What makes a new song a folk song?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 06:20 AM

Musket
I'd say that getting PRS income for writing folk songs for almost forty years isn't exactly reclusive, especially as I perform the buggers at least two or three times a week eh? (At folk concerts, clubs and festivals...)

It seems a bit of a waste of such a prodigious talent if you are only performing to an audience of retired teachers from Harpenden with a finger in their ear singing cowboy songs with books as aids accompanying themselves on expensive guitars. (This I have to see.)

Are you famous? Have I heard of you? Should I be trying to book you? I must warn you that we rarely book singer/songwriter/guitarists unless they are exceptional. We've booked Jez Lowe and Leon Rosselson to give you an idea of the standard.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 06:25 AM

I was going to leave this tread alone now, but having read Jim's post of 30 Aug 14 - 02:05 PM felt actually very sad, particularly for you Jim is this really reflects where you are now, so wanted to respond to one or two points.


I have yet to be persuaded that that process is still a living one.
Our folk songs recorded and reflected the aspirations of entire communities
They were part of those communities social history - a ground-level view of their everyday lives.
Ask the likes of Jez Lowe what he is doing with songs like 'Taking on men' and 'Black Trade' songs like those are exactly what you describe above.


The oral tradition no longer exists to cater for such creations, technology has guaranteed that they are stillborn, fixed in the form the creator gave them, and more importantly, the sole property of the creator.
Not true at all, technology (the advance of which is beyond all our control) may give a definitave version of a song as the writer intended it to be, but that in no way stops others from changing and adapting a song to suit their particular needs from that song, or even changing words to make it more relevent for them, and this is something that happens all the time. It is also my experience that most writers of 'modern folk' are only too pleased if someone else wants to sing/share/perform their song, and very, very few of them are precious enough to maintain it to be their 'sole property'


Thousands of youngsters are now taking up traditional music, guaranteeing its survival for at least another two generations.
Absolutely true, and long may that continue, but what you fail to go on to say, is that those thousands of youngsters are altering and adapting that traditional music, and adding their own compositions to it, thus ensuring the continuation of the 'folk process'

And one final thought, society has changed dramatically in recent years, particularly in the way we interact socially, or convey news, so following the same logic Tim Hart used about accompanying tradition song with electric instruments, if 300 years ago, someone who had just written a song and had facebook and twitter available to share it, they would of course have done so! Modern technology is widely used, and rightly so, to preserve traditional song for future generations, so is it not a bit of a double standard to maintain that if a new song is passed around via digital rather than oral means it disqualifies it from being 'folk'

We have to live with the here and now, come and join us in the 21st century Jim, you never know, you might just like it!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 06:29 AM

I should know better but...

Jim Carroll
Walk into a folk club and you your probably be told "Piss off, we don't need a definition" - and quite likely be asked to leave, judging by the way some of these discussions end up.

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.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 06:34 AM

"its the tail wagging the dog"
No it isn't Al
People compose in whatever form that moves them - they always have.
Any shortcomings of what they compose is down to their own abilities - or lack of them, not the forms that have served generations for centuries and still have relevance with those of us who choose to still listen to them.
You want to sing other types of song - fine by me, but please don't get me started by some of the crap that passes for singing and songwriting today - you''ll never live long enough - Van Morrison - drink to what you've just written any time you care to drop into our local Muskie.
MacColl was a great song writer, and recognised as one by enough people to make that a fairly well established fact.
One of the wisest things he said was "The folk song revival has and will survive most things, but it won't last five minutes if if falls into the hands of people who don't actually like folk song, and that's the way it's heading".
Our "acre", by the way, was a scrubby patch of ground we managed to buy with the proceeds of our house in London towards the end of the property boom - nothing much, just a buchalaun and rush filled field that we now call home - nothing special, unless you call rushes, sallies, rocks and dandelions "special".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 06:37 AM

"every time somebody sang a song that you felt didn't fit the 1954 definition then, yes, you would be asked to leave"
I've been advocating for the composition and proliferation of such songs throughout the time I've been involved in music Brian - have done so several times on this thread - try and keep up dear!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 07:26 AM

No, I'm not famous snail. But not everybody who loves folk music plays in Harpenden. (Thinking on, I don't think I have ever visited or even passed through Harpenden.)

Pop out onto the street now and ask 100 people if they have heard of Martin Carthy. Fame is relative.

By the way, folk music is at an exciting point in its evolution. It has the advantage of being "in" and the number of talented young musicians taking up the genre in their style is a joy to hear. I then support a few local sing around type "clubs" full of weird beards lamenting the demise of their sport.

Funny old world.

(You couldn't afford me Snail, don't fret me old love.)

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Howard Jones
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 08:03 AM

I wonder why these song-writers are so keen to see their compositions accepted as 'folk'? It isn't exactly the best remunerated of musical genres.   Surely it couldn't be because they want an excuse to freeload off the folk scene by using it as a platform to perform, which they might otherwise have difficulty finding? If not, then it appears to me that they must see the term as conferring some additional status. Either way, I think they then owe a certain duty of care to folk music in its original sense.

I recognise Jim's concerns that the special qualities of traditional music will be overlooked and lost if the folk scene becomes dominated be people who have no real interest in it. I think much of the rancour this argument seems to generate could be avoided if more of the songwriters who wish to benefit from the 'folk' label were to show more respect for that point of view, and for traditional music itself.

My biggest difficulty is that the term 'folk' has become so debased as to be meaningless. It has ceased to become a useful label to help discover a particular type of music. When buying music meant ten minutes thumbing through the folk section of a record store that wasn't a problem, but now buying music means browsing through tens of thousands of albums on-line, and the term is used so broadly (especially by iTunes) that very little of what is there is the type of music I am seeking. It is problematic enough to label music anyway, and when a lebel ceases to have any practical use what is the point of it?

I think what is needed is more categories. We already use 'traditional' to mean what 'folk' used to, and new forms are adopting names like 'nu-folk' and 'alt-folk'. 'Contemporary' folk implies (to me at least)introverted singer-songwriters with guitars complaining about their relationships or proclaiming their spirituality, so perhaps we need more labels to cover different styles of modern songs under the broad folk umbrella. With these it would be easier to identify the specific music we want, and those who share Jim's point of view might be reassured that traditional music won't be obscured or debased.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 08:20 AM

'what is needed is more categories' me lads!

you sound like a poor crofter, Jim. Musket, the wicked capitalist, will be along with his black and tan mates to evict you and force you into into exile, me lads!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Lighter
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 08:29 AM

As we've said countless time before, "It all depends on what you mean by a 'folksong.'"

Let's get back to basics. Words have no essential meaning. They mean what most people who use them agree that they mean. That allows people to communicate.

One potential problem is ambiguity, when an utterance can clearly mean more than one thing.

Most English words, lifted from all context, are ambiguous: open a dictionary and see how relatively few words have just one definition.

And multiple definitions aren't the only problem. At what point does a "bottle," for example, become a "jar" or, nowadays, even a paper "box"? A dictionary can tell you the basis of the distinctions, but we've all encountered items that could be described either way, with equal accuracy or inaccuracy.

A "folksong" is far less tangible than a bottle or a jar. So the way is open for many personal or cliquish definitions. Some insist on what a folksong "ought" to be. Some are based on traditional variation. Some are based on the Romantic idea that a folksong must express the "soul of a people." Some are based on form ("If it's in ballad meter, it's a folksong till you prove otherwise.") Many describe a mixture of traits. And some definitions are based on commercial marketing alone.

Moreover, there's no rule decreeing "one person, one def." Not being androids, we're all likely to use the word "folksong" somewhat inconsistently at different times.

Like "poetry," "folksong" is a loose, more or less subjective category that embraces many, many items, many of them borderline by any strict definition.

That's why it's futile to debate whether a song is "really" a folksong unless you explain exactly what your standards are. At least with bottles and jars, cats and dogs we all have a pretty clear idea of what other people mean. "Folksong" is a far vaguer concept, intentionally created in the nineteenth century to describe things that only a few intellectuals perceived as worth distinguishing from other songs.

And by 1954, obviously, not even intellectuals could agree.

Rather than debate "What is a folksong?" it makes more sense to talk about the folklike characteristics of specific songs, which vary wildly.

Is "Tom Dooley" a folksong? If not, could it be in the future? These are diverting questions, but our personal answers aren't likely to advance our understanding of the song.

The essential "folklike characteristics" are, I'd suggest, significant oral tradition, textual and melodic variants, conservative traditional style, and general plainness of diction, with oral tradition at the top of the list. (That lets in certain ornate broadsides like "Napoleon's Farewell to Paris." ) I think that's what most of us are thinking of. But it's not to say that somewhat similar songs that less "folklike" songs are necessarily irrelevant or deserving of contempt. Why should we be so narrow-minded?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 09:07 AM

Song writers want their music to be associated with the people who might listen to music in that genre. The financial rewards may be desirable but one thing I for one love about the UK folk scene is the altruistic approach of those involved.

What an odd question? Of course songwriters who write for a folky audience want their music to be defined thus. Luckily for them it is!


Mind you, Al has never given me a lift in his Rolls Royce. We poor buggers who have to make a living in other fields never get to live the dream like our Al does. I don't need black n tans, letting agents look after Och Aye th 'Noo Land for me.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 09:42 AM

"Ask the likes of Jez Lowe what he is doing with songs like 'Taking on men' and 'Black Trade' "
I know what Jez, and others like him do, and respect that - it's not un-similar to what Ewan, Peggy, Leon Rosselson et al, have always done.
This does not make what they do folk songs, and to my knowledge, none of them claimed it did.
The songs I'm talking about were made within the communities, not to please an audience but to reflect their own lives - not un-similar to sitting in the pub or at the fireside talking about it.
The songs survived in the memories of the people who passed them on because they were important enough to remember, not because they were regularly performed or marketed, but because they lit a spark within the community itself - they became the property of the community - no copyright, no performing rights - more often than not nobody could remember who made the song in the first place.
One of the first of these that came to our notice was entitled The Quilty Burning.
During the Irish War of Independence in the 1920s, local people carried out protest harassing attacks on local police stations and particularly the hated Black and Tans - usually graffiti or minor damage.
One such attack took the form of piling up bundles of paraffin soaked rags against the doors of the empty police stations (barracks) at night and setting them alight.
The Quilty Burning was a comic song about such an attack, it mentions a number of local people and describes their various reactions to the event - I remember playing it to an elderly friend in London who originally came from the village and when it reached verse four he grinned and said "That's my father he's singing about" - one of the magic moments of collecting.
We were told that the song was made by "four local lads, standing at Quilty Cross(roads)" who threw verses among themselves until they had the song - the singer couldn't remember any of their names.
One of the best of these we ever recorded was one entitled 'Paddy ******' (name excluded at request of singers) about a 'made match' (match-made marriage)
It told how a Travelling man selected his wife because of her ability to buy, prepare and re-sell feather mattresses and how she gradually gets to "wear the Trousers"
We were told the song was made by "a bunch of lads sitting on a grass verge outside the church on the morning of the wedding" - a prediction of how the wedding would develop.
None of the singers could remember who the "four lads" were.
By the way Bounty - you didn't respond to my question - would you be willing to forgo your royalties and withhold your name in order to make your songs 'folk'?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 09:57 AM

Ask Fay Hield who I should think knows a hell of a lot more than most here!! And the Full English are the best thing to happen to folk music for a long time!!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 12:21 PM

I was listening in to a playaround at EAMT's Stowmarket festival and some of what was going on wasn't conservative in the least - nor was it accidental. We've long had the odd dabble with iconoclasm - the diminished chord at the end of "Give me your hand", for example - but this spent about five minutes way off in the land of Karlheinz's 57 varieties before resolving itself.
What we might do, perhaps, is benefit from the music industry's grip and say anything which isn't commercial has to be folk.

That being said, watching Sky News broadcasting a bunch of Ukrainian women singing folkssongs while making ghillie suits for their snipers put an entirely new complexion on waulking.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 01:16 PM

Four letters.....a cryptic announcement starting with c and ending with p.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 01:42 PM

I like The Full English.

Just don't try telling Martin Simpson it is a landing pad for those who were pissed off for not being asked to join The Imagined Village.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 03:52 PM

"So, the serious question is, what makes a new song a folk song? Should it have a particular kind of tune? Must it carry an important message? Does it need to be about ordinary people's lives?"
as far as the uk folk revival goes, most of the songs that are considered to be in tradtional style, belong to a limited group of modes, so yes they do appear to have particular kinds of tunes, limited to certain modes, they do not all appear to carry an important message, and some are not about ordinary peoples lives.
for example ICARUS was not an ordinary person.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 04:27 PM

we all have ambitions to fly. we all have the story in our collective consciousness.

jesus wasn't an ordinary person - so is the bitter withy not a folksong.

as long as you let bean counters tell you what is and isn't folk music - there will be tin pot twerps telling you that you don't have validity - so you're not to be on this radio station, or that club, or that its alright to ignore and be rude to you.

don't tell me its not so. like the born again Christians say - i have proved it with my life.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 04:38 PM

Jim, sorry, didn't mean to ignore your question above.

I'm probably not the best person to ask, I'm not a prolific song writer, and just 'produce' a few that I'm happy enough with to set loose on an unsuspecting public, although there are lots end up on the cutting room floor! Most of the band's repertoire is traditional.

I'm not in this for the money, my motivation is firstly from a love of the tradition and wishing to see that tradition maintained and developed, and brought to the attention of a wider audience, (the same reason I'm prepared to be seen in public with a banjo and some strangely dressed folks loosely called a morris side!) and secondly for the personal pleasure of performing and sharing those songs with other people. (I can tell you there is a real thrill in having an audience 5-600 people singing along with a song you've written!)

So to answer your question, I would have no problem at all with forgoing my royalties and withholding my name in order to make my songs 'folk' if that's what it takes, but as you know, we do have to agree to differ on what makes a song 'folk'

John.

PS, sorry about the way the post above came out, obviously incorrect placings of html tags, Bl..dy technology eh! ;)

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 05:14 PM

al, i said some are not about ordinary peoples lives, some of course are, but they do not necessarily have to be about ordinary people.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 05:47 PM

One common aspect is that the song verges on folk wisdom. The banale tripe of commercial pop, the superficial egotism of interpersonal relationships, is left at the door: we deal in the longer-term.

For example, ask yourselves why nobody has yet written a song on 9/11, more than ten years on. Because the hurt camouflaged the feeling. Now we can invoke the reality. The starting point is the feel of communion in our playing. That is why the tales are of performers coming together to document things, because it is not one man's work. Sometimes the music passes through many hands before it becomes community property, but it that ownership, I think, which makes it folk: the music of this community. It can be many things and nothing - but it is ours.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 07:58 PM

No songs on 9/11? I can think of a couple, including Tom Paxton's The Bravest, dedicated to the fire and rescue service of New York. And I have sung it on several of the anniversaries of the event, although it's a tough one.
I don't think anyone has yet mentioned songwriting competitions, which occur at several folk festivals and clubs I go to here. The rules vary from place to place, but phrases such as "to be written in traditional style" or "in the folk idiom" crop up. But the entries are often pretty eclectic, with subject matter equally wide-ranging. A very few of these songs take on a life of their own: thinking of Karine Polwart's "Whaur dae ye lie" or Steven Clark's "Coming Home", for example.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: mg
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 09:49 PM

Quite a few people have written songs on 9/11..including me but I can't remember it now.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 31 Aug 14 - 10:11 PM

its a bit like these academics who have theories about racial superiority, but they claim to have no responsibility for the stuff politicians get up to in their name.

I have always believed that this garbage about what constitutes a folk song has led to the premature death of artists who have had the English folk club system whipped out from under them.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 12:06 AM

Cowboy/Western
Country
Country Pop
Popular Music
Blues
Jazz
Dixieland Jazz
Folk/Traditional
Opera
People's

I nominate People's music. It can be found in each of those designations and still be a song sung by the people.

I am currently playing music with a woman born in Saipan, grew up in Guam, married a Korean, speaks four languages and dialects. She sings songs in Saipanese, Hawaiian, Guamanian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and English.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 03:32 AM

"I have always believed that this garbage about what constitutes a folk song"
What caused the demise of the clubs, in my experience, is that people stopped going when they could no longer choose what they listened to when they set out for an evening at a folk club - it was certainly my case.
I attended a regular club and I helped to run another - no problem with either - it gave me exactly what it said on the label.
I made a point of visiting as many other clubs as I could to keep me in touch with what was happening.
Gradually, I stopped going to the latter when they began to be used as dumping grounds for singers who had nothing to do with folk song and just took advantage of the democracy of the folk scene to strut their stuff.
Night after night I left half way through the evening, not having heard a folk song.
I have no idea what kind of music you like or play Al, and quite honestly, I don't care too much - as your arrogant attitude towards the music I know to be folk from half a century of listening and working in the genre, suggests a total disinterest for and ignorance of that music and the people who follow it - it is exactly that attitude that emptied the clubs.
If my local greengrocer suddenly decided to sell frocks and call them vegetables, I'd look for another greengrocer - simple as that.
If I ever had any doubt about what constitutes folk song I could bull down any of the hundred or so collections from my bookshelf, or any of the few dozen researched studies of the subject.
We've a collection of a few hundred radio programmes we've horded going back fifty odd years by people who have bothered to get up off their arses and find out about folk music.
And most important - we have hours of recorded interviews of singers like Walter Pardon, Tom Lenihan, Mikeen McCarthy... and many others, talking about their songs and music and the importance it had in their lives and those of the generations before them.
Am I going to drop all this for someone who can't tell his folk arse from his elbow and can't even come up with a half decent definition other that "I'll call anything I wish folk music" - don't think so really Al - would you, in my position?
It seems that today's revival has changed from a group so enthusiasts who found a music and dedicated themselves to it, into a bunch of ego-tripping self-servers who have kicked their way onto the scene like a bunch of Punks kicking their way into a dance.
That is what your attitude exudes - not for me - I'll stick with what I know.
It is arrogance like yours that emptied the clubs, not folk music.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bert
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 03:50 AM

It is arrogance like yours that emptied the clubs...

I don't really think so Jim.

Folk music has always been pretty much a minority activity. And the fashion comes and goes. People of one generation like this and another like that. What we loved in our youth becomes an old farts activity later. When I started Square dancing in the Fifties we were all young people, now if you go to a Square Dance they are all old people like me.

There are many reasons I stopped square dancing, mainly, they didn't keep up with the times socially.

I haven't been to the nearest folk club here, I met a few of the people and they seemed to be a bunch of old fuddy duddies. Perhaps I really belong among them and just don't want to admit it.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 04:39 AM

"Folk music has always been pretty much a minority activity"
Yes - it was Bert - but there was a fairly steady rise and fall throughout te period of its existence.
We had our own magazines - catering for different tastes and levels of interest and we had differing types of clubs - all pretty well co-existing.
For me, the point of departure was marked by an article in Folk Review entitled 'Crap Begets Crap', ostensibly about noisy audiences, but developing into a general analysis of what was happening in the clubs.
Shortly after this, the decline accelerated - people seemed to decide they weren't going to leave their firesides for the lucky-dips that the clubs had become.
I was reduced from the choice of over a dozen clubs in the Greater London Area down to the two dependables where I knew I could find what I wanted.
One of them was still running when I left the U.K. in 1998 - I think it finally popped its clogs last year due to the ill health of one of the organisers.
Over the period I was going to the clubs I managed to hear the best of British and American performers, MacColl Seeger, Seamus Ennis, Paddy Tunney, Bobby Casey, The Stewarts, Walter Pardon, Sam Larner, Harry Cox. Jeannie Robertson, Joe Heaney, Brendan McGlinchey.... (managed to record some of the evenings) good times listening to people who would think they'd landed on Mars if they turned up on spec at some of the folk clubs today
All this was replaced by the arrogance so perfectly displayed by Al and his newbies, who couldn't find their folk arses with both hands.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 05:25 AM

My experience of folk and folk clubs started in the late 60's.
At the start there was one club in Plymouth, after a personality clash a second club opened to cater for sympathisers of the alternative side.
In the years following that it progressed to a club on every night of the week.
None of the clubs had a strict one sort of folk policy,a bias yes, but all were tolerant of other sorts of folk.
The attendees were largly late teen early twenties, and single.
Many of them subsequently married and became parents,the raising of their offspring stopped their attendance at the clubs,the youngsters who followed had different interests and didn't come to clubs and so the numbers of clubs declined.
Jim may have lost his interest in clubs because he couldn't find the
things which interested him,to say that was the main reason for the decline is a generalisation.
The world moved on for many reasons,the paradise you remember in the past was hell for others.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 05:47 AM

"It is arrogance like yours that emptied the clubs, not folk music." when i first started going to folk clubs in 1966, they were a broad church encompassing international folk music including bluegrass and blues and traditional music from the British Isles., and contemporary songs written by people of differing nationalities.
Firstly, some clubs are not empty, secondly to make a statement like the one above is a massive over simplification, and a typical example of whats wrong with internet discussion forums and a classic piece of flaming and trolling.
in 1966 there were badly run clubs there were also well run clubs, there were clubs that struggled and clubs that thrived, there are a number of clubs that have been in existence for over 50 years, and one that recently closed having run for approx 50 years[ lewes vic and tina smith] but not because it was empty.
jim, when will you stop spouting half truths and then presenting them as facts, we all respect your efforts at song collection,but your statement this time is imo ridiculous.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 06:08 AM

Derrick
"paradise you remember in the past was hell for others."
As is the case with every other type of music.
It should be allowed to stand and fall by its own merits - nothing wrong with that.
With the folk revival as I knew if, not just as an audience member but as a singer, club organiser and activist and later, a researcher and collector, it had a minority (of what - pop - classical - jazz?) following which continued to attract audiences util it's, in my opinion, premature demise.   
Right up to MacColl's last illness he and Peggy were performing to capacity audiences.
The fact those the audiences didn't compare in number to say a pop concert, was always totally immaterial - we had our audiences and continued to draw in new people - never as many as we wanted, but enough.
Our policy was still capable of producing overflow audiences every now and again.
Even if that had not been the case, a change of policy to draw in more would have been pointless - we were in it for a particular type of music and we tried to put bums on seats for that type of music.
Quite honestly, as none of those people sharing Al's unfathomable attitude to what kind of music other than "mine" is concerned, I have no idea of what he is talking about when he talks about "folk".
Much of the music I have heard that now passes for "folk" is very like some Chinese food, tasty enough at the time but unmemorable - belch and you're hungry again.
Genuine folk at least has a provenance and some sort of pedigree.
I've always believed that the best way to plan your future is to understand your past - that goes for music as much as anything else.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 07:15 AM

Musket
You couldn't afford me Snail, don't fret me old love.

I think we probably could if we thought you were worth it.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 08:17 AM

"Genuine folk at least has a provenance and some sort of pedigree.
I've always believed that the best way to plan your future is to understand your past - that goes for music as much as anything else."
often but not always, for example some football songs[ which fall under the 1954 defintion of folk song], are genuine folk, but they often are not very good, for example the wheel barrow song[ sung by notts county fans , it has a provenance , [on top of old smokey], but it[ the wheelbarrow song] is a genuine folk song but a crap one., football crowd songs are folk songs, but do not have folk a pedigree or folkprovenace [youll never walk alone]         
talking a bout arrogance, MacColl was someone who came into that category, excellent song writer and performer that he was, an example of his arrogance was the occasion that he stopped Lisa Turner in mid song to remind her publicly of the singers club, song policy, the correct thing was to have had a quiet word privately.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 08:49 AM

Jim, it may surprise you that I agree with much of what you believe folk song to be and its cultural roots and importance.
My difficulty is with you stating a belief as a fact, as you have in several posts over time,that folk clubs declined because they stopped presenting what you believe folk to be,therefore every one else stoppped going for the same reason.
A belief is not a fact,it is what you think is the answer.
Some may have stopped for the same reasons as you did, many stopped for completely different ones.
The work you did in the past catered for the people who were interested in the subject at the time.
There are still people interested today,just fewer of them.
Those who have a deep passion for a subject always find those who don't strange.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 08:52 AM

most people know me as a humble troubadour - one who has worked in the interstices of pop music, country music, country and Irish, folk - whatever i could do to entertain the audience.
all the arrogance seems to me to be on your part -claiming to be the folk music of England. however i have enough respect for you not to insult you.

understanding you past is all very well - but music in performance is very much in the present. and if can't give them what they want, they DO cut up rough - the kind of people who live where folk songs come from.
play and sing - all shook up and the room will start dancing joining in with oough! like Elvis - any room , anywhere in England. what have you got to put up against that. a few gypsies in the arse end of nowhere, the memory of a few old folk - most of whom sound like they can't remember the words or tunes of songs that in folk song collections.

incidentally Idid spend a month earlier this year trying to write an English language version of Una Bhan inspired by Joe Heaney's version. Those ofyou that can be bothered will find my efforts on Soundcloud.

another thing you forget Jim - i was a great fan of MacColl/SEEGER. i saw them play plenty of half empty places - nearly all the places with a heavy trad bias NTMC in Nottingham AND THE Grey Cock in Brum. They greatly benefited from playing places that booked entertainers like Capstick an Brimstone - places like Tony Savages club in Barwell.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 10:06 AM

I do try to keep up Jim but it isn't easy when you simultaneously present two incompatible points of view.

On one hand you say that folk clubs should do what it says on the tin and present folk music which has a clear unequivocal definition. On the other hand, you say that songs written using traditional forms or in the "folk idiom" are perfectly acceptable in most folk clubs. "I've been advocating for the composition and proliferation of such songs throughout the time I've been involved in music". But what is the definition of "such songs"? You constantly avoid giving one which is fair enough, it is an impossible task. The judgement of what is acceptable is entirely subjective. Your opinion is as valid as mine or Musket's or Big Al's. In other words, according to you, anything goes.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 11:46 AM

"On one hand you say that folk clubs should do what it says on the tin and present folk music"
I have never had a problem with clubs which present traditional songs and singers and also those who use the idiom of traditional songs to create new ones - I have never argued otherwise.
However, when I discuss, lecture, write about folk song, I always try to make a distinction between the older songs and the newer ones, for exactly the reasons I have laid out here.
My real problem has always been with the clubs and the performers who have used the term 'folk' to promote songs that aren't and have no relation to the genuine object.
My arguments on 'what is genuine folk' are to do with my interests as a researcher - my gripe with the clubs is with those who have wasted my and many other people's time in searching for something that they are not offering in any shape or form.
You want examples of what I mean - try some of MacColls and Seeger's,   compositions (not all), or Pete Smith's, or Matt Armour's, or Ed Pickford's, or Helen Fullarton's, or Graem Miles's, or Jerry Springs's, or Don Lange's or Dick Snell's, Eric Bogles, or Miles Wooton's, Con 'Fada O'Driscoll's, or Adam McNaughton's, or Sean Mone's or Fintan Vallely's or Tim Lyons', or Brian O'Rourk's, or Gordon McCulloch's, or Enoch Kent's, or Hazel Dickson's, or Colin Meadows's, or Donniell Kennedy's or Jack Warshaw's..... all have produced songs in the traditional idiom which have given me enjoyment at one time or another - even tried my had at some myself, given the opportunity.   
Derrick
I can only speak for my own experiences and those of people I know, who exited the scene as I did for the same reasons many of whom I am still on contact with through our still mutual interest in folk song.
It really isn't as if I'm taking about a small handful of clubs in a few English backwaters - my direct experience has been with clubs in three major English cities, and those I have worked with cover a good section of the British Isles through personal contact.
I've often been accused - usually by Bryan, of being out-of-touch with what has happening now because of our move to Ireland - even if I had never been in contact, the internet has been indication enough of the prevailing situation - no place to hide nowadays.
Jim Carroll

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

Snail. Are you trying to get into my Y fronts perchance? Saying my opinion is valid.

Most unnerving.

Jim.. Jim.. Jim..   You say you stopped going to folk clubs when they became places for people strutting their stuff. Sounds like the folk progression to me..

Peggy Seeger's new album is available from today. Amazon, iTunes and stockists have it. Search under "folk."

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 12:09 PM

I once did "Farewell my dearest dear" to its original tune ("Frankin has fled away"), which is in 6/4. It went down about as well as you'd expect - nobody had heard it before or recognised it, not even the hardened 30- and 40-year folkies. Another time, I did the full five-verse Pleasant and Delightful (you can find it on the Yorkshire Garland site); with the extra verse (and some re-ordering) it makes much more narrative sense than the version people usually do, but of course the usual version is what everyone expects.

The point is that there are folk songs and then there are folk club songs - the songs people have been doing in folk clubs for thirty years or more. Some of them are traditional, some are in traditional idioms, some are in the post-Dylan 'folk' style, and some are just songs that people have been doing in folk clubs for a while. (I don't think there's anything at all traditional about Farewell to the Gold, for example, but I doubt there's a folk club or festival in Britain where it wouldn't go down well.)

So if somebody writes a new song that's a bit like Farewell to the Gold - or a bit like Fire and Rain - they're writing songs that would be welcome at a folk club or festival. On the other hand, somebody bringing out a traditional song that hasn't been performed in public in recent years can't count on a welcome in any folk setting.

But that's not just the way the world is. That's what's wrong with the (folk) world.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 12:19 PM

PS I know the 1954 definition is a lost cause - nobody is going to stop shelving Laura Marling or the Mumfords under 'folk'. But I do think it would be interesting to hear another definition - really, any other definition, other than the purely ostensive definition which says that "folk" is "what people call folk". (Which is no definition at all. After all, "cats" are "what people call cats"; they're also definable as small furry quadrupeds distantly related to lions and tigers.)

James Yorkston has said on several occasions that his albums of original material aren't folk (because they're not traditional). When Graham Coxon made an acoustic album, the press called it 'folk'; he said not ("They're not 200 years old, any of these songs, are they?"). Are they wrong, and if so why?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 12:21 PM

sometimes the new song has to take its time, but it gets picked up and sung, examples of this in ireland are.. fiddlers green and song for ireland and caledonia, all songs written by english or scottish people, but songs that mean something to people outside the uk folk revival and are assumed to be tradtional.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 12:59 PM

> After all, "cats" are "what people call cats"; they're also definable as small furry quadrupeds distantly related to lions and tigers.

Very true, Phil Edwards. But here's the maddening catch. The word "cat" (and thousands like it) developed naturally to denote an objective reality that no one in his right mind could deny. There *really are* animals whose characteristics you very sketchily suggest, and *really are* in cases like this means "is universal agreement about the distinct existence of."

Now for a little game. If a "cat" is a '50s jazz type, is he or isn't he a "cat"? "Well," I hope you're saying, "obviously not, wiseguy! He's a chap!" Then why call him a cat? If he isn't a cat, what is and how do I know the difference?

Then you repeat your definition of a quadrupedal cat. Fair enough, but how do I know, *out of context,* when a "cat" is an animal and when it's a man?

If context is essential to understanding even a seemingly obvious and well-defined word like "cat" when it's used, how much more essential is it when "folksong" is used?

Unlike "cat," "folksong" *even in context* has no clear-cut, universally accepted, fairly indisputable meaning. The word was coined to convey a particular but rather hazy definition. Since that time so long ago, the intended definition has been enhanced, clarified, expanded, redefined, etc., etc., until not even experts are quite sure what it means to other people, including other experts.

Instead of a word like "cat," think of a word like "democracy" or "novel." You know what you mean when you use it (or do you really?), but can you count on your reader or listener to know what you mean.

I can say, "This is a cat," and get agreement from everyone except a few ingeniously contentious or very crazy people. But I can't get anything like that consensus if I say "Both Sides Now" is - or is not - a folksong.

Was East Germany a democracy? Some seemed to think so. Is the UK or the USA? Some have denied it. If there's disagreement in a given instance, you have to stipulate what you mean, or you talk at cross purposes.

And there's no easy way around it.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 01:04 PM

I can't get anything like that consensus if I say "Both Sides Now" is - or is not - a folksong.

Which is why it's handy to have a definition that we can refer back to, even if not everyone agrees on it. It would be even better if we had two different definitions to compare against each other, as we do in the case of 'democracy'.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 02:28 PM

Exactly. And we have many definitions of "folksong," some of which we can even "refer back to." If we feel like it. (Clearly not everyone does, or wants to concur once they do.)

Which helps explain why this thread keeps going.

There's insufficient agreement on any stipulated definition, and many people plump for their own.

There's also the question of whether a specific song fits (or can be pummeled into fitting) whichever definition we (currently) insist upon.

To repeat: "folksong" in natural, non-stipulative use is a handy but very vague term. Are rap lyrics "poetry"? Maybe yes, maybe no.

The point in any case is to discuss the nature of the beast without insisting on the precise category you want to file it under.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 03:00 PM

"And we have many definitions of "folksong," some of which we can even "refer back to.""
Peraps someone could put up half a dozen along with their precedence and whether they have any consensus to back them up, or so and see how they measure up?
People keep referring to other definitions but there is an ongoing reluctance to produce them.
One thing nobody can claim about '54 is that it doesn't come wit a pedigree, world wide support and masses of documentation to back it up.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 03:46 PM

it also carries with it a world of middle class condescension and dismissal of working class musicians.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 04:12 PM

"world wide support", Jim.. fantasizing again, world wide support ha ha.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 06:34 PM

Musket
Snail. Are you trying to get into my Y fronts perchance?

BLEUUURRGH!

Saying my opinion is valid.

Musket, have you no idea what "irony" is?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bert
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 06:54 PM

The movers and shakers of the folk world in 1954 were often collectors themselves some decades previously. It should come as no surprise therefore, that the 1954 definition, pretty much defines only what they themselves had collected.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 06:56 PM

a tinnie made of another substance...?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 01 Sep 14 - 07:33 PM

And we have many definitions of "folksong," some of which we can even "refer back to."

Do we? I only know of one definition of "folksong" - one definition and a lot of people objecting to it, but without proposing any alternative.

The thing about definitions is that they define - they draw a line. And that line may not go where you want it to. If we start from the assumption that folk = traditional = "1954 definition", there's room for real debate about whether an individual song fits the definition - be it Sally Wheatley, the Grand Conversation on Napoleon or Sir Patrick Spens. But it doesn't stop anyone singing songs that aren't traditional - why would it?

I think a lot of people bring value-based baggage to this argument - as if to say, I love folk music, I love these songs, therefore these songs must be folk songs; or, I'm a folkie, I sing to folk audiences, therefore everything I sing must be folk. I think this urge to define 'folk' more and more widely is understandable, but it needs to be resisted. My own starting-point is that there is a lot of traditional music which I love as dearly as any other music I know - and there are a lot of 'folk club songs' which leave me completely cold. I was a regular floor singer at a folk club for several years before I discovered traditional songs - the folk club repertoire just got in the way. Define 'folk' to include traditional songs and Dylan and Richard Thompson and Roy Harper and songs by rivals, followers and imitators of Dylan and Richard Thompson and Roy Harper and whatever else anyone brings along on the night, and some very rare and distinctive jewels get lost among a lot of other stuff which is more widely available, lower quality or both.