Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From:
Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 03:41 AM
"we're going round in circles because you are not listening Jim."
No Al - you are not listening - or you are hearing only what you want to hear.
You've sniped at other artists, you've deliberately represented what I have said and your argument has basically been that folk music proper is out of date and the mish-mash now on offer is what has replaced it.
Sorry - that is a load of bollocks.
You have a declining umber of clubs which are a feeble shadow of what we managed in the past.
Abandoning the reason for us first getting together half a century or so ago may continue to put bums on seats for a time - the difference is, that were were putting bums on seats for a purpose - to make people aware of the wonderful musc that you and your crowd have jettisoned for your pale imitation of the pop scene.
If tat's what turns you on - fine, but it has S.F.A. to do with folk song in any shape or form, and you have not even tried to prove it has other than to denigrate what has happened in the past as part of the "dim and distant past" (shame on the individual who threw that one into the argument)
My basic argument with those I have respect for here is that I don't believe the tradition is alive, but I do believe that the old forms are important and viable enough to create new songs using them as a pattern.
Whether they become folk songs is immaterial really - nobody ever set out to write folk songs - the idea is ludicrous.
People wrote songs to capture what was happening around them - what made them laugh, or what made them angry, or sad..... loss, achievement, death, birth...whatever.
They became folk songs because they were memorable and because they were universal enough to take root wherever they landed - not the introspective, navel gazing, angst-filled singer-songwriter stuff that masquerades as folk-song now.
They were articulate and clearly understood for the ideas and emotions they carried - not the loud cacophonous stuff of the pop scene.
Of course we need new songs - but that is no reason to abandon the old ones, or write them off the way Al and Muskie have (despite the lip-service).
I get a bit pissed of being accused of living in the past by people like these.
We're working on two programmes at the present time to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of MacColl - it entails poring through the hundreds of recordings we have here of The Critics Group and The Singers Club and all the incredibly inspiring and exciting talks he and Peggy and Parker... and all those others, gave on singing and song.
I've just been going through some of the songwriting workshops we did, and the wealth of material it turned out - not just Ewan and Peggy's, but the group and a whole.
One workshop turned out, Grey October, a song created after a nights work of throwing ideas at one another until we arrived at a final product.
GREY OCTOBER
Grey October in Glamorgan,
High pitheaps where the houses stand –
Fog in the valley, backshift ending.
Children awaken in Aberfan.
Warm October in Thai Binh Province
Huts of bamboo and rattan,
Sun comes up, repair gangs stop
And children waken in Thui Dan.
Pithead hooter sounds from Merthyr,
Load the coal in the waiting trams;
Shoot the slag down the high pit heap
While children eat in Aberfan.
Oxcarts rattle down Thai Binh Highway
Work begins on the broken land,
Night's work ended, the roadway's mended,
Children eat in Thui Dan.
Dai Dan Evans grabs his satchel,
Michael Jones his bread and jam,
Five to nine and the school bell ringing
Time for school in Aberfan.
School bell ringing, children running,
Down by the river and across the dam,
Hot sun burning, time for learning
Time for school in Thui Dan.
Lessons start in Pantglas Junior
Through the fog a black wave ran,
Under the weight of the man-made mountain
Children die in Aberfan.
Lessons start in the Thai Binh schoolhouse
And another day began,
Bombers fly in the morning sky
And children die in Thui Dan.
Tears are shed for Glamorgan children –
And the world mourns Aberfan:
But who will weep for the murdered children
Under the rubble of Thui Dan ?
Grey October in Glamorgan,
Warm October in Vietnam
There children die - while we stand by
And shake the killer by the hand.
Another song made by one of the members of the group was based on a centuries-old legend of the meeting of Finn MacCumhal and the French giant, applied to a bunch of navvies working in 20th century Scotland.
O'REILLY AND THE BIG McNEIL a varient on Garden where the Praties Grow- Donneil Kennedy
Well, the day I met O'Reilly it was thirty-two below,
The sparks were flying off me pick, I was up to me neck in snow.
His footsteps shook the basement slab, I saw the sky grow black
As he roared out, 'I'm your ganger now, so dig until you crack!'
He was bigger than a dumper truck, with legs like concrete piles,
His face was like a load of bricks, his teeth were six inch files;
His eyes they shone like danger lamps, his hands were tough as steel,
But a man as small as that was never a match for Big McNeil.
When the tea came round at dinner time, He grabbed a gallon tin.
I said 'you'd better drop that fast if you would save your skin,
You may be called O'Reilly, but I will to you reveal
That the cup you've got your hands on, it belongs to big McNeil.
Well, he laughed at me and carried on as if I hadn't spoke,
He said 'A man from Dublin town can always take a joke,'
But when he picked a shovel up, wee Jimmie gave a squeal.
'You'd better drop that teaspoon, it belongs to Big McNeil.'
Well, everything the ganger touched we said to leave alone,
Or else McNeil would grind him up and make plaster of his bones,
As last O'Reilly lost his head and said he'd make a meal
Out of any labourer in the squad, especially Big McNeil.
We said McNeil was home in bed, and told him where to go,
The boys all dropped their tools and went along to watch the show,
And when we got to Renfrew street wee Jimmy danced a reel
To see him thundering at the door, to fight the big McNeil.
When the ganger got inside he saw a monster on the bed,
A mound as big as a stanchion base with a barrel size of head,
He punched it and he thumped it and he hit about with zeal,
Till the missus cried - 'Don't hurt the child, or else I'll tell McNeil.'
He was bigger than a dumper truck, with legs like concrete piles,
His face was like a load of bricks, his teeth were six inch files,
His eyes they shone like danger lamps, his hands were tough as steel,
But a man as small as that was never a match for Big McNeil.
When The Singers Club was in its prime Peggy Seeger edited 20 books of new songs, mostly containing up to twenty songs or edition, donated from all over the English speaking world
Songs like these, coupled with age-old ballads and songs provided me with some of the high points of my life, as did some of the themed feature evenings - 'Battle of the Sexes', 'Gone For a Soldier', 'Murder, Mayhem and Mystery', 'The Female Frolic', 'The Wanton Muse', 'You Name it, We'll sing it (audeinece passing up subjets and residents digging up songs on them)... poetry prose and song evenings.... they sent us home buzzing, and listening to them again still has that effect.
I enjoys#ed the sing-around evenings - still do, but there was nothing to beat a residents night with a group of three or four people who had worked up their singing to a standard and had worked together on accompaniments so they could send an audience home with a night of good, or at least proficient singing under their belts - no "near enough for folk song" shit.
Evening of residents, then one a guest, then another involving singers singers from the floor... that was what made The Singers Club the important club that it was.
I've seen what passes for folk song now - U-tube is full of it - quite honestly, I find much of it depressing - a poor imitation of pop song - ramming a square peg into a round hole.
Back to work
Jim Carroll
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sj
