shirts with Folk Against Fascism..

I wonder if Cecil Sharpe would have pulled one down over his shoulders in solidarity with err.. folk?

Folk is a word. Jizz is a word, and today on this thread I saw it for the first time in a birdwatching sense, although I have known the word since my first glance at Color Climax (sic) as a spotty faced adolescent.

You see, I have no problem putting the word "folk" alongside traditional as per 1954 etc etc stuff as well as the other 99% of "folk." Michael, Jim and others want to keep a word exclusive to mean their hobby.

You are too late.

About fifty years by my reckoning...

Peggy Seeger's new album is rather good by the way. Pure folk of course, unless you are of the 1954 Fellowship.

Perhaps the fellowship want to sit cross legged outside Cecil Sharpe House, singing "We shall overcome" until someone points out it was written as a song, rather than evolved from four hundred year old broadsheets. "Oh shit" said Brother Michael, "I hadn't thought this through after all."

Here, I love going to The Cambridge Festival. I like folk you see...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 06:31 AM

"bewildered by singing style and songs on offer from one Peter Bellamy."
.,,.

In Pete's case was surely his style, which notoriously was 'Marmite' ("love it or hate it"), rather than his songs, which were unlikely to have been very different from those you report their having previously enjoyed from MacColl and [albeit probably in other versions] Seeger, which was/were found bewildering. As Pete was too idiosyncratic an exemplar to cite stylistically, I am not sure your in-laws' experience of him will actually add much light to your somewhat eccentric views of what the traddies "think they have got right". I am blowed if I can make out precisely what you think it that they "think they have got right".

In fact, to be honest, I'm not at all sure where you are coming from in your observations at the end of that little anecdote,

"the traddies are sure they've got it right, i'm equally sure they haven't. however they have all the power and prestige of the press, the university system, the bbc. i still think they've got it wrong."

or how you think the experience you relate illustrates the points you urge -- whatever they may be.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,raymond greenoaken
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 06:17 AM

Since we're talking definitions, I'd suggest Al is confusing Poetry with Poeticism. Hence:

Poeticism - the wide and wasteful ocean

Poetry — the tide rolls in and the tide rolls out / twice every day returning

Potential for a sorely-needed thread drift here, chaps...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 06:01 AM

Hmmm - plenty of poetry in Traditional Song & Ballad. It's a wrought language of poetic severity entirely unmatched by anything merely once written, especially in latter days. That said, exceptions abound, like King Henry and McGintie's Meal an' Ale - the latter written by George Bruce Thompson and quickly seized upon by Grieg and Duncan; the former (despite several utterly woeful attempts at Anglicisation) being a one-off balladic grand-guignol pastiche that Child includes as Number 32 (and Roud as 3967, though I'd bet my pension he's never heard it sang by a bona-fide Traditional Singer). Both are works of highly crafted poetic cunning that underwrites the very vernacular genius of Traditional Song as a highly creative organic medium for experience and expression as sung / created by the masters of yore of but few names we have. Tommy Armstrong is one such, whose songs are often passed off as being merely Traditional, which they are in an idiomatic sense, but not in the typically anonymous sense. I suspect similarly masterful hands behind the various shades of Butter & Cheese & All and The Innocent Hare, and wonder how much stuff was passed off as Anon. just to get it past the Trad. Censorship Board and be suitably killed and stuffed in order to preserve it.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,ST
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 05:59 AM

"But here's what I really don't get:----- Why is it so important to all these singer-songwriters/contemp-song-performers, whatevers -- -- that their music should be known by the same name as a genre which has had a precise and universally recognised designation since the term "folklore" was coined by William Thoms in 1846?"

"if you have so little respect for our tradition as you appear to from your posts here, why do you want to hang your hat on the 'folk' peg at all?"

Here's a fairy story:

Once upon a time a few comfortable, middle class types found a store of songs and tunes from an unexpected source, the working folk. They studied collected and published them, calling them Folk Songs. Decades later a few comfortable socialist revolutionary types started to re-collected these songs from the "working class" and even began singing them; then began writing their own songs in the same idiom. This gave some of these armchair socialists a certain status and fame within socialist-leaning intellectual circles and they became known as Folk Singers. A few years later still along came some other young wanna-be revolutionaries who hadn't got the time to study and learn from the original sources but they copied these socialists Folk Singers and, lo and behold they began to gain some status and fame themselves, partly by using the same name, Folk Singers, but in the main because they had some talent themselves as song writers and singers. Then along came some others.   They enjoyed singing and playing but the majority couldn't be bothered to really study and understand the old songs and they didn't have enough talent to be invited to sing anywhere. Still they thought if they also called themselves Folk Singers a little bit of the fame and status of those who had studied and understood real folk song might still rub off on them. If you search really hard you might find that some of them still exist although, like hobbits, most people don't really notice them nowadays or pay much attention outside the few specialist circles who continue to discuss such things.

Of course this is just a story and couldn't apply to anyone in real life.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 05:56 AM

It's interesting that this thread mainly centres around what goes on in 'folk clubs'
Fair enough, as that's what most you guys have enthusiasticly occupied yourselves with for decades..

But what about the wider music buying public,
whose only exposure to 'folk' is via CD purchases and downloads,
and the even looser definitions as propagated by hack music and showbiz critics & reviewers ???

That's the big bad real world...

Makes inconsequential difference what's debated here...???




Btw... 'FOLK' is an inclusive word / ACOUSTIC excludes...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 05:33 AM

its when it comes to the practice of songwriting and performing that the shit starts to hit the fan.

think of MacColl with his 'trembling heart of a captive bird' and wide and wasteful ocean. think of Steve Knightley's 'this land is barren and broken'.....
this is the language of poetry , not folksong. folksong is more like the popsongs that get people singing. the language is spare and disciplined. like the best of dylan, before he decided he wanted to be Ezra Pound referencing folksong rather than using them as blueprints.

think of my father in law Harold Walker. he started going to folk clubs because his daughter married me. Harold was a factory worker, miner....a not unintelligent member of class that gave you all the folksongs that you say you value.

One night he takes his wife to the local folk club. Both are utterly bewildered by singing style and songs on offer from one Peter Bellamy.

these are people who have sat and enjoyed MacColl and Seeger.

the traddies are sure they've got it right, i'm equally sure they haven't. however they have all the power and prestige of the press, the university system, the bbc. i still think they've got it wrong.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 05:26 AM

"an apologetic here's a Traditional One"
.,,.

yay - tell us about it Jack. I finally decided the soi-disant Cambridge Folk Festival wasn't worth spending another 5 minutes of my life being driven to distraction by, when they scheduled, just after Sunday lunch when everyone was at their most comatose, one hour in the #2 Tent called "The Traditional Session"!

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 04:49 AM

To say that 'folk' is what can be performed at folk clubs is a circular argument. Nevertheless it is the reality. 'Folk' when used as a label for a genre can be no more than an imprecise idea, it is not a definition.

It's not so much a definition as an observation. It is pure Anthropological Empiricism. Go into a folk club and - this is what you're likely to hear. So the answer to the question what is Folk?' is simply the music that Folkies play. This includes Jim Eldon doing Dancing in the Dark, Raymond Greenoaken singing Sally Wheatly, Peter Bellamy doing You Can't Always Get What You Want (a regular encore back around 1988), Chas Sibbald singing Bat out of Hell and Phil Edwards singing Round Midnight.   One thing you might never hear at all is a bona-fide Tradition English Language Folk Song or Ballad. Or someone might tags one onto the end of a floor spot with an apologetic here's a Traditional One before launching into an approximation of June Tabor's macrame-beat version of While Gamekeepers Lie... which was aways more Victoria Wood than Bob Roberts anyway.

So - what is a Folkie?. Easy, it's someone who listens to Folk.   Cue theme to Ever Decreasing Circles.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 04:01 AM

"I repeat for Michael's deaf eyes. In 1954 most folk had yet to be written. Contemporary folk was a phenomenon still to be realised."
.,,.,.
There you see the dishonest debater at work in all his glory!

You are most grossly & grotesquely begging the question, Ian -- ie committing the rhetorical enormity of [Wikipedia] 'petitio principii - "assuming the initial point".' What we are discussing is whether the product of this phenomenon you rubricate were "folk" at all. In affecting to assume that they were, so that you may assert that I have 'deaf eyes' in not recognising the fact, can you really not appreciate that you are putting a very silly little cart before a socking-great horse.

Whom do you imagine you will take in by such transparently dishonest and evasive manoeuvrings, you foolish fellow?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 04:01 AM

In reply to Steve, I was using the term 'origin' as a shorthand for that evolutionary process which he refers to. I was trying to distinguish between that meaning and the other stylistic meaning.

In reply to Phil, I am using 'style' in a very broad sense. The classification of music by genre is based principally on what it sounds like. If you play people different pieces of music and ask them to describe them, they will call them 'folk', 'pop', 'jazz', 'classical' or whatever based on what they sound like, rather than a detailed analysis of form or structure, or whether they have been through some evolutionary process. This is why, although "The Foggy Dew" is a 'folk song', when sung by Peter Pears it isn't 'folk'.

Birdwatchers use the term 'jizz' to describe the overall appearance of a bird which allows it to be identified from its outline, flight pattern or other broad characteristics, rather than from particular details. The same approach applies to classifying music - I may not be able to define 'folk' or 'jazz' or other musical genres, but I have a broad idea of what they sound like which is based on how these terms are generally understood, not just my personal interpretation.

Of course, whereas birds can be positively identified as belonging to one species or another, music isn't like that. There are some pieces which defy categorisation, and for these in particular deciding whether to put them into the 'folk' pigeonhole will be far more subjective, and probably influenced far more by individual taste and preferences. This is why there is such an argument about it, since individuals may quite reasonably have different opinions about where the boundaries should lie.

To say that 'folk' is what can be performed at folk clubs is a circular argument. Nevertheless it is the reality. 'Folk' when used as a label for a genre can be no more than an imprecise idea, it is not a definition.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 01 Oct 14 - 03:27 AM

Interesting that Don has posted. Don was a folk singer before the committee at the heart of the old empire sat down and dictated what it was.

I repeat for Michael's deaf eyes. In 1954 most folk had yet to be written. Contemporary folk was a phenomenon still to be realised. Dirty Old Town was a song from a musical written five years previously for theatre workshop and music of the working people in their definition was inclusive of much of the population of the day. The infamous banana boats were being commissioned though and British culture was getting ready for change.

Over the pond, we were still a few years from Baez and Dylan, but The Grand Old Oprey had heard of Guthrie et al and the blues men were moving North.

Meanwhile, a motion to discuss the extent Vaughan Williams originality versus sympathy for tradition had been tabled with assent from the chair and one intention to abstain on artistic grounds

🎭🎭

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 11:44 PM

Exactly, John.

Why do you utter "traditionalists" in such a pejorative and scornful tone, Al? They are the people who are singing folksongs in any sense that can have any referent at all. You can call your songs 'folk' till you are blue in the face [and very funny you will look], as loudly and as defiantly and as selfrighteously as you like; but it will still be a grade=A catachresis. If I call my cat a dog [free country innit], she'll still prefer Whiskas to Boneo and say miaouw instead of bow-wow and catch mice instead of chasing rabbits.

Mind you, she'll go on loving me just the same. Just as you love calling something folk when it isn't. But that's coz neither of you understands.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 08:07 PM

'it matters Mike because thats what it is, and the traditionalists have perverted and taken possession of an artform, which they don't understand.

How have the traditionalists 'perverted' an art form by wanting to maintain it in it's original form Al? And to say that they don't understand it is little short of insulting.

Whilst I personally like to 'muck around' with the tradition and accompany traditional songs in a rock style, it seems to me that we are extremely fortunate that there are those who want to preserve our heritage in it's original form, and long may they continue! As a race, the English have far to little pride in our heritage and traditions, try wandering around with a morris side sometime, yet, we lap up the other traditions of the British Isles.

We have to accept as an established historical fact that the tradition is there, whether you like it or not, and that the traditional music of a country is that country's 'real' folk music, and therefore the origin of the term, however we choose to interpret it now. I'm still puzzled, and you did not answer my question earlier, if you have so little respect for our tradition as you appear to from your posts here, why do you want to hang your hat on the 'folk' peg at all?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 07:29 PM

it matters Mike because thats what it is, and the traditionalists have perverted and taken possession of an artform, which they don't understand.


compare and contrast the economy of language in real folksongs and the florid style of most 'in the tradition' songwriters. they don't get it and, they are leading young people in the wrong direction.

as musket says - both dylan and donovan used traditional forms and used them correctly. one of the reasons being they had been influenced by Guthrie, rather than MacColl and his disciples.

anyway what the hell -as you say Bellamy is influential. its a pity other people never got to be just as influential.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 05:51 PM

..actually he was my mum's uncle - so that must make him my great uncle ???

He was a self taught multi instrumentalist..
apparently I'm supposed to take after him a bit;
even down to the allergies and 'bowel discomfort'...

My mother told me grandad was an ex-army band's man
and might occasionally accompany him down the pub on clarinet.

Now that's the kind of working class family night out entertainment
I'd like to hear tapes of, or see primitive lo-tech home movies..

But wsa it remotely 'folk' ???

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 05:30 PM

Pub songs ?

From the 1940s to the early 70's my uncle used to take his accordion,
or in later years his portable electric organ, to his local boozer
and lead a singsong of old standard pub songs.

I don't know the format, because I was too young at the time.

It might have been skittles or darts night;
or it might have just been an informal session whenever folks were in the mood.
Doubt if they ever sang any trad folk songs, unless any were popular communal singalongs ?

..and I'd hazard a very strong guess none of the regular drinkers ever wrote any of their own original songs...

Uncle certainly wouldn't have even thought to call himself a 'folk' singer.

So was it 'Folk' ????

Thinking more about it, there was a weird beatnik looking young bloke with an acoustic guitar
who sang 'There was an old woman who swallowed a fly" as his party piece...

Saw him perform once at an early 1960s kiddies birthday party..
don't think I liked it much...????

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 05:06 PM

Howard is right, except for one point. The broader meaning of the word 'folk' isn't defined by style, or Ed Sheeran would be seen as a folkie, Jim Moray wouldn't be, and the world would have gone mad. If it's defined by anything it's the venue. 'Folk' in the broader sense is 'everything you hear at folk clubs and folk festivals'. It's a definition by context, like 'rugby songs' or 'Girl Guide songs'.

But that means it's not a definition that tells you anything about the song, the accompaniment or the presentation, except perhaps that it's not likely to be ultra-professional. The accompaniment could be guitar, concertina, bodhran, shruti box or nothing at all; the song could be by Richard Thompson, Cole Porter or Thelonious Monk, or it could beone of your own. 'Folk' in that sense has no boundaries and no content - if you tell someone you sing folk, all they know for certain is that you sing.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 02:16 PM

In the late 1700s, German romantic nationalist philosopher Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803) suggested to composers and poets that if they wished their work to have a character and style suggestive of a particular nation or people, they should study the volkslieder (folk songs) of the people and strive to emulate their style and character.

So folk songs, and the concept thereof, have been around since long before the 1950s.

(Just thought some folks here would like to know that....)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 01:42 PM

Btw.. MGM·Lion...

When I'm interested in a thread,
I read every word of both your's and Jack's posts...

and you 2 certainly do love words...

It's an extra added positive bonus of looking into mudcat everyday.. good brain exercise...


Reminds me of a long time ago when I had the specialist vocabulary
of a post grad Culture & Ideology student,
and ended up in a very longterm house share with Scots & Irish building site labourers...
great lads..

Never did finish that dissertation...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 01:22 PM

"MGM·Lion.. you want real violent arguements..."
.,,.
No, actually, I don't really pfr -- thank you just the same.

Still, take your point. But I've never thought one can discount the badness of any phenomenon by adducing an even worse example. I think the only proverb I have ever actually invented [I think it's my original formulation] is "Nobody ever cured a sore throat by thinking of a giraffe."

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 12:52 PM

"Why do they get so hysterical and hot-under-the-collar"

MGM·Lion.. you want real violent arguements...

You should listen in on fanatical teenage heavy metal fans
disputing the boundaries of their favourite sub-genres of 'metal' music..

I've seen arms broken in the foyer of The Hammersmith Odeon......

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 12:49 PM

And here's Musket cross-posting with me

"sixty years ago, before most folk music had even been thought of"

Eh? Wot? Huh? Pardon me? Quoi donc? Wass sagst-du?

What in stinking blue buggery is that fatuous statement supposed to mean?


I ask you! -- again!!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 12:40 PM

But here's what I really don't get:-----

Why is it so important to all these singer-songwriters/contemp-song-performers, whatevers -- you know who & what I mean -- that their music should be known by the same name as a genre which has had a precise and universally recognised designation since the term "folklore" was coined by William Thoms in 1846? Why is it such a big deal to them that we must all agree that the name "folk" is appropriate for their creations & performances, when these are different both in origin & in nature from that covered by Thoms's useful term? Why do they get so hysterical and hot-under-the-collar if anyone suggests that communication of one's precise meaning might be enhanced if another term might be found for the music that they delight in, rather than any objection being raised to their impudent arrogation of a term which had already been in recognised usage for over a century for another set of people's favoured form?

Really beats me why they get so distressed and heated and abusive about it. And then, as often as not, go on in agressive, truculent tone, as if its their term, at that, and we are the ones trying to pinch it from them: "effrontery and arrogance of every traddie fundamentalist" a typical denunciation of theirs -- I ask you!

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 30 Sep 14 - 12:36 PM

Btw... just for a little global cultural historical perspective...

1954 - Introduction of the Fender Stratocaster....