What makes a new song a folk song?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 05:31 AM

Folk songs are written, Sometimes they evolve sometimes they do not, shoals of herring was written[ ittmat or may not havebeen written intentionally as a folk song but it became accepted without any involvement.
Recruited collier was allegedly written by Lloyd. your scholastic assessment of Reynardine has been doubted not by me but by others on this forum, who hve suggested both the above songs were written by Lloyd, it was you who accused me of crticising Lloyd, that was untrue it was others who criticised him from a scholastic point of view , please getyour facts correct. ARE YOU SUGGESTING RENARDINE EXISTED AND lLOYD ADDED TO IT[if that is the case he wrote part of a song with the intention of passing it off as a folk song], and the final product was partly written with the intention of becoming a folk song, since we have to be pedantic.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 05:21 AM

"It's worth winding him up just because he reacts by over reacting" (Musket) Seems to sum up so much of this thread and the permanent attitude of some contributors. (Something about living under bridges and eating goats springs to mind.)

Thanks to Don Firth for sensible and temperate interventions. In response to "the masses are always right" as an argument – what is the point of having specialists who actually study things if we take that approach? Why have doctors and surgeons when your neighbour, who has studied nothing, can always tell you what is wrong with you and what to do about it? As for trusting Amazon and i-tunes as a guide to what is correct !!!!!!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 04:29 AM

"saying the whole entertainment industry definitions are wrong because historical narrow definitions"
You seem to have hit the nail right on the head here Muskie - as far as I am concerned anyway.
The sole purpose of the music industry is to produce, package and market a music in order to sell it - no need to understand it or even like it as long as they can hang a price tag on it, pure and simple.
Folk song, on the other hand, is the product of ordinary people, made and remade by generations of land labourers, weavers, miners, seamen, soldiers from the ranks, below-decks sailors......, it reflected their lives, experiences and aspirations down the centuries.
The themes were universal enough to be taken up and passed on from generation to generation, crossing from trade to trade and community to community, spreading across counties, countries and even continents, so that a song created in, say a fairmtoon in Aberdeenshire, could turn up a century later in the mouth of a miner in Kentucky, or a Traveller in Roscommon.
I spent my life as a manual tradesman; I was told on leaving school that people like me weren't destined to be artistically creative and that all I needed was to be able to tot up my wage slip at the end of the week, and that is how it had always been.
On discovering folk music I found that this was not the case; I found that my people before me, who were land labourers in rural Ireland who had been driven out by The Famine and forced it settle all over the world, America, Canada, and in the case of my immediate family, Britain, had been part of a people who recorded their experiences in many thousands of songs.
My father's family, his father and grandfather, were merchant seamen.... part of an industry rich in song creation.
My father fought in Spain and came back with a small handful of songs produced by the people who fought on the Republican side there - the first couple of songs I ever learned were in Spanish.
When he was forced out of work for being a "premature anti-fascist" he became a navvy, a trade which produced a small but fairly significant body of songs about life on the road and away from home.
His sister and her husband settled in Derry and were driven out by anti-Catholic rioters in the forties - all reflected in songs of the period.
That may be "narrow and historical" to you, it isn't for me.
For me, it's part of what we are and where we've been and it's why, every time this subject comes up, I will try to make a distinction between the songs that are churned out by the music industry for a profit and those that have been made by people of my background which are a part of my cultural and social history.
This isn't to dismiss commercially-made songs as unimportant, they aren't.
They provide a great deal of entertainment for many millions of people - including me, though moreso in the past, than nowadays,
but they are a different beast altogether.
That may not be your bag - if not, sorry 'bout that, can't help you.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 03:24 AM

There is a huge difference between saying that in your opinion, folk is x, y, z and stating that the world is wrong and you are right.

Musical genres are used to help people know what they are getting, and saying the whole entertainment industry definitions are wrong because historical narrow definitions are right has two obstacles to credibility.

1. What gives one definition priority over another?

2. Folk in its widest sense sells in its millions and is listened to in numbers that committees would never envisage when voting clauses to motions.

That's all folk.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 09:59 PM

'Scuse me. Bounty Hound.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 09:28 PM

No, Bounty Hunter. What von Herder suggested is exactly what some composers have done. Which is why the compositions of Aaron Copeland and George Gershwin sound distinctly American and the compositions of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Frederick Delius sound distinctly English.

They didn't write folk songs, they incorporated folk song melodies and/or folk-like themes in their compositions.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 07:25 PM

"Reynardine is a case in point[ now attributed by many to be written by bert lloyd"
Reynardine appeared on 19th century broadsides and was collected in Sussex in fragmentary form in Sussex in 1904
It been found in Scotland, Canada and America.
Folk songs aren't written - they evolve into becoming folk songs
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 07:01 PM

Johann Gottfried von Herder (25 August 1744 – 18 December 1803), a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic, was the first person—as far as anyone knows—to use the word(s) "folk song." He was suggesting to composers that if they wished their music to reflect the national character of their country, they should study the country's volkslieder (folk songs).

Sounds to me like he was suggesting these composers should go and write a new folk song, Don!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 05:50 PM

so new songs can become folk songs whether or not they are intentionally written as such or are not.
Bert Lloyd of course had a great knowledge of the trdtion which made it easier for him to do this, and lets get this absolutelty straight, I have NEVER criticised A L Lloyd for doing this, other have done so BUTIHAVE NOT ,I THINK IT IS PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 05:45 PM

"You can't simply write a folk song. Even if it sounds like a folk song, it is not a folk song until it has been around awhile and sung by a lot of people. One person is not a "tradition."
reasonable enough, but a while is how long? it is a variable, Fiddlers green written IN THE 1970S It is assumed by many to be trad, folk songs can be intentionally written whether they become folk songs [get mistaken by people to be trad] depends on how well they are written.
Reynardine is a case in point[ now attributed by many to be written by bert lloyd] was written with the intention of being a folk song and has apparantly succeeded[ many people thought it was traditional., and have introduced it in the past as a tradtional folk song

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 05:22 PM

Sorry, Musket, but I can't agree. Nor would field collectors like the Lomax family, Frank and Ann Warner, Cecil Sharp, or scholars and collators such as Francis James Child. They had some specific guidelines for what they were looking for, and songs written yesterday, no matter what style, were not it.

Interesting to note that in the spoof movie, "A Mighty Wind," about a get-together of popular folk groups for a television show, they had "The Folksmen" (an obvious take-off on the Kingston Trio), "The New Main Street Singers" (The New Christy Minstrels), a bickering couple (Ian and Sylvia), and there was a whole lot of singing in the movie. But the interesting thing was that the main joke in the movie was that there was not one single genuine traditional folk song in the entire movie! All the songs in the movie were written for the movie and succeeded in sounding like "Sixties Folk."   And damned few "folkies" who jumped on the bandwagon in the Sixties even noticed!!

The movie was done by Christopher Guest, who specializes in "mockumentaries" and was a send-up of the so-called "folk revival." And in the songs in the movie there are a lot of pretty hilarious double meanings. Damned few Sixties folkies got those either.

The sad fact is that there are a lot of self-styled "folk singers" who don't know diddly-squat about traditional folk music—and don't seem to care.

I am not using the "1954 definition." I hadn't heard of it until recently, here on Mudcat. My first interest in folk music came when I was a teenager, listening to Burl Ives' radio program, "The Wayfaring Stranger" in the 1940s, on which he talked about historical events such as the building of the Erie Canal and sang songs associated with those events. Later on, I took a course in the English Literature department at the University of Washington entitled "The English and Scottish Popular Ballad." I have a substantial collection of books by people like the Lomaxes, Carl Sandberg, Evelyn Kendrick Welles, McEward Leach, and others, containing exhaustive discussions of what constitutes a traditional folk song or ballad. Not to mention Helen Waddell's The Wandering Scholars. I've also studied a batch of stuff about the British Isles and Scandinavian minstrels (bards, scops, and skalds), the French troubadours, and the German minnesingers. All of this stuff goes back at least a thousand years, and most probably much further.

And at least one of the songs I sing is at least 400 years old, passed down in the folk tradition until collected by Thomas Ravenscroft in the 1600s. Another goes back at least 500 years.

You can't simply write a folk song. Even if it sounds like a folk song, it is not a folk song until it has been around awhile and sung by a lot of people. One person is not a "tradition."

Take a look at this:   CLICKY

Don Firth

P. S. Incidentally, this does not stop me from singing any song that I take a fancy to. I just don't try to pass it off as a folk song if it isn't.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 01:22 PM

Yeah, but you are wrong Don.

Sorry and all that.

But folk is a genre, and is far more than any definition that came out before most contemporary folk songs were written.

But what do I know? I'm just a racist good stepper or whatever deranged nonsense the old fool Jim comes out with next. It's worth winding him up just because he reacts by over reacting, but even then, guess what?

He is sooooo wrong anyway.

🎼🎶🎶🎤🎤🎸🎸🎸🎹🎹🎹

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 01:14 PM

The only thing you have on your shoulder is a chip, you consistently insult people on this forum who you disagree with, no wonder you were known as the mouth of the mersey.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 01:05 PM

"absolutely last word" - how long do you think it'll take ?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 12:03 PM

"I haven't insulted anyone. I said you were talking bollocks"
You have just about insulted everybody, from the old singers because of their age to those of us who are still deluded enough to think there might just be some value in singing and listening to the old songs
You continue to do so with your racist and ageish language
"Folk music is far more than diddies and tit trousers. "
Be a man, my son, face up to your yobbish behaviour.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 11:50 AM

Johann Gottfried von Herder (25 August 1744 – 18 December 1803), a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic, was the first person—as far as anyone knows—to use the word(s) "folk song." He was suggesting to composers that if they wished their music to reflect the national character of their country, they should study the country's volkslieder (folk songs).

This whole discussion has become downright silly. You can't "write a folk song" any more than you can write a "hit" song or make an "antique chair" in your workshop. What you write or what you build may eventually become a hit song or an antique, but that depends on what happens with the song or the piece of furniture and how people use it—IF they do.

It may sound like a folk song—or look like an antique—but that's not what determines its actual status.

There's nothing that stops you from singing a song that's NOT a folk song—or sitting on a chair that's not an antique. Just don't try to pass it off as something it's not.

Now, people, go find something useful to do!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 11:05 AM

I haven't insulted anyone. I said you were talking bollocks.

Different thing entirely.

Folk music is far more than diddies and tit trousers.

If you write a song aimed at a folk loving audience, you have written a folk song. Royalties and blokes in folk clubs singing your songs tend to be the clincher...

👅

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 07:55 AM

"More misrepresentation."
More aggression
I may have mistaken your point, I have not misrepresented it - if I have, I apologise.
The term did not have a broader meaning - it referred specifically to the social group which they believe all the different aspects - dance, lore, tales, customs, music... etc originated from - 'the common people' for the want of a better term.
The conference was made up of different national groups; from what I can gather, and difficulties in reaching a consensus arose from the fact that some aspects applied differently from nation to nation.
might have this wrong, but I've just downloaded David Bearman's thesis on the subject - wouldn't want to be accused of making things up.
There has never been any question of newly made songs becoming part of the tradition - I've made the point over and over again about both Traveller songs and am now embarking on putting together local songs that were written during the lifetimes of the singers we recorded them from - there seem to have been several hundred of them within a twenty mile radius of this small west of Ireland town alone.
One of the outstanding features of most of them is they are of unknown authorship and have been absorbed into the community here, which is what has made them folk songs.
All of this is a far cry from the 'anything goes' argument that is being applied to the term here - I may have missed it, but I don't recall your having stating your own opinion on that one.
"Taken with you calling me an "arrogant little pratt" earlier in the thread, "
I called you an arrogant little pratt after these two staments
"If you came to our club and started to jump up and down and demand your money back every time somebody sang a song that you felt didn't fit the 1954 definition then, yes, you would be asked to leave."
"The trouble is, you are very selective in your reading. You seize on every crumb, no matter how obscure or dubious, if it supports your case while brushing aside anything that doesn't fit your prejudices."
Neither are an accurate description of my attitude and we have been arguing long enough for you to know that.
"If you disagree with what I have to say, have the decency and honesty to to address what I have to say and not make things up" - was a direct response to your having written "Jim would have us believe, there are no other traditional clubs in the country" - which is simply untrue - I have never made such a statement, nor do I believe it - you made it up.
The tenor of your responses to my postings ranges from patronising "I'' probably regret asking this..." to one of open aggression.
I realise I should learnt to tolerate people like you (you're not the only one who can be patronising) but there really is no need for your constant open animosity - we are supposed do want the same thing out of the music.
"i would just like to testify that i have expressed no untruths"
You have had ample opportunity to prove my having denigrated Tommy Armstrong "and many others" - you choose not to.
Your silence on the subject speaks volumes.
You and Muskie have chosen to insult those who disagree with you and to denigrate our music - go or stay, it makes little difference to me - "Stand not upon your going, but go" as the man said.
"some rubbish definition" sums up the level of your contribution to this deebate
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 06:37 AM

i'm sorry - not going on with this.

i would just like to testify that i have expressed no untruths on this thread, its a subject i feel too strongly and principled about.

the only conclusion i am forced to is that you are incapable of understanding the principles involved much less the reasons why artistic effort in the folk world needs all our support.

i have been insulted. and there is no answer to abuse. there is no way of arguing with someone who is incapable of following an argument. incapable or unwilling.

if you haven't appropriated the term folk song on the evidence of some rubbish definition - made by people who wouldn't recognise a folk if he pissed in their ear. if you haven't ....well leave it for the rest of us, who have a definite use for the phrase.

absolutely last word.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 06:05 AM

Jim Carroll
"I said that the word "folk" was already in use with a much broader meaning. It still is."
"they chose a term for it which was already in use with a much broader meaning. "

More misrepresentation.What I actually said was - "Unfortunately (and for perfectly valid reasons), they chose a term for it which was already in use with a much broader meaning..

And I said that Paolo Alto chose nothing - the term 'folk song' had been in use since the beginning of the 20th century" - the conference merely accepted that term as being the functional one- the term 'folk song' was well established by the time '54 came along.
You might have "the decency and honesty"to address that fact.

Bit of a smokescreen there, Jim. That's not the subject under discussion. I'll only say that Maud Karpeles didn't seem to agree. From the 1954 "definition" -
At the Annual Conference of the International Folk Music Council held in London two years ago we attempted to define folk music,
but were unable to devise a definition which completely satisfied all the members.

The issue is whether some sections of the people who use the word folk had been doing so, for totally sincere reasons, since the 1930s and that this lead to the modern usage which is now in conflict with the 1954 definition usage. It was not an "aggressive takeover" but a parallel development.

Why do you have to be so ******* aggressive in your responses?
If I am mistaken, I am mistaken - I am not a liar.

Oh dear, Jim. What's to be done with you? The "If you disagree with what I have to say, have the decency and honesty to to address what I have to say and not make things up." line was lifted intact from one of your posts attacking me. Taken with you calling me an "arrogant little pratt" earlier in the thread, I don't think you're in a position to accuse me of being aggressive.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 04:48 AM

I went on Amazon and typed "folk"

How much more qualification do you need?

Hang on.

Yep, thought so. iTunes is the same but normally about a pound more per album.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 03:27 AM

" I did think I had explained my point of view. honestly mate"
Hardly "honestly" Al - honesty very rarely comes into your argument.
You have just accused me of maligning old songwriters by "sitting in judgement" on them - you widened that by accusing me of sitting in judgement "over a whole lot of other people as well."
I asked for examples of this - you have given me none, and nor will you, because there are none.
It is obviously a wast of time to ask you to prove your accusation or withdraw it, that's the kind of guy you appear to be -
Remember what happened to Pinnochio when he didn't tell the truth!
A SALUTARY WARNING
And you now have a little Jimminy Cricket chirruping on your shoulder, "Jim, is a comedian, he is very funny".
"I asked the world if it would change the meaning of the word folk so Jim and Mike"
You are the one who has changed the meaning of the word Muskie and you haven't even bothered to qualify those changes with anything other than abuse and distortion
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 03:22 AM

Jim my above comment is related specifically to your refusal to accept that MacColl and Lloyd clearly thought Armstrongs songs were folk songs, OTHERWISE THEY WOYULD SURELY HAVE OBJECTED TO THE WRITE UPS ON THE RECORDINGS

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 01:53 AM

It certainly does take some doing Mike.. Against any post of yours for starters.

I asked the world if it would change the meaning of the word folk so Jim and Mike could win an argument just once in their lives, but the world told me to folk off.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 01:42 AM

"YOU who have appropriated the name", Al wrote a few posts back. I have been puzzling as to what he could possibly have meant by it -- seems to me to win the prize for this month's most fatuous Mudcat comment, which takes a bit of doing!

What DID you mean by it, Al? Seems to me to make no sort of sense at all.

Regards
≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 08:50 PM

Jim, is a comedian, he is very funny.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 07:53 PM

oh Jim!... I did think I had explained my point of view. honestly mate, i have tried, but i've obviously fucked up somewhere. i was reading this obit recently of the great Sydney Carter.

http://www.stainer.co.uk/carterobit.html

the bloke agrees with you.. Carters songs are not folk. but if a lifetime's striving to be a part of the folk process is not enough to guarantee you a place in the hallowed halls of folksingers.....

well its a nasty unforgiving sort of tradition - perhaps we all ought to tell it to get stuffed.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 04:52 PM

"of course you're sitting in judgement..."
I've asked where I have be3en judgenmental - repeating the accusation doesn't hack it - good job I didn't hold my breath!
"Lloyd raised no objection at the time to this description,so he agreed."
So Lloyd and MacColl didn't agree with the publicity, which proves they agreed with it?
I see.......!
"Thomas Armstrong (1848-1919), 'the Tanfield Colliery poet', was its great hero"
Has anybody contradicted this or are you just repeating this because you like the sound of it?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 04:26 PM

of course you're sitting in judgement.... and over a whole lot of other people as well.

his music wasn't some solipsistic self indulgence. it was written not from a purely profit motive - but with the idea of his community right there under his nose listening to their lives being commented on.

that for me deserves the acolade of folk music. sung by a folksinger.

to use an American term - you're just being 'ornery'!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 03:32 PM

The Iron Muse (A Panorama of Industrial Folk Song) arranged by A. L. Lloyd is an thematic Industrial folk music album, widely regarded as one of the most influential albums of Topic's catalogue from its release.
Lloyd raised no objection at the time to this description,so he agreed.
MacColl raised no objection to this at the time
Unquestionably, North East England was the richest, most indisputably authentic home of industrial folksong and of coalmining ballads in particular. And Thomas Armstrong (1848-1919), 'the Tanfield Colliery poet', was its great hero

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 02:26 PM

MikeL2, yes, more 'tongue in cheek' postings like yours are much needed and appreciated...

Let's all make a united sarcastic stand for 'people taking the piss power' !!!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,MikeL2
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 02:16 PM

Hi Michael

I have to admit that I put up the Jimmy Nail clip very much tongue in cheek.

I know that it is a far away from "folk" as you know it as it could possibly be.

There has been much c**p written on this thread that I just thought I would amuse myself( and hopefully others here).

Cheers

MikeL

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 02:03 PM

" how can you sit in judgement over an artistic effort like that."
And once again you distort my case - I do not "sit in judgement" - if you believe I have, please show me NOW - though I won't hold my breath
You and your crowd are the only ones sitting in judgement here - between you, you have sneered at themusic, the people who gave it to us and the people who happen to like it - now thet is what I call sitting in judgement
I await your reply with some interest.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 01:46 PM

oh dear...honest opinions are no longer allowed. the grey cock i encountered was every bit as bad as i recalled. i suppose its abit like any great flowering of artistic activity -there follows a period of decadence. and thats what i walked in on. to be honest - i don't suppose great feats of musical dexterity are really necessary for English traditional folksong accompaniment. but these people were shite - and didn't know it! i'm beginning to think -maybe you didn't.

i'm willing to bet i can find recordings by john mccormack, the almanac singers, and songs written by the Carter Family described as folk - long before 1954 was dreamed of. can't be bothered though. it just common sense - why would all these people give a shit about what some dreary academics thought up. it YOU who have appropriated the name.

i'd certainly heard of Tommy Armstrong before i met johnny Handle in 63. if i'm not mistaken there was an album of his songs in Boots. how can you sit in judgement over an artistic effort like that. have some decency. award whatever acolade he would have wanted. and i think he would have liked to be remembered as a chronicler of his people. a true writer of folksongs.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 12:07 PM

"jim do you agree that both MacColl and Lloyd considered Tommy Armstrongs songs Folk songs?both of them described them as such on recordings" Show me where they did an maybe we can agree, otherwise, I'm climbing out of this black hole. I've told you my position on Tommy Armstrong; the same would apply to Burns, Edwin Waugh, Joe Corrie.... and all the other poets and songwriters who were writing from the position of having been part of the communities they were writing about - if their songs were taken up by their fellow workers and absorbed into the culture, then they would have become folk songs. The fact they were part of those communities makes it possible, even likely that this would happen. What you seem to be doing here is to get some sort of confirmation that the two revival songwriters you have named can write folk songs - I don't believe this is possible for the reasons I have stated, basically that the situation in which folk songs were created no longer exist - simple as that. This doesn't mean that what they wrote was valueless - for me, the fact that people are writing songs, especially ones that use the old forms, vindicates MacColl's statement that unless new songs are written, the clubs will become museums. I guess that, out of my repertoire of 300 plus songs, around a quarter of them are contemporart - just not folk songs. I suggest if you want to make these discussions into competitions, then write to your local Comaltas representative and get them included in the next Flead - I'm cerainly not interested in pissing competitions of the type you seem to go in for Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 10:40 AM

jim do you agree that both MacColl and Lloyd considered Tommy Armstrongs songs Folk songs?both of them described them as such on recordings

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 10:37 AM

A Tyrannosaurus is fighting a Triceratops to the death over a disagreement
as to which one best epitomises what it is to truly be a dinosaur...

Meanwhile down in the undergrowth, little tiny mammals and feathered reptiles
look on in bored bewilderment....

"What a pair of pillocks, they're both great big old stubborn lumbering frigging dinosaurs..!!!
F@ck 'em, lets have a party to celebrate that amazing glowing object in the sky and not invite either..."

Meanwhile a giant asteroid hurtles even closer to the Earths atmosphere........

Extract from "The Ladybird Book of Fuckwit Futile Arguements"

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 09:58 AM

" like you have accused me of being."
I invited you to provide proof for your accusation against fellow folk-song enthusiasts; you declined to
I gave you ample evidence that what you said about them was not true, you chose not to respond
I take as I find Al.
I pointed out that your accusations began with the members of the Grey Cock being "unfriendly" then later moved on to their being incompetent musicians who all wore 'fishermen's smocks - you warmed to your abusing fellow performers, becoming more inventive as you went along.
Again, you chose not to respond.
Sorry Al - I take as I find, especially when it comes to things I know not to be true by a club whose contribution has been as valuable to folk music as it has been, and continues to be.
"but your definition of folk music is that used only in rarefied academic circles - not by anyone either engaged in playing and promotion - or listening to"
Once again - not true.
The definition I use is one that is fully documented - yours is not.
As a lover of folk song I don't need a 'definition' I know what it is, so did everybody when down the years.
This total abandoning of any form of definition is a relatively new one - you are the new kids on the block
In a way, attempting to show that we are the oddballs, the 'out-of-steps' is a form of dishonesty until you tackle the fact that our denintion is overwhelmingly the one that has been defned and used
The only place we are the ones out of step are in those clubs that have abandoned all forms of definition.
Our definition has nothing to do with academia - it is the one that got the ball rolling way back in the 1950s, it is the one that the BBC used when they set out to record the remnants of folk singing in Bratain and Ireland, it is the one that floated Topic Records and produced such magnificent sets as 'Folk Songs of Britain.... right through to the latest 'Voice of the people, series.
I have pointed a hundred times to the fact that there are 100s of collections of folk songs on our shelves based on the definition...
Claiming that we are academics, oddballs, out-of-step, academic, in the minority, is self-deluding dishonesty.
WE have the track record and the documentation to prove it - you have none of these things, just the misuse of a long established term
I've shown you mane dozens of times - now show me yours
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 09:49 AM

I wonder still why nobody has yet answered the questions I have put more than once:-

WHY was the word 'Folk" adopted in the first place for these often most effective and cogent original songs, demonstrably different from those for whose categorisation and definition the term was already well established? A new genre -- why was a new name found for it? Why did they have to take over a term already well established for a different sort of song with different antecedence, to the extent that, if the original meaning is not entirely lost, it has been pretty nearly swamped out of existence? And why do they stick so pertinaciously, despite all protests from those thus deprived, to this term they have so barefacedly hijacked?

Just asking ...

Again ...

Once more, now --

Will answer come there none?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 08:58 AM

no you are not a fool or a liar, like you have accused me of being.

but your definition of folk music is that used only in rarefied academic circles - not by anyone either engaged in playing and promotion - or listening to it. certainly not by the creators of the songs you claim to admire. they weren't wrought from the dull earth by people with pretensions of greatness.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 08:04 AM

"I said that the word "folk" was already in use with a much broader meaning. It still is."
"they chose a term for it which was already in use with a much broader meaning. "
And I said that Paolo Alto chose nothing - the term 'folk song' had been in use since the beginning of the 20th century" - the conference merely accepted that term as being the functional one- the term 'folk song' was well established by the time '54 came along.
You might have "the decency and honesty"to address that fact.
Why do you have to be so ******* aggressive in your responses?
If I am mistaken, I am mistaken - I am not a liar.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 07:21 AM

Jim Carroll
All of which has nothing to do with your claim that Folk was applied to a more general definition in 1954.

I claimed nothing of the sort. I said that the word "folk" was already in use with a much broader meaning. It still is.

If you disagree with what I have to say, have the decency and honesty to to address what I have to say and not make things up.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 06:52 AM

"It sounds like folk, you enjoy it as folk, it is folking folk."
.,,.
...& welcome back to that "comic air of having triumphantly demonstrated what has merely been strenuously asserted"...

When are we going to get anything in the nature of rational argument from the self-satisfied but inenarrably ineffectual I. Mather, who does nothing but interminably yell out the same old boring bromides ad nauseam in ♠♠♠? Would have thought his throat must be getting a bit sore by now...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 06:44 AM

The ones more likely to do that are, surely, those who think that the Yankee-accented crooning Geordie Jimmy Nail* has the remotest connection with any sort of folk-inspired canon. (Abe Lincoln again ["People who like this sort of thing..."]; but what on earth you see in that particular manifestation, MikeL, I genuinely cannot fathom.) Our traditional weights & measures are surely not to be trusted to those who can't tell Streets Of London [fine a poem as it is] from a folksong.

≈M≈

*And what on earth happened to that gutsy actor he was once?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 06:04 AM

You can call Preparation H Bonjela if you like, but rubbing pile ointment on your gums won't be in line with the British National Formulary usage of the stuff. Curiously though, it will reduce the inflammation and you will feel better for it. It sounds like folk, you enjoy it as folk, it is folking folk.

A bit like those who try telling us folk music isn't folk, or those tedious buggers who if you ask them what they weigh, they tell you in KiloNewtons, but then proceed to tell you their mass in kilograms.

zzz

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,MikeL2
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 06:01 AM

Hi

Oh dear, the endless arguments continue.

I agree with the view that Folk is very much wider than the Traditional 1954 definition.

New songs have been and will be continued to be added to the Folk "catalogue".

How about this one for example ???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_519h95XFs

cherrs

MikeL

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 05:31 AM

Yetties & Spinners did sing mainly folksongs, in fact. Not everyone liked all their arrangements -- I once had the privilege of supporting Hughie Jones at a gig; so I greatly welcomed the opportunity of telling him how much I loathed & despised what they had done to that beautiful song Pleasant&Delightful, with all their silly noises & gestures -- but their repertoire was nearly all folk at that.

Yes,"common usage" is indeed a very well-chosen name for the phenomenon you rubricate.

    ······ Common as piggipooze; vulgar as all-get-out······

You can urge universal ignorance till blue in face. So what of it...

You go on calling them folksongs if it gives you any satisfaction. & I shall call my tallest bookcase a chair. But I won't try sitting on it.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 05:06 AM

i perform basically where English folk are to be found.

I don't make the rules Mike. common usage is common usage. it is your understanding and Jims which is at a huge vaiance with common usage. to most people Donovan and Dylan are folksingers. the yetties and the spinners were folk groups. what they sang is commonly supposed to be folk music.

you know Empson makes this distinction between verse and poetry. and of course he's correct like you are about folk music. but the generality of people couldn't spot the difference between verse and poetry. to most people anything in verse is poetry.

do you really think Empson, Leavis, Tillyard or any of those guys would have spent time arguing with someone who supposed that the limerick about a young man from Australia was poetry?

if you're really an expert, you just get on with what you're doing.

i have my areas of expertise, as i'm sure you have.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 03:23 AM

Let me stress yet again, too, that it is not a matter of quality. Many of the songs we are talking of are excellent, musically and poetically. If I were editing an anthology of 20th Century Verse, then, alongside the Yeats and the Eliot and the Wallace Stevens and the e e cummings, I should certainly include The Streets Of London and The Lonely Death Of Hattie Carroll. But that doesn't make them folksongs, any more than the Yeats et al.

So why go on calling them so FCOL? Miaouw, sez Cleo, sitting here beside me on my desk: obstinate creature -- why, I've just told her again that she's a dog.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 17 Oct 14 - 01:52 AM

How does one become steeped in traditional song ?

Is there a costume you can hire?

Jim. Do I have to stoop (see what I did there?) to your level and paste your moronic moron remark?

I wrote three folk songs this last week. One is OK, one needs fiddling with and one will possibly be broken down for scrap and some of the themes and riffs put into subsequent songs. I consider them folk though, others have heard them and consider them folk too. Lots of moaning about the plight of others as viewed from my crystal tower. Typical folk songs in fact.

Beauty being in the eye of the beholder and all that.