What makes a new song a folk song?

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

"Ritual & Tradition spring from the same basic urge which is common to all - not just that shadowy class of unwitting lore-carrier known as The Folk by their self-appointed caretakers."   
This is utter gibberish - apparently to offset one of your somewhat spectacular foot-in mouths
Traditional singers, storytellers, musicians.... have spoken at length about their attitudes to their arts - the Travellers, Appalachian singers, East Anglian fishermen, the singers and storytellers recorded by Tom Munnlelly, Ken Goldstein, Lomax, John Cohen .... whenever they have been asked they have filled tape after tape with information.
We spent thirty years recording Irish Travellers, rural Irish smallholders and Walter Pardon
On what grounds do you claim that they are in any way "unwitting"? You really are a pontificating, armchair-squatting clown.
Jim Carroll

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

*Pop's Johnny Connors, Wexford Traveller
Cain and Abel
Rec. July 1973, Shepherds Bush
'POP'S' JOHNNY CONNORS: I'd say the song, myself, goes back to.... depicts Cain and Abel in the Bible and where Our Lord said to Cain.... I think this is where the Travellers Curse come from too, because Our Lord says to Cain, "Cain", says Our Lord, "you have slain your brother, and for this", says Our Lord, says he, "and for this, be a wanderer and a fugitive on the earth".
"Not so Lord" says he, "this punishment is too severe, and whoever finds me", says he, "will slay me, "says he "or harass me".
"Not so", says Our Lord, says he, "whoever finds Cain and punishes or slains (sic) Cain, I will punish them sevenfold".
And I think this is where the Travellers curse come from.
Anyway, the song depicts this, this er....
I call it Cain and Abel anyway; there never was a name for die song, but that what I call it, you know, the depiction of Cain and Abel.
Song; What Put the Blood"

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 01:38 PM

Walter Pardon 1978
J C:   Do you think that when you started singing in the clubs and festivals, do you think you think you are singing any different than you were singing when you were younger?

W P:      Dash, yes, I think so.

J C:    Do you know in what way?

W P:      Oh, I don't know, put more expression in probably, I think so. Well, but you see, you take these, what we call the old type… the old folk song, they're not like the music hall song, are they, or a stage song, there's a lot of difference in them. I mean a lot of these… some … it all depend what and how you're singing. Some of them go to nice lively, quick tunes, and others are… you don't do 'Van Dieman's Land'… If there's a sad old song you don't go through that very quick. Like Up to the Rigs is the opposite way about.
I mean, we must put expression in, you can't sing them all alike. Well most of the stage songs you could, if you understand what I mean. According to what the song is you put the expression in or that's not worth hearing, well that's what I think anyhow.   And as I never did sing them, you see, there was no expression I could put in.

J C:    But since you started singing them to people...

W P:   That's right, that's right.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 01:52 PM

Calum Johnston
". . .Oh well, you hear songs sung in many different ways. You some¬times feel that the people who are singing them have so feeling.. .
They know the song and they just rattle through it, as you might say. Then you hear others who really show that, they feel what they're singing. . . Oh yes, I always have to give as the words require. Some times a note may be short or a note may be long, according to the word that's used there, and very often there are hardly two verses sung in exactly the same way, on account of the words, because the syllables are different. . . Oh. . . . the old fellows, well some of them you see, some of them. had the art of putting a taste on a tune. . . well, what I would call putting a bias on it, putting a taste on it. You know it's just like eating something that has no taste, and then you put something on it to put a taste on it. . . Some would sing an air straight through the bare notes as you might say, and the others would put little grace notes in. that made all the difference, that gave a taste to that air, instead of having it bare. They clothed it up in beautiful garments as you might say.        ._
... I sing [the big songs] to myself because I know that people now¬adays. very few. ..like the old big songs, but say fifty or sixty years ago, there were plenty of people who did enjoy that type of song and they would prefer it to anything else that you sang. Nowadays they're much lighter in their choice. You see it's- this "diddles" that they like... It's just the way things have gone. The present generation they seem to have lost taste for all these things. The old stories have gone. Nobody has any interest in tales nowadays, and the old songs have gone, because nobody has any interest in them. They're too difficult for them to learn and they don't like them in any case. And it's a new generation, as you might say, that has grown, and you can't do anything to stop it. Even the language is suffering. It's deterior¬ating because they've lost their taste for good speech. Now the old one is we're very particular in their speech, and they took pride in proper speaking, proper talking, and although very few of them had any education seventy or eighty years ago. . . their language was pure at that time, and they spoke quite grammatically. Now if you try to correct them in any of their grammar they just laugh at you. . ."
SA 1967/41/2 Recorded from Calum Johnston by Thorkild Knudsen. lr. 1967.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 02:02 PM

Pop' Johnny Connor again:
02   Green Shades of Yann
(Tune sung)

"P. J. C.   That's the 'yawn' in the voice, dragged away, the yawn in the voice.
The 'yawn' is in the pipes, the uilleann pipes, which is among the oldest instruments among Travelling people, or among the world, is the pipes.
The breeding generation belonging to me, the Dorans, the Cashes, it's all traditional musicians, this is in history.
DENIS TURNER:   Can you give us an example?

P J C. I gave you an example a few minutes ago, but I'll give it again.
Song; Green Shades of Yann (The Brown Thorn)"

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 02:28 PM

12 PUTTING THE BLÁS* IN THE SONG
J C:   What's the word you used Tom, blas, what…
T L:The blas, that was what the old people used to use
If you didn't put the blás in the song, whatever the blás means I do not know, but 'twas often said to me and I singing a song, "You puts the real blas in the song'.
The same as that now, 'Michael Hayes', 'The Fox Chase':

Sings:
I am a bold and undaunted fox that never was before on tramp,
My rent, rates and taxes I was willing for to pay.
I lived as happy as King Saul, and loved my neighbours, great and small,
I had no animosity for either friend nor foe.

You have to draw out the words and put the blas in the song.
If you did the same as the Swedish couple **

Sings, speeded up:
I am a bold and undaunted fox that never was before on tramp.

The blas isn't in that, in any bit of it.
You see now, the blas is the drawing out of the words and the music of it.

J C:   What do you think you're passing on with a song Tom, is it a good tune, is it a good story or nice poetry, or what?
T L: 'Tis some story I'm passing on with the song all the time
In the composition that was done that time, or the poets that was in it that time, they had the real stuff for to compose their song, they had some story in it.
As I tell you about 'The Christmas Letter', they had some story, but in today's poets, there is no story but the one thing over and over and over again, d'you see?

J C:   Yeah.

T L: But that time they had the real story for to start off the song and…., the same as the song I'm after singer there, 'The Fair Maiden in her Father's Garden', well that happened sometime surely; the lover came back and she didn't know him, of course, but yet he knew her, and there he was, and that happened. for certain.
Michael Hayes happened, 'The Christmas Letter' as I say, all them old traditional stuff, that old mother that got the letter for Christmas from her family, all them things happened.
It was right tradition all along, and it was a story or something that happened.

J C:   When you sing a song like 'Farmer Michael Hayes', do you have some picture in your mind of what he looks like, his description and what…?

T L: That's right, you will, you'll have a description of Michael Hayes and when he went in and shot the agent and all that sort of that thing that goes on in the song

J C:    But you have a picture of what the man looks like?

T L: What the man looks like, that he was a tough man, of course.
But where the story was entirely, how he brought his legs to the United States, and the whole country after him and…
And all the stories, 'The Colleen Bán' there again, is a story handed down, that happened.
J C:   Yeah.

* Blas - Relish, taste, good accent (Irish)

** Reference to two visitors who had asked Toms advice on singing

Tom Lenihan Smallholder and small farmer, West Clare

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 02:59 PM

the seller on ebay claimed it was a folk guitar - you mean to tell me I have been mis sold an item, and it doesn't play folk music!

Scoundrels everywhere!

this tradition that has been handed down....pity its not like Marks and Sparks and you can hand it back, if you've kept the labels, as you so assiduously have.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 03:00 PM

Mikeen (Small Michael) McCarthy, Kerry Traveller, 1977

J C:       What would you say was the oldest song that went on to a ballad that you know?

M Mc:   Oh, the Blind Beggar, I'd say, I'd say that was the oldest because at that time..... I'd meet an old man at that time of sixty five, seventy years we'll say and he'd be contradicting me about the song.    Actually that's how I put it right because the old timers was telling me. The printer might make a mistake and put the second verse where the third one should be or something like that, you know,    But you'd meet the old timers then inside in the pub and they'd contradict me, I'd have to rewrite it out there inside in the bar again and I'd have to go on again.
But I remember one day I was in Listowel Fair and I was selling ballads anyway.    So I goes into a pub, I was fifteen years of age then.   
Actually, I never wanted to pack it up, it was ashamed of the ladies I got, you know.   
But there was an American inside anyway, he wasn't back to Ireland I'd say for thirty years or something, he was saying.   
So I sang that song now, The Blind Beggar, and he asked me to sing it again, and every time I sang it he stuck a pound note into my top pocket.
He said, "will you sing again?"
So I did, yeah. The pub was full all round like, what we call a nook (te) now that time, a small bar, a private little bar off from the rest of the pub.   
"And, will you sing it again"?   
"I will, delighted" again, of course, another pound into my top pocket every time anyway.    And the crowd was around of course and they were all throwing in two bobs apiece and a shilling apiece and I'd this pocket packed with silver money as well.   
So he asked me, "will you sing it for the last time".   
Says I, "I'll keep singing it till morning if you want". (laughter )   
I'd six single pound notes in it when I came outside of the pub. I think I sold the rest of the ballads for half nothing to get away to the pictures.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 03:13 PM

Jack, you tell me that I and many others are deluded in thinking there is a tradition, and then tell us that tradition is an integral aspect of human culture & have been since the year dot.

Can't have it both ways!!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 03:43 PM

Al, sorry if you think you've been sold a pup, but of course I realise it's just a flippant way of avoiding the question.

I'll ask once again, if you really despise the tradition as much as you appear to, why do you want to associate your music with it?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 04:04 PM

"the seller on ebay claimed it was a folk guitar - you mean to tell me I have been mis sold an item, and it doesn't play folk music!"
The statements I have put are from a farmer, two Travellers, a village carpenter and a crofter
All of them were part of a centuries old tradition and played an invaluable, and in your's and Muskie's case, an unappreciated part in passing on their songs to us.
You have to have earned the right to be counted among them - you haven't
You could at least give some respect for their generosity - you haven't done that either.
They were part of the folk tradition - you are a very ungrateful recipient of their generosity
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 04:27 PM

On what grounds do you claim that they are in any way "unwitting"?

I was basing this on, amongst other things, on the Three Levels of Folklore postulated by Gerald Warshaver in which Level 1 consists of those customs and practices where the participants are innocent of the very concept of folklore. There is much of this in the ideas of meaning in folklore which proliferates throughout much of the last century even to the present day with the purity of participation defining the degree of what may be considered authentic, traditional or otherwise.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 04:40 PM

That's three people now saying that if you recognise folk music in its wide sense, you must hate it. Al and I have been loving, nurturing and spending our nights with lovers of folk for more years than either of us care to remember. (More in his case because he's much older than me. Just thought I'd add that.)

Rather fucking insulting actually. Especially from those who don't seem to grasp that folk, like any other genre is more than what you personally like or aspire to hear.

Here's my interview.

Musket. - How do you write folk songs?

Respected internationally renowned artist. - Jim Carroll says you can't write folk songs so I apologise to all the people who come to see me and buy my albums.

Musket - Fuck him.

Respected internationally renowned artist. - Oh, so he doesn't own folk? Thank Clapton for that!

Musket. - He never did. He knows a lot about traditional song, even if he does give it a link to reality most of it doesn't deserve. But folk? He stopped considering it music when it is actually written by people, rather than the traddy fairies.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 04:44 PM

Jack, you tell me that I and many others are deluded in thinking there is a tradition, and then tell us that tradition is an integral aspect of human culture & have been since the year dot.

There is a difference between Tradition per se and A (or more typically) The Tradition. The first accounts for cultural process / continuity and may be applied to any aspect of cultural flux, including music of whatever idiom. The latter is used by folkies to lay claim to a corpus of Vernacular Popular Song that they had no hand in the creation of but nevertheless have elected themselves its curators and custodians on account of how it has been collected, transcribed, catalogued, stamped, numbered, adapted and manipulated as being somehow Folk Music for these God knows how many years. The very notion of Traditional Music is anathema to musical tradition because, having been collected and subject to taxidermy & taxonomy, it no longer is part of traditional process.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 04:53 PM

and you of mine.....Jim. people never stuffed pound notes in my pocket, i had to go about about wringing a living by means of music from the dull earth by the ways open to me. i suspect your ballad singer would have recognised that we shared the same profession - because we would have acquired many of the same skills, and could have swapped war stories with each other.

its your purblindness that doesn't recognise that the externals change, the eternals don't.

BH - its not that i don't believe there is a tradition. i just don't believe you and jim have a clue what it consists of.

here is a clue - you will note that Jim's ballad singer and i were doing business in the public bar. not in a folk club, not a university department.
the originators and the guardians, and preservers of the tradition are not the people you think they are.
that is my serious belief. and in a country where freedom of thought is allowed, and freedom of expression - you will not shake my beliefs by arrogance, insult - calling me a clown, afool. an ingrate - or any other abuse.

and as for definitions . the tradition is an intangible, and thank god it is, it protects from those who would be propietors of it.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 05:48 PM

"I was basing this on, amongst other things, on the Three Levels of Folklore postulated by Gerald Warshaver in which Level 1 consists of those customs and practices where the participants are innocent of the very concept of folklore. "
Obscurantist crap
You have just been given half a dozen examples of singers who are very aware of the historical and cultural significance of the songs they sang - I'll dig up a dozen more later - yet you ignore them for the pronouncements of Gerald who?
You sneer at folk song as being the imaginings of of members of a class who had nothing to do with the people who gave us the songs yet you give us a statement by who - an obscure middle class folklorist
"The very notion of Traditional Music is anathema to musical tradition because, having been collected and subject to taxidermy & taxonomy, it no longer is part of traditional process."
So plants cease to exist because botanists study them?
"here is a clue - you will note that Jim's ballad singer and i were doing business in the public bar"
From Mikeen McCarthy - ballad singer
"06 Father singing at work
J C: When your daddy used to sing, how many people would you say at one time would come and listen to him?

M Mc: Oh, there could be twenty, maybe more, maybe thirty, it depends, maybe there could be more than that again.    There'd be some round the fire in a ring, there might be another twenty standing on the road.   There wouldn't be any traffic at that time on the byroads in Ireland, d'you know.   They'd be all standing out along the road then.
My father was a musician as well, he used play a piano accordion, a tin whistle, mouth organ, anything like that, you know.   Then he used to have the little dancing dolls. He'd make a little dancing doll, he used to make them himself out of very hard wood, he'd make them exact and they'd be all put together like, with elastic. He'd have a piece of a board then and he'd put the board under him, in the chair, in between his two legs, like that like, and he'd have the little doll out there, he'd have another stick out of the back of it and he'd start off then, diddling with his mouth like and he'd start putting that little doll and it dancing away to perfect, same as an ordinary person'd be dancing.   
But those things, they must be born into him like, because they were things you couldn't learn like. I tried to learn, I couldn't, I must be stupid or something (laughter).

D T:       You couldn't learn how to do it?

M Mc:    Oh no, I couldn't, I could a little bit, but I'd be ashamed to do it.   
But you'd love to hear him there in the mornings.

J C:   Where would your daddy do most of his singing, where would you say he'd sing more than anywhere else?

M Mc: And he working, always.   When he'd be working at his tinware like, a hammer goes very fast, faster than a blacksmith, 'twould remind you of a feller singing and another feller playing a kit of drums, he was kind of timing the song with the hammer like, that's the way I look into it now, I hadn't the sense of it that time like.

D T       Did he always sing while he worked?

M Mc:   Oh yeah, always sing.   
And a group'd get together then, we'd have an open fire outside that time. He was very well known. A group of farmers'd always come around then, young lads, we'll say, teenagers, they'd all come round to the fire 'cause there was no televisions that time, no wirelesses, things like that.   
All down then, it often happened they'd bring their own bag of turf with them. Around seven or eight O' clock in the evening and they'd know the time the supper'd be over and all this.    You'd see a couple of cigarettes lighting at the cross and you'd know they'd start to gather then, 'twould be like a dance hall.   
We'd be all tucked into bed but we wouldn't be asleep, we'd be peeping out through keyholes and listening out through the side of the canvas, we'd be stuck everywhere, and he'd know it you know.   
And the fire'd go on. One of the lads then 'd come up for the light of a cigarette or something, he'd be already after topping the cigarette, 'twas just an excuse, "could I have a light out of the fire Mick", they'd say to my father.
Sure, my father'd know, he'd know what he'd be up to, of course and he'd say, "'Tisn't for the light of a fire you came up at all now, 'tisn't for the light of a cigarette you came up for now" and he'd start to laugh.   
And bejay, another feller'd come and he'd say it again, "bejay, before I know where I am there'd be ten of you there".   
And bejay, the word wouldn't be out of his mouth and they would be coming up along, coming up along, and the next thing one feller'd shout to the other, "can't you go down and bring up a gual turf, and before you'd know where you are there'd be a roaring fire, 'twould band a wheel for you.   
So 'tis there you'd hear the stories then and the songs, all night, maybe till one o'clock in the morning.   And the kettle... the tea'd go on then, there'd be a round of tea and....   That's the way it'd go on."

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 05:51 PM

'BH - its not that i don't believe there is a tradition. i just don't believe you and jim have a clue what it consists of.

I'm not sure that you're really in a position to say that Al, as you don't actually have any idea of my knowledge of the tradition. What I do know is that we have a tradition, that is not as you say 'intangible' as it researched and documented and a matter of fact. What I do believe however, is that the tradition is still alive and developing, albeit in a different way to they way it was historically, and I know how that tradition has developed during my lifetime. The only thing that is 'intangible' is how it will continue to develop in the future!

I never questioned your 'belief' in the tradition' as I pointed out it is historic, but what I do see from your posts here is what appears to be an almost vitriolic distaste for that tradition and this is where my confusion comes from. I front a folk/rock band, performing a mix of traditional, new and original material, I see that as maintaining and developing the tradition, but would always acknowledge the debt to the tradition, and therefore have no issue with using the the terms originally coined to describe that tradition. You, on the other hand, seem to display no respect for that tradition, but still want, by using the word Folk to associate your music with it, that's what I don't understand.

Perhaps you could explain what you think the tradition consists of as I don't have a clue?

John

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 06:01 PM

You sneer at folk song as being the imaginings of of members of a class who had nothing to do with the people

Who's sneering, old man? That's exactly what it is. Accept & respect!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 06:58 PM

"Who's sneering, old man? "
I always know you are in a corner when you reger to me as "old man"
You appear to base your entire case that there is no such thing as folk song on the word of an obscure academic ( a breed you have consistently poured contempt on) and on the totally unprovable premise that the folk didn't make their own songs
I the process, you have totally ignored the examples given of singers who were totally aware of the significance of their songs and traditions.
Over the last year we have annotated and archived around fifty anonymous songs dealing directly with life in late nineteenth and early twentieth century County Clare - to our kowledge, none of them have been published, nor were they ever issued on broadsheets - they survived only in the mouths and memories of local people.
They include everything from shipwrecks, The War of Independance, the West Clare Railway, local fairs, markets and sports days, football and hurling matches.... to the transfering of a priest to another parish - they could only have been made , transmitted and kept alive by local people
We are hoping to add another hundred of these which have been noted elsewhere dealing with similar topics , plus the cattle rustling protests, The famine and the 1890s Land Wars - when we get them together, we hope to publish a book as a fund-raiser for our local Traditional Music Centre.
So much for your people who had no part in the making of their own traditional songs.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 10:58 PM

yes i look forward to a time when folksong comes up with decent prices and incomes policy for England - a utilitarian history of England - in modal chord progression. i can't think of any greater future for this artform.

the tradition is the zeitgeist that makes you think every day, how can i tell my story better. how can i perform better. how can i give to the music. its not a money thing - although i suppose we all like to make a living.

if you do it - you understand it. you meet somebody for whom the music has the same importance, and you are sympatico.

i am sorry for your sake the truth is not simple. but its not.

think of the most contrary political and religious view to yours in the world. there is possibly someone somewhere writing their folksongs and trying just as hard to get it right. that's why the nazis valued folksong. that's why there are blues about wife beating and prostitution. jingoistic folksong.

youre right BH - I don't know what you do. i have no right to judge. but you should try to understand what Jim patently doesn't.

the tradition isn't a style school. it isn't a social agenda. it isn't something that lives only in gypsy camps or rural communities. its a sort of genetic - the musical creativity of the ordinary people. the desire to create and perform folk music.

do what you want in your band, but don't think about a tradition. the tradition is there in the earth beneath your feet. think of the people in front of you - and what YOU have to say . not a 17th century poacher or some character whose life you DO NOT UNDERSTAND - NO MORE THAN I UNDERSTAND MY FATHER'S LIFE!

and if you want to talk about your navel fluff, it'll be more interesting to the average audience than the poacher, me lads!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 03:25 AM

"decent prices and incomes policy for England -"
Not the job of folksong or any art form to organise society - only to reflect it artistically - which it does pretty well
"in modal chord progression."
The tradition in England is basically an unaccompanied one - try Spain
" that's why the nazis valued folksong.
The Nazis to existing Germanic Legends and used them as propaganda - Wagner is full of them
Nothing wrong with the legends - they reflected the values of the past.
The same goes for songs about wife-beating - they are reflections of what we were.
There are in fact, very few 'jingoistic' folk songs - they tend to deal with the situation of the ordinary man, most of them are the opposite of 'jingoism'
If I wanted to know what was happening in the Napoleonic wars, what battles were fought, where, when.... etc, I would go to the history books
If I wanted to know how it felt to be a 19th century farm worker forcibly taken from his wife and family and stuck in front of someone of a similar age and background and told to blow them to pieces - I would go to the folk songs
Similarly, if I wanted to know how a young woman following her lover across the battlefields of the world and risking the same dangers he was in order to be with him - I would go to the folk songs
This is virtually non-existent anywhere else - the folk songs are the carriers of that sort of information - that is one of their values - Buddy Holly never managed to do that for us.
You are entitled to try and make money from this music if that's what turns you on, but you do or not has nothing to do with its value or significance
"the musical creativity of the ordinary people."
It was once - it is now the casual pastime of a minuscule and disappearing number of enthusiasts
The overwhelming majority of ordinary people are far more concerned with the residents of Coronation Street or Albert Square - or the life and times of Del Boy and Rodney - that is why your claim to being 'folk' is a false one.
When I came into the music, the clubs were largely made up of working class young people like myself - no longer the case sadly
"NO MORE THAN I UNDERSTAND MY FATHER'S LIFE!"
Don't know about your father's life - I know a little of mine and am trying to learn more
He went to Spain and ended up a prisoner of war - he came back with songs about his experiences
He was blacklisted and ended up on the roads as a navvy - there are songs about that and he had masses of stories about his experiences.
His father, my grandfather, was a merchant seaman in the last days of sail - there are loads of songs of that life and he even managed to remember a handful of shanties he'd picked up (not many)
My father's sister and her husband and child were driven out of Derry, in the newly formed six-county state during the sectarian riots - well covered in songs
Their predecessors were Famine refugees who were driven from ireland by The Great Hunger - probably the second largest body of songs in the Irish repertoire are about emigration and landlordism......
Examples such as these are what make up our folk song repertoire going back many centuries - they are what has gone into what we are.
You people place more value on something mumbled into the armpit of a feller strumming a guitar, about his being given the elbow by an unnamed and unspecified bird who is, apparently, his sole reason for being alive - that's how your 'navel fluff' comes across to me.
I'll stick with the poachers - far more interesting and entertaining and far more to do with long-term reality - I was unwise enough to go drinking far to many Australians in my London days - killer nights out Blue!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 03:46 AM

More "non-awareness" from a 'simple countryman'
Jim Carroll

1993.
J C   If you had the choice Walter… if somebody said to you one night they were going to ask you to sing say half-a-dozen or a dozen songs even, of all your songs, what would be the choice, can you think offhand what you would choose to sing?

W P The Pretty Ploughboy would be one, that's one; Rambling Blade would be another one, The Rambling Blade would be two, Van Dieman's Land three, Let The Wind Blow High or Low, that'd be four, Broomfield Hill, that's five, Trees The Do Grow High, six, that'd be six.

1988.
J C Do you think that when you started singing in the clubs and festivals, do you think you think you are singing any different than you were singing when you were younger?

W P Dash, yes, I think so.

J C Do you know in what way?

W P Oh, I don't know, put more expression in probably, I think so. Well, but you see, you take these, what we call the old type… the old folk song, they're not like the music hall song, are they, or a stage song, there's a lot of difference in them. I mean a lot of these… some … it all depend what and how you're singing. Some of them go to nice lively, quick tunes, and others are… you don't do Van Dieman's Land… If there's a sad old song you don't go through that very quick. Like Up to the Rigs is the opposite way about.

I mean, we must put expression in, you can't sing them all alike. Well most of the stage songs you could, if you understand what I mean. According to what the song is you put the expression in or that's not worth hearing, well that's what I think anyhow.   And as I never did sing them, you see, there was no expression I could put in.

1988.
J C Alright; take another song; take something like Marble Arch and Maid of Australia, both of which are fairly amusing, anyway, would you see any difference in them?

W P Well yes, because there's a difference in the types of the music, that's another point.
You can tell Van Dieman's Land is fairly old by the sound, the music, and Irish Molly and Marble Arch is shortened up, they shortened them in the Victorian times. And so they did more so in the Edwardian times. Some songs then, you'd hardly start before you'd finish, you see, you'd only a four line verse, two verses and a four line chorus and that'd finish. You'd get that done in half a minute, and the music wasn't as good. Yeah, the style has altered. You can nearly tell by the old Broomfield Hill, that's an old tune; The Trees They Do Grow High, you can tell, and Generals All.
Nine times out of ten I can get an old fashioned ten keyed accordion, German tuned, you can nearly tell an old… what is an old song. Of course that doesn't matter what modern songs there is, the bellows always close when that finish, like that. And you go right back to the beginning of the nineteenth and eighteenth they finish this way, pulled out, look. You take notice how Generals All finish, that got an old style of finishing, so have The Trees They Do Grow High, so have The Gallant Sea Fight, in other words, A Ship To Old England Came, that is the title, The Gallant Sea Fight. You can tell they're old, the way they how they… That drawn out note at finish.   You just study and see what they are. how they work., you'll find that's where the difference is.

And as that got further along; that's where I slipped up with Black Eyed Susan; I thought that was probably William the Fourth by the music, but that go back about to 1730, that one do.
Well a lot of them you'll find, what date back years and years, there's a difference in the style of writing the music as that progressed along, that kept altering a lot. Like up into Victorian times, you've got Old Brown's daughter, you see, that come into Victorian times; well that style started altering, they started shortening the songs up, everything shortened up, faster and quicker, and the more new they get, the more faster they get, the styles alter, I think you'll find if you check on that, that's right.

J.C.         Do you think that when you started singing in the clubs and festivals, do you think you are singing any different than you were singing when you were younger?

W.P            Dash, yes, I think so.

J C         Do you know in what way?

W.P.         Oh, I don't know, put more expression in probably; I think so. Well, but you see, you take these, what we call the old type... the old folk song, they're not like the music hall song, are they, or a stage song, there's a lot of difference in them, I mean a lot of these... some ... it all depend what and how you're singing. Some of them go to nice lively, quick tunes, and others are... you don't do 'Van Dieman's Land'... If there's a sad old song you don't go through that very quick. Like 'Up to the Rigs' is the opposite way about.
I mean, we must put expression in, you can't sing them all alike. Well most of the stage songs you could, if you understand what I mean. According to what the song is you put the expression in or that's not worth hearing; well that's what I think anyhow. And as I never did sing them, you see, there was no expression I could put in.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 04:16 AM

I always know you are in a corner when you reger to me as "old man"

We all have our perspectives, Jim - thus we are each of us backed into our respective corners. Unlike you, I try & avoid the personal invective which hardly endears me to your posts, no matter how much I might welcome them otherwise. As I've said before 'old man' is a term respectful to your seniority & erudition taken from the film For a Few Dollars More - it's what The Man With No Name calls Colonel Mortimer.

So much for your people who had no part in the making of their own traditional songs.

The people make their own songs as integral part of their culture. Folk is not about that - the concept of Folk is not created by the people who made the songs; folk is a concept created by the people doing the harvesting, taxonomy, taxidermy, publication (the annotating & archiving if you like) of such material. Folk is defined and perpetuated by an external, superior, paternalistic social class whose interest is in the songs; the people are merely the passive carriers, though it were some exotic disease. If they were to make songs in some other idiom (which most of them are doing, working with their mates in bands or on computers in their bedrooms & posting their jams up on Soundcloud - a music which is just as much of their life & times as fecking folk songs were of theirs) folklorists, such as yourself, wouldn't be interested.

Here's a load of unsigned & Very Traditional Irish Techno. Music of the People, to be sure :

Irish up and coming Techno/House producers

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 05:00 AM

"the tradition is the zeitgeist that makes you think every day, how can i tell my story better. "

That is the motivation of every songwriter in any genre. It doesn't make it folk. The telling thing is the phrase "how can i tell my story better". That's a fine motivation for a songwriter, but it doesn't make it folk. Folk music isn't about the individual. What turns it into folk is when other people recognise your story as theirs, and not only repeat the song but share it and adapt it to make it truly their own.

Neither does performing in a pub, even in a communal environment, make it folk. As Jim's interviews with Walter Pardon show, in times past when this was more common both traditional and popular songs would be sung, and the singers were perfectly capable of telling the difference, and valuing them accordingly.

Nevertheless, 'folk' is a broad church and will encompass a wide range of music provided it is presented in a way which a folk audience recognises and feels comfortable with. In that context, a modern song may be considered 'folk'. However don't pretend to be continuing a tradition - you are not. For that matter, neither is the most die-hard 'finger-in-the-ear traddie' repeating songs he has learned from a book or a recording. The real tradition, where it still exists, does so outside the world of 'folk'. The folk world can claim to provide an environment for ordinary people to perform music, but so can brass bands, community choirs and local orchestras.

What the folk world does is provide a platform where, in addition to traditional music, other music may find a home which would not fit easily into any other genre and which otherwise would not find an outlet. That's fine, even if in a few individual clubs it is in danger of crowding out traditional music - despite Jim's misgivings, traditional music is thriving and is being taken up by many young performers. All that we ask is that you recognise and respect the traditional music which is at the core of a music scene which allows you to find a voice.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 05:38 AM

I was "continuing the tradition" when I wrote of the sex, drugs and hang ups of being a teenager.

I doubt they were in the traditional style though. And certainly in the punk genre.

I mention this because I am reading one person convinced that it has to reflect people's lives and feelings to be folk, (that makes 98% of all songs folk..) another that it has to he about working lives, another that it has to be unaccompanied, another that it has to be pleasing to the ear of people who think they like folk...

And then we have Jim. If I get this right, in order to be folk in his opinion it cannot be copyrighted and he has to have interviewed someone who couldn't or wouldn't play instruments.

News for you Jim. 99% of people around the world who like folk music? They haven't even heard of Walter Pardon and doubt a committee sitting before they were born is relevant when it comes to pigeon holing a musical genre.

People who write folk songs have a good idea what their public like, and whilst difficult to pin down, recognise it.

And yes, many old songs of heritage status can make good songs. Many are even entertaining for a wide audience but collection based singing is not always a spectator sport.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 05:43 AM

"Very Traditional Irish Techno. Music of the People, to be sure :"
Whatever entertainment value you clips may have - none of them acutually "say" anything to anybody and are as about as far from the tradition as you can possibly get - though thank you for making my point for me so well.
The term 'folk' was created to identify an already long-existing phenomenon - those who needed it as an articulation, invented nothing, they merely used it to report back on what they found
Your dismissive attitude towards us outsiders attempting to come to terms with a culture we believe is important is as ever - armchair pontificating.
As we used to say in the building trade - it is far easier to pull something down that somebody else has put up than to build something yourself
As far as my personal invective, I find your very middle-class dismissive contempt for people who have worked and are still working in folk music far more insulting than anything I could come up with.
I've put up with it throughout my working life, especially from my wealthier customers, whenever I have tried to discuss my love of literature, theatre or cinema - a dog standing on his hind legs at best.
Your attitude reeks of middle-class elitism
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 06:23 AM

Can't you lot stop all this crap & go & do something useful lime going to a daycare centre and singing some of these much-derided fifties pop songs' to the residents- they'll love it and it's much more fun than calling each other names on Mudcat

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 06:57 AM

As far as my personal invective, I find your very middle-class dismissive contempt for people who have worked and are still working in folk music far more insulting than anything I could come up with.

I'm not dismissing anything, Jim - just pointing out what it is. My whole life is steeped in the collected works of folklorists, be it The Brothers Grimm, Asbjorsen and Moe, Francis Child, Harry Smith, Steve Roud, Ronald Hutton and God knows who else. This isn't about pouring contempt, it's simply pointing out that Folk is Their Myth arising from the very artificial procedure of curating the feral artworks of the working-class. Most of us come to them through the collections, yet the collections don't represent The Tradition any more than the Ancient Egyptian archaeology on display at the British Museum represents the culture, times and experience of Ancient Egyptians. This is just basic pragmatics shot through with underlying prejudices and presumptions of The Revival; the sort of music we like mentality, which is absolutely fine & natural, unless you're telling me Folk is about something other than musical idiom, the diddle-de-dee and the Sean Nos - which is fine too, but hardly representative of the Musical Experience of the People of Ireland.

none of them acutually "say" anything to anybody and are as about as far from the tradition as you can possibly get

They do though, and in terms of the 1954 Definition you could term such music Folk if you so wished, because, Folk in that sense is not Idiomatic, but determined by other factors, such as community and character. What you you have there is a living, thriving functional tradition of communal music making every bit as vibrant as your precious songs ever were - maybe even more so given the dynamic of technology and communication factors that engender an even greater democratisation of musical experience than at any other time in human history.

And yet would there be a place for it in your Traditional Music Centre? By your response I guess not, because it doesn't fit in with folksy proscriptions about what Traditional Music ought to be rather than what it is.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 07:12 AM

what do you mean, we are in the old folks daycare centre, when are you coming round?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 07:30 AM

Jim's the one in the corner doing the handjive. Musket is the seedy looking character in charge of the ladies tenor pads. I'm the one with the badge on my wheelchair saying, FARTING IS THE NEW FOLK MUSIC.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 07:34 AM

"I'm not dismissing anything, Jim -"
Your total approach to folk song is a permanent sneer.
Pretty good example is "Their Myth" - a dismissal of anybody who has worked on folk song, either by study or going out and finding peole who sing it and asking how they feel about it
By sismissing fol song as a myth you are sneering at the latter as well.
Yo say you have examples of folk song and lore - me too.
How come all those people over the last century or so allowed themselves to be conned, and you know better?
I once asked you what experience you had in actual field work - you explained in your sneery dismissive way thay "you don't go in for that sort of thing" - or something equally facile.
I pointed out what was happening among the youngsters in Ireland - you dismissed them as equally deluded.
You might have a point to make when you stop dismssing the rest of us as the mindless herd and yourself as the font of all knowlege
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 07:36 AM

'the tradition is the zeitgeist that makes you think every day, how can i tell my story better. how can i perform better. how can i give to the music. its not a money thing.

You are putting the cart before the horse here Al, and this statement illustrates that it is you who does not understand tradition. Tradition has nothing at all to do with how someone develops as a songwriter or performer as you clearly state here.

Tradition, put simply, is what is handed down to us by previous generations. I do believe it is a living thing, although as I've said before, it is developing in a very different way in our present society. What we do with that tradition is up to us, no-one is claiming to own it, but I come back to my belief that if we want to call our new music folk, then it must show influence from, and respect and acknowledge that tradition.

Howard put it very well a few posts back, and I hope he won't mind me repeating:
What the folk world does is provide a platform where, in addition to traditional music, other music may find a home which would not fit easily into any other genre and which otherwise would not find an outlet. That's fine, even if in a few individual clubs it is in danger of crowding out traditional music - despite Jim's misgivings, traditional music is thriving and is being taken up by many young performers. All that we ask is that you recognise and respect the traditional music which is at the core of a music scene which allows you to find a voice.

Perhaps we should add to that respect those who have worked to preserve that tradition.

Respecting the tradition is something you do appear to have some difficulty with Al, and you must be playing to very different audiences to me, my audiences have no interest whatsoever in my navel fluff!

And Muskett, yes you very probably were maintaining the tradition when you wrote of sex, drugs and the hangups of being a teenager, at least lyrically if not in musical style. I've always thought that 'Up the Junction' is a good example.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 08:19 AM

and what will you have to hand over other than a load of atrophied junk. stuff even you will not remember without recourse to a ringbinder. stuff that will send everyone scuttling out for a pee whenever you inflict it on a fplkclub audience.

tradition is nowt without creative effort. that's the tough call - looking for that within yourself. if you search within yourself you won't find inspiration every day. you will be lucky if you come up with something memorable once or twice in your life.

to keep churning the old songs out - well look around you. it should carry a health warning. self importance without creative effort. it clogs the arteries to the brain apparently.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 08:20 AM

Up the Junction is an excellent example. In fact talking of Squeeze;

Shake up at the ceilidh and I think I've got a pull
I ask her lots of questions as she hangs on to the wall
I kiss her for the first time, urgh! she's been eating salad
I'm invited in for coffee and I give the dog a ballad

etc etc.

As we are talking of care homes, Elvis Costello's Veronica is possibly one of the best songs I know in the "songs about real people" model. Even Jim can't complain there as Elvis's first professional gig was supporting Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger. He also produced most of The Pogues albums and plays the strumming guitar on their Dirty Old Town. He's even a scouser for that matter and his songs reflect real people. When I sing any of his in a folk club with an acoustic guitar they also become real folk songs eh?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 08:36 AM

I once asked you what experience you had in actual field work - you explained in your sneery dismissive way thay "you don't go in for that sort of thing" - or something equally facile.

In my time I've worked alongside several bona fide Traditional performers and observed at close quarters how what they are is very much determined by what was expected of them & they're canny enough to realise that. Why bite the hand that feeds them? I've had people confide in me to that effect and even now I get wind of a lingering bitterness on the part of certain traditional singers with respect of people making reputations at their expense. I see echoes of that pretty much everywhere I look in the folk world though obviously it doesn't reflect on me personally other than to see vernacular culture woefully misrepresented by Folkies who were only ever after one thing - a thing that was in no way representative of the rich cultural experience of the working-class communities in which I grew up.

I was related to several bona-fide & highly celebrated Traditional Musicians who represented a exceptional virtuosity of musical genius that even today is recognised as being the benchmark of their respective traditions. Loving that music with all my soul, my musical experience is nevertheless determined by a different, though definitely related, musical paradigm simply because my musical experience was Bigger Than That. Elsewhere, I've talked with 90-year-old singers about their life and traditions in the Durham Coalfield and have not encountered one single example of anything so much as resembling a folk song in their repertoires.

I've experienced enough of it to know that Folk is a myth determined by those who've defined it, synthesised it, extrapolated it from a wider condition; that Folk is a free-based artifice hardly representative of, or appealing to, the working-class of today, hence its typical demographic of graduate nerds and other enthusiasts who need the comfort of regimented pedantry and taxonomical correctness in the face of the utter glorious chaos of it all which can never be contained.

In other words... Folk is the exception to the general rule in the context of Vernacular Popular Music & Culture, prescious little of which was ever of any interest to Folkies, nor Folk to it.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 09:04 AM

"and observed at close quarters how what they are is very much determined by what was expected of them & they're canny enough to realise that. Why bite the hand that feeds them?"
So they're not to be trusted either - does your arrogance know no bounds?
You have been given exactly what we were told by singers, in some cases over a period of decades.
They became our friends as well as our informants
What they told us is all lies that we wanted to hear then - damn - i wish I'd spotted that before we let them wind us up!
Wonder how well you know Gerald Whatsisname - are you sure he isn't winding you up?
You really are something else Jack - there must be a sit-com in you somewhere
"Elvis's first professional gig was supporting Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger."
I think you might be confusing E&P with Ewan's daughter Kirsty - different kettle of dingbats altogether
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 09:14 AM

dead right Jack B- we all know how much of the 'traditional' repertoire is the end result of academics like Lloyd & MacColl taking what they found (& all credit to them for finding it in the first place, by the way!) and adapting (and INVENTING much of it to suit their own theatrical/political straitjackets.
Folk doesn't really exist except in people's heads & there's a lot of rubbish in there- just look at this thread -and it's my last visit- I have my cardigan & slippers waiting in the daycentre....

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 09:23 AM

I was the guest talking about Elvis Costello.

Jim. I said he had his first gig supporting Ewan and Peggy for a reason. That's who he was supporting at a gig. Not a folk club, although he did play folk clubs before turning pro. He supported them professionally, both acts getting paid. He, like many successful artists over the years has weaved some of the ethos of traditional song into his act, resulting in songs that hit home, words that those aimed at can relate to and tunes that have a nod to many tunes some on here would know.

If you don't understand something, say so. There is obviously a hell of a lot about folk music you don't understand, even if we only go by this thread... In fact, I believe Colin Irwin mentions Elvis's first gig on the cover notes for a Ewan MacColl album.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfoklkrocker
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 10:10 AM

There are a core of 5 or 6 regular sparring partners here,
all of whom I respect and admire for various reasons;
yet of each individual I'd say "he seems like a really good bloke, but..."

Your combined strengths could do wonders for positively promoting 'Folk music'
to an otherwise indifferent mass population..

Sadly, your combined vanities and weaknesses are probably doing more than enough
to alienate any newcomers who might come here seeking to find out more
about this this nerdy endangered archane cultural activity...



Then again who am I to criticise any of us..

One listen to my idea of what 'Trad Folk' could sound like
would probably send young kids screaming back to their One Direction & Jessie J downloads,
and their parents back to the relative safety of Culture Club and Wham CDs...

.. and I wouldn't blame them because each and everyone of these pop chart acts
have released stunningly great singles
that 'ordinary folk' will be singing and dancing along to for many years to come......

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 10:13 AM

"If you don't understand something, say so."
If you want to be understood, make yourself clear.
"There is obviously a hell of a lot about folk music you don't understand,"
Yeah right - I know someone who thinks Child was a collector who was including modern songs in his collection, if I ever get stuck!
Wonder if you're the same 'Guest' who just posted that garbage about MacColl and Lloyd - bears all the hallmarks of genius most of you postings have!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 11:17 AM

'and what will you have to hand over other than a load of atrophied junk. stuff even you will not remember without recourse to a ringbinder. stuff that will send everyone scuttling out for a pee whenever you inflict it on a fplkclub audience.

So let's see if I've got this right then Al, you consider the tradition to be 'atrophied junk' but you call yourself a folk singer, so did 'folk' only start when you first appeared?

Well of course we all know that's not the case, but to quote Howard again, 'All that we ask is that you recognise and respect the traditional music which is at the core of a music scene which allows you to find a voice.'

Answer the question I've asked you several times then, why do you associate yourself with this 'atrophied junk'?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 11:32 AM

'atrophied junk'

..carefull... there's many an older American folkie here who might take offence at that...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 12:19 PM

"I've talked with 90-year-old singers about their life and traditions in the Durham Coalfield and have not encountered one single example of anything so much as resembling a folk song in their repertoires."

Looks like old Cecil was right, then. Didn't he think that folk song was (a) dying out and (b) best sought in rural communities?

If all those horrible bourgeois song collectors hadn't bothered with their task, most of us would never have encountered a traditional song in our lives, and mine at least would have been poorer for it. The fact that the populace at large moved on from that repertoire proves nothing except that fashions change and the media are very skilled at creating new thrills. Music hall, jazz, swing, crooners, guitar bands, all get their moment in the limelight, then the world shuffles on. The remarkable thing about the songs Sharp and others defined as 'folk' was how long they'd lasted, not how briefly.

"academics like Lloyd & MacColl taking what they found and adapting (and INVENTING much of it to suit their own theatrical/political straitjacket"

Neither was an academic, and - although some tinkering went on with a small number of songs (already discussed at length here) - I'm not aware that Lloyd INVENTED a single one, although of course MacColl WROTE plenty. Apart from that, bang on the button, Mr Carpet Slippers.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 12:45 PM

When we start talking about 'earning the right' and 'respecting "the" tradition', we really are losing the plot. This is music we are talking about, and approaching it in terms of puritanical duty and grim moral purpose strips it of its essential humanity. I don't listen to May Bradley singing 'Leaves of Life' any more than I listen to the Stooges singing 'I Wanna be Your Dog' out of duty or respect or any of those other things. I listen to them because they move me in some elemental way. Frankly, I couldn't give a flying fuck any more about provenance or taxidermy or 'what it says on the tin' - and these things used to matter to me, but in the end just get in the way. Appreciation of music is - has to be - a purely subjective thing: how any of it might be defined is a long way down the list. And really, does anything else matter?

This lengthy thread has led me to conclude there are only two categories of music - music that moves me and music that doesn't. Everything else is bullshit, including categories, definitions and anything that is not about a personal, subjective reaction to a song or piece of music. And I can't help feeling that the hidden agenda of categorisation is to create a pecking order in terms of percieved quality or value - terms like 'earning the right' and 'respecting the tradition/tradition bearers' gives the lie to any other interpretation. It turns me off enough to want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I don't need or want to know 'what it says on the tin' because I want to devour the contents blind and make up my mind experientially, not be guided by someone else's attempts to box in expression.

Rant over.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 12:50 PM

And yet the culture was rich and distinctive, Brian - fiercely so - and the stories of seasonal carol singing around the farms & old rural mining villages with 4-part harmonies and home-made one-string cigar box fiddles were the stuff of genuine wonder. I was foiled in my attempts to link it to Billy Harrison's carol tunes of Yorkshire though - he said it was all hymn-book stuff. How amazing it must have sounded though!

Was folk song ever such a big part of the culture as a whole? We're talking about something very rich and independent in terms of language (Pitmatic) and politics and community, even Rapper and Clog Dancing, of which my maternal grandfather was champion in the Chester-le-Street tradition but no mention in the family was ever made of folk song - except one day my old mum was round I'd just bought the Bob Robert's Songs from the Sailing Barges LP band popped it on thinking she might like it's salty flavours. With respect of Bell Bottom Trousers and While Gamekeepers Lie Sleeping she said 'Your father used to sing those.' He passed, aged 30, in 1963. I often wonder how he came by them...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 01:00 PM

Not denying that culture at all, JB. However, according to Roud and others, singing of the old songs was once very widespread too.

Spleen, I agree absolutely, music is music and should be judged only by whether its any good or not. But I suspect everyone arguing here feels the same. What I don't like is people who enjoy or perform old stuff being accused of being librarians or academics just because they respond to a genuine request for clarification (i.e. the OP) with answers that fit with the best of their own knowledge.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 01:05 PM

Thank you Spleen Cringe !!!

Now could you please go and have a similar rant over on the "Honor the Tradition - article from Stewart H. " thread,
where it might make a few of the more reasonable folks sit up and take notice...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 01:41 PM

If I said Child collected modern songs, it would be at the same time you said you had to leave The UK before the law caught up on you. If the anonymous poster was me, that'll be you who posts supporting UKIP..

Why do you have to resort to lies Jim?

Lets face it. Your preposterous stance is a laugh, but at least whilst people are laughing, some are saying good old Jim. Granted, some are saying fuck him, but thats life. Resorting to slurring people who obviously know a damned site more about folk than you like to give credit just lowers peoples' view of you, and that would be a shame because in the narrow particular corner of folk called British traditional song, you are fairly well versed. And that narrow field is a fairly fundamental one, so be more careful with it.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 02:57 PM

the preposterous stance is something that makes me depair , Iam reminded of the film shirley valentine where she ends up talking to the wall , you lot are talking to a wall, but a wall that comes back and periodically insults the people who are talking to it.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 03:09 PM

hmmm... i did write you a detailed answer but for some reason its not here BH. sorry but i'm an old man - ireally don't want to write it all out again. perhaps i should do everything in word - so i can resend it if it goes astray.