What makes a new song a folk song?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Sep 14 - 08:14 PM

'one can't "correct" the usage of millions who couldn't care less'

as Tony Hancock said, if this was an election, you'd have lost your deposit...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 04:41 AM

As a scholar, I don't accept the word "folk." The capitalized "Folk" I'm cool with, but the lower-case "folk" I reject.

Big-F "Folk" is a label that means different things to different people. (duh) As with other labels that attempt to group music, for some purpose, its meanings are not only multiple but also necessarily fuzzy. It is useful, when true precision is not important, when you are speaking/interacting with other people who likely share the same rough sense of the kind of stuff you're talking about (and not talking about). For example, to say Mudcat is a place to discuss Folk music is perfectly acceptable. Being in English language gives me the first clue as to what sort of "Folk" is under discussion. Then, seeing the sort of discussion, including the musical items that figure in, completes the picture.

Use of little-f "folk," carries with it, to me, the belief on the part of the user that the term has a more precise and constant meaning - that it is somehow technical or scientific. At the very least I think this "folk" is nonsense. At the most, it carries ideological baggage that is distasteful, and it is too ethnocentric in its concept to have validity for the way I think about music - in its broad historical and cultural and biological (human) dimensions.

OMG that's so twentieth century. … Phrenology, anyone?

I don't find there is anything I need to describe as "folk", in a scholarly context, that I can't describe with a more precise and/or neutral way. If it's amateurs performing, I say that. If it's oral transmission that is important, I say that. If there are certain stylistic features - specific textures, timbres, harmonies, intonation, instruments used, etc - I just say what those are.

I have published a good amount of scholarship on dances of the Punjab region. These are dances typically performed by a group of people moving in a circle to the rhythms of a drum. You'll hear Punjabi people -in urban, Westernized contexts - wanting to call them "Punjabi traditional folk dances". One reason why they do that is because the words "traditional" and "folk" have a certain "ring" to them. What they are saying, indirectly, is that they value things called "traditional" (as opposed to its supposed opposite, "modern"). They think there is something essential better, more pure, etc about "traditional," and just thinking about these dances that way gives them a little buzz. Same goes with "folk." But not only is the "traditional folk" part redundant, it's also superfluous. These are the "Punjabi" dances. There are no Punjabi "classical" dances or Punjabi "pop" dances or anything else. The dance belong to the Punjabi region, hence "Punjabi dances" - that's all I need to call them.

Similarly, when others use "folk" as if it were a scholarly term, I suspect it is something they *like* to say because it gives them a little buzz…tickles a little romantic spot. At the least, it carries an expression of *valuation*. I think in good scholarship, however, there is no room for such valuation. We need to strive for neutral terms.

That romance was there through the days of Karpelles to Lomax. I get the sense it really delighted them to be writing things talking about "folk" stuff. We're past those days now. That bubble has burst. Scholars can't position themselves as valuing "folk" stuff as opposed to "popular" or "classical", etc.

I think those definitions in the encyclopedias that Lighter quoted are nonsensical. There is some kind of Emperor-wears-no-clothes lip-service going on. The scholars that produce those are/were in a world where they are forced to deal with that terminology because someone has put it on the table but they haven't grown the balls to take it off. There's too much attachment to it. And there are too many institutions in place - archives of "folk" stuff and departments of "folk" whatever - to pull the plug. The thing is, these institutions, etc can carry on as long as people are thinking "Folk" (and finessing that as they go) and not full of themselves; as long as people are not drawing the conclusion that because there is a "Folk Archive" then the little-f "folk" is the operative conceptual framework.

It may sound harsh that I say it's nonsense when scholars use (little-f) "folk", but that doesn't mean I reject these scholars' work. I just think we are past that. Old folks can keep on what they did in the past, I suppose - no biggie. But they risk sounding parochial to the newer generations of scholars. Hence, the very active (professionally) and younger scholars - in which I include myself - can't afford to do it if we're to be considered very seriously.

I really don't - sincerely I don't - have a major beef with the (older?) scholars who use "folk" a lot. But I want to make it clear that "1954" concept of "folk" is not a standard thing among scholars of today. To summarize: scholars today are receptive to the many ways performers and audiences conceptualize what they (performers and audiences) call "Folk," and in their own work, seek more precision and terms that reflect the latest and best (not 1950s) ideas.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 04:51 AM

If I recall from the adverts, a scholar is someone who drinks Scholl lager?

I'm a bit of a scholar myself as it happens, but not lager piss. I having my annual sojourn to Southwold at present and the house is less than 200 yds from the Adnams brewery.

There are lots of words beginning with F and one is coming to me right now....

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 05:51 AM

" If they can't or won't agree, how can you expect musicians to agree?"
They can't agree on detail - part of research of an subject.
Nothing to do with definition, which remains as it was until it is replaced.
Any replacement, if it it to be comprehensible and workable needs to be backed up with researched information - you have that with '54.
I've just re-visited the Funk and Wagnall Dictionary of folklore with the intention of putting it up here.
There are seventeen, double columned pages of it, covering many aspects of the genre including how song relate to other aspects of folklore and how English-language songs compare to those of other cultures.
Nowhere does it contradict the basic premises set out in the '54 definition, which is quite interesting in itself as it was published in 1949.
What you are talking about when you refer to other definitions (which you still haven't provided) is the misuse of the term, not a re-definition.
You have referred, quite interestingly, to physics - you dont stop the-man-in-the-street for information on the subject - why should you do so for folk song?
Jim Carroll

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

> scholars today are receptive to the many ways performers and audiences conceptualize what they (performers and audiences) call "Folk," and in their own work, seek more precision and terms that reflect the latest and best (not 1950s) ideas.

And at the same time non-scholars are using the word in whatever way suits them. There is simply more than one usage, and like many thousands of others that we live with, the most inclusive is far more so than the most narrow.   

These are obvious points.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 07:45 AM

Lighter
That wax fruit is not the same as real fruit, that a singer-songwriter "folksong" isn't much like a 1954-def "folksong," and that those who still observe the semantic distinction are not the dimwits you seem to think they are.

Sorry Lighter, you've lost me completely. I can't see for the life of me how this relates to anything I've said.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 07:47 AM

it does pay to cohort with the proletariat occasionally.

Presumably you don't wash for a couple of days to blend in.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 07:48 AM

Jim Carroll
"exactly what it said on the label" - the clubs I referred to when i used that term were The Singers Club and Court sessions - neither of which use 'folk' in their title, but presented folk and folk based songs - that is what I meant and to suggest otherwise is totally disingenuous.

I must apologise Jim. I had misunderstood. From the jusxtaposition of the semtences, I thought you were saying that the rot had set in at those two clubs. Terribly sorry about that.

Got to do some practice of my own before a band practice. I'll be back on the case later.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 07:53 AM

"scholars today are receptive to the many ways performers and audiences conceptualize what they (performers and audiences) call "Folk,"
Then we need to know how they have incorporated their receptiveness into a new definition - so far nothing.
"And at the same time non-scholars are using the word in whatever way suits them"
My pont exactly - nothing to do with the music itself - rather a justification of taking over a name and a venue to provide a platform and an audience for something entirely different.
Not only has this endangered the future and the proliferation of folk song proper, but it led to 'folk' being a meaningless term with no tangible definition outside the established one
Even this has become extremely difficult to discuss rationally and calmly thanks to a heavy gang of 'folk police' telling those of us who wish to that we shouldn't be - "troll" has just been added to the invective on one of the other threads - "finger-in-ear" and "purist" - (not forgetting "folk police" of course) being old and hackneyed long-standing ones.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 07:54 AM

jim carroll, by his own admission rarely visits folk clubs, so it follows he knows little about what is being sung in folk clubs, he has also displayed his ignorance about col tom parker, he is frequently handing out compliments such as calling other members "arrogant little prats"
he also stated that the 1954 defintion was accepted world wide, another fallacy, it appears to be accepted by the EFDSS AND SOME ENGLISH SONG SCHOLARS,that is not world wide.
what makes a new song a folk song? in my opinion it becomes a folk song when it is sung by people who have little awareness of the uk folk revival or the songs origins but conclude it is traditional ,examples fiddlers green , song for ireland, caledonia, diry old town, shoals of herring , englands motorway, the coves of rossbrin, fields of athenry. the fact that these new songs are folk songs does not mean that they will all be sung in folk clubs, in fact while folk songs are frequently sung in folk clubs , the real test in my opinion is their acceptance outside the uk folk revival, which by its nature tends to be exclusive.
this exclusivity seems to be what jim carroll wants, he wants folk clubs to do what it says on the tin , yet he nor anyone else can define what should be on the tin, jim seems to want songs such as barbara allen and the songs from walter pardon repertoire that walter gave more importance to.
his attitude is exclusivity, folk clubs should put on what jim carroll considers to be folk music[ which he has yet to define]at the same time he claims he is not purist because he approves of some new songs, but it is my opinion that which Jim wants in folk clubs the sort of new songs that MacColl wrote or songs of social comment, he wants to exclude other new songs that presumably he does not like or that do not fall into this category, basically Jim Carroll considers folk music to be new social comment songs, and songs of the ilk of barbara allen, that is what he wants when he goes to folk clubs, but is that what everybody else wants, does jim carroll define blues as folk song does he define songs such as coalminers daughter or my little nicotine girl or dark as a dungeon as folk song, these songs are relatively new songs

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

I knew there was something I was doing wrong the.

Perhaps the shell suit and those trainers that obviously cost less than £100 were letting me down? If I don't wash for a while, perhaps eventually I could leave a slime trail in my wake?

Where I live, the poor people wash too you know. Every Sunday morning they have a bath apparently. Even in the winter when they don't sweat as much.

Hang on, what were we discussing again? Snaily sidetracked me.

Oh yes. New songs and can they be folk songs.

Yes

Basically.

When written by a folk singer

zzzzz

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 09:22 AM

"When written by a folk singer"
THIS ONE MAYBE?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 09:25 AM

Too many posters on the enormous number of threads on this topic adopt too exclusive an either/or approach. There are surely many songs which are indubitably folk songs [Barbara Allen seems to have become the exemplar of choice on here]; others which clearly are not [from Schubert lieder to the latest manifestations of the ephemeral pop market]: (these, it will be appreciated, are taxonomic rather than qualitative observations).

But there is surely a wide borderline in which occur songs which some will define or accept as folk, others not. The exact parameters of this boundary, as these threads demonstrate, may be disputed. But surely nobody would deny its existence.

Similarly with clubs. Some will adopt strict policies admitting only songs from well within the folk side of the boundary; others will be more flexible as to which they will admit from within this wide, not entirely defined border. And a few may be what I often heard Peter Bellamy denounce as "that's not a not folk club, it's an anything club".   

I would suggest that those songs within this pretty wide boundary most worthy of being included in the category suggested by the thread title will be the work of performers well-versed in the tradition, who will continue to sing traditional songs alongside, and as well as, their own compositions within the idiom. In an entry I contributed on The Folk Revival to The Cambridge Guide To Literature In English (ed Ian Ousby, CUP 1988), I wrote, "Many singers steeped in traditional song, such as Ewan MacColl, Cyril Tawney, Peter Bellamy, Bob Pegg and Peter Coe, were successful in creating new songs convincingly in the traditional idiom which the revival had brought to a wider audience". This was not meant as an exclusive list; and there are obviously names to be added since then; but I will stand by that even 26 years later as a fair exemplary list of producers of the sort of songs which constitute the subject of this thread.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 09:26 AM

Jim,

"scholars today are receptive to the many ways performers and audiences conceptualize what they (performers and audiences) call "Folk,"

Then we need to know how they have incorporated their receptiveness into a new definition - so far nothing.

Why on earth would the scholars make a new definition? I just said that in my opinion the use of "folk" as if it were a scholarly term is nonsense, has no functional value, and in my observation is not used (i.e. with the pretense of meaning something universal) outside parochial, stuck-in-the-past circles.

They are receptive to non-scholarly meanings of "Folk" because 1) these do not threaten to be confounded with a precise / scientific meaning…because there isn't one. Even "1954" is non-scholarly - even if it was considered so in the past.
2) the trend is to respect the ideas of people you're studying, and, in the appropriately designated contexts, use the most efficacious language when in dialogue.

Like I said in the example before, when someone in India tells me something is "folk music," I don't say "Oh no, you're wrong - that isn't folk because of xyz". I try to determine what ABC makes them call it that. Then I can have conversations with them and we can use "folk" to communicate on the same page. But in my own research/writing, I don't confuse the broad audience by calling that thing "folk" (nor do I say, again, that it's not). I might say that the people FGH customarily refer to this as "folk," but more importantly I describe it in neutral terms.

You don't have to go as "far off" as India to apply this. It's all about being descriptive rather than prescriptive.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 09:57 AM

> Even "1954" is non-scholarly - even if it was considered so in the past.

Must disagree here. It was and is scholarly because it was created by conscientious scholars who found it useful. What's more, it described a kind of song that clearly exists, even if only in certain cultures under certain conditions.

Like most nomenclature outside of the hard sciences, however, it was not air-tight, flexible, or universally applicable. How could it be? Nor could the definers expect that commercialism would soon encourage *all* nonspecialists (and some specialists) to adopt broader definitions of what was, in 1954, a comparatively recondite term.

Another twist, as M suggests, is that for a great many fans (and Mudcat has its fair share), "folksong" has become a qualitative term.

Some people *want* their favorite songs to be called "folksongs." God knows why, but they do. It means a song in some fashion resembles a 1954-style "folksong" besides appealing to them in a personally significant way. And it's clearly not an aria or something "elite," which is usually not at all to their tastes.

Their usage is their privilege, even if some of us find it annoying.

I encounter so many annoyances each day that this rarely bothers me, and mainly when there's real ambiguity. And as Gibb says, in serious discussion those occasions can be, and are, easily - and profitably - avoided.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 01:02 PM

With you on this one, Jon, though I like Gibb's wider approach. I find myself, even when discussing with other enthusiasts, more and more inclined to use qualifiers to describe what type of folk song I'm talking about.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 02:41 PM

> qualifiers

Exactly, Steve. And they're especially useful in off-the-cuff discussions when we can't frame what we want to say as carefully as would be necessary in print.

Another elementary point: nothing prevents one from concentrating their interest either on 1954-style songs or on current rap lyrics if that's the brand of "folksong" they prefer.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 03:46 PM

A lot of people sing it and mess with the words. What else?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 09:14 PM

I was sitting on the quay this afternoon at Weymouth listening to a group of shanty men give a really nice concert. I couldn't help thinking about all this doom and gloom about English trad folk in the clubs.

I don't remember all these shanty crews in the old days. thats a comparatively recent development that surely gives the lie to all these dire pronouncements . you should get another informant about English folk clubs Jim.

After the shanty men - there was a group called Kadia, a young trio doing mainly trad material. there are a lot of young people getting involved nowadays.

i think what attracts them is that instantly they do trad - they become part of something big. in comparison the singer / songwriter is very isolated and adrift in a very competitive field.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 03:17 AM

"I find myself, even when discussing with other enthusiasts, more and more inclined to use qualifiers to describe what type of folk song I'm talking about."
I have to say, I find all this more than a little bizarre.
I've sort of come around to the idea that I have to check first before I head out to a venue which called itself 'folk' to make sure I would find the music I was looking for after driving miles in the pissing rain on a cold winter's night.
Now it appears I'm going to have to apply this to the research side of my interests.
I don't get to the Folk Song Forum meetings due to the distance, but on a number of occasions we've considered doing the trip with one of them in mind and incorporating it with a few days break in the U.K. - never quite managed up to now.
It seems we might have had a lucky escape and we could have found ourselves sitting through hours of discussions on Bluegrass, Jazz, 1950s pop songs, Hip-Hop, Rap, Country and Western.... and a whole host of other genres that don't interest me in the slightest, or if at all, certainly not enough to persuade me to travel a few hundred miles to participate in.
Same with the Roud Folk song Index.
Whenever anybody has asked about British folk song I have guided them to Steve's index and told them that they would find a fairly comprehensive referenced list of songs and where they are to be found.
Now, it seems, it would be dishonest of me to do this - that his list is far from comprehensive, or is misnamed and only deals with a certain, unspecified type of folk song.
To be complete, he would have had to include - what - The Hank Williams song book, The Best of the Fifties, Max Miller's Little Ditties, Songs From the Victorian Parlours, Elvis's Greatest Hits......?
I couldn't begin to define to newcomers what I mean by 'folk' because a definition no longer exists - the old one is invalid and until you and your mates have arrived at a new one, nothing has been put up to replace it.
C'mon lads, what on earth are we talking about here?
We have a bunch of songs coming from a definable and fairly well-established source and going through a fairly logical process.
We have chosen, up to now, to agree to define them as folk songs and have spent a great deal of our lives (some of us) in trying to understand them, and pass on what we found to others so they can finish the job.
All a waste of time, apparently - we've been pissing in the wind.
Personally, I find all this as disturbing as I find the efforts of some people to remove the credit for the making of our folk songs from the people I have always believed made them - the rural working people, the soldiers, sailors, miners and mill workers... of the past, and place that honour (or 90% plus of it), at the door of notoriously bad poets (hacks), the vast majority of whose outpourings are unsingable.
Sorry - until someone comes up with a half-thought-out, workable alternative that we can all agree upon and is based on genuine research which incorporates that done in the past, I think I'm happy to stick with the old definition, as much in need of repair as it might be.
"songwriter is very isolated and adrift in a very competitive field."
My heart bleeds Al!
Fervently hope that younger singers are flocking to the scene just as much as I hope that 'the folk' are still making and re-processing songs (and there are still as many clubs around as there were a dozen or so years ago)
Little sign of any of it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 03:31 AM

The beauty of the young performers you watched Al, is that they have never heard of any 1954 bullshit. They, like most of us over the years have seen the beauty contained in ancient tunes and words.

Why take a puppy apart to see why it is cute? I have no time for and dismiss out of hand those who want their anorak hobby inflicted on those of us with a love for the music. Right now, the folk style is having a resurgence that guarantees its future a while longer. The younger bands playing festivals, releasing albums and doing the medium theatre, arts centre circuit are a joy.

I roar with laughter when sad old codgers think that just because sitting in a circle with books, playing three chord Fields of Athenry has no appeal to people, that it means folk is dying.

No. It is far more alive than at any time since the '70s.

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

" who want their anorak hobby inflicted on those of us with a love for the music. "
If it wasn't for the anoraks who got up off their arse because they thought the music was worth the effort - you wouldn't have any folk songs to sing and would have had to rely on the songs that the P.R.S. allowed to slip though their net.
Give us a break Muskie and stop 'Folk Policing' those of us whose interests extend beyond self- obsessed navel-gazing.
You'd be scrambling on your high horse with the rest of them if we started up on 'snigger-snogwriters' and 'armpit singers'
Why not try a bit of live-and-let-live - it's us who are supposed to be the 'folk fascists'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 04:33 AM

some of us with a love for the music get up off our arses and organise festivals and events.instead of insulting other members and continually moaning.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 04:35 AM

Your rather eccentric view of two stone columns, one with yourself and your collection, and the other with PRS do you no favours.

Most of your heroes used PRS to protect their commercial interest. Most folk singers at club level sing songs, regardless of the status of them. Your collecting and cataloguing is an achievement, one nobody here underestimates, but translating that into ownership of words invites ridicule Jim, it really does.

In the meantime, folk music is enjoying a huge revival. I doubt a single performer under the age of 50 has heard of, nor would find relevant, any piece of paper written in 1954, except in the historical journey of the genre sense. I hadn't heard of it except in passing myself till I found Mudcat. Yet by then, I had been "involved" for thirty odd years!

I'm a snogwriter by the way. Lots of my songs involve "sporting and playing" or frustration at not doing so, as it were... I can do armpit farts too.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 04:55 AM

"In the meantime, folk music is enjoying a huge revival. I doubt a single performer under the age of 50 has heard of, nor would find relevant, any piece of paper written in 1954, except in the historical journey of the genre sense. I hadn't heard of it except in passing myself till I found Mudcat. Yet by then, I had been "involved" for thirty odd years!"
more or less my experience.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 05:14 AM

MGM:

Similarly with clubs. Some will adopt strict policies admitting only songs from well within the folk side of the boundary; others will be more flexible as to which they will admit from within this wide, not entirely defined border. And a few may be what I often heard Peter Bellamy denounce as "that's not a not folk club, it's an anything club".   


How Purist Is Your Club? The Rose Scale

How many of these songs would be acceptable in your club? (If you don't run a club, how many of these songs would you be willing to hear on a regular basis before you wanted to stop going?)

0. None of the below; none of them are genuine traditional songs.
1. Rosebud in June
2. Blood-Red Roses
3. Rose of Allendale
4. Little Yellow Roses
5. Rose in April (Kate Rusby)
6. English Rose (Paul Weller)
7. Roses of Picardy
8. "Roses of Chorlton Green, a song I wrote this afternoon"
9. All of the above and more; anything and everything is acceptable in any folk club I go to.

Explanatory notes
1. An old show tune. (A very old show tune, admittedly.)
2. A lesser-known Bertsong; Lloyd seems to have got hold of a shanty called 'Bunch of Roses' and made it a bit more dramatic.
3. An old parlour song (with a known author) which was adopted by Revival singers (Corries, Nic Jones et al).
4. A song recorded by Adam Faith(!) and written by Trevor Peacock(!!) which escaped into the wild to the extent of being adopted by Forest Schools Camps; subsequently recorded by Fay Hield, Jon Boden et al.
5. A contemporary song which is trying to sound traditional.
6. A contemporary song which uses phrases like 'seven seas' and is accompanied on an acoustic guitar.
7. A 20th-century music-hall number recorded by Perry Como, Old Blue Eyes et al. (Al was a busy lad.)
8. I have not written a song called "Roses of Chorlton Green". (I have written a few songs, just none with roses in the title.)

I'll be honest, I would like to go to a club that stopped at 2. - one whose regulars were so purist that they'd point out that Blood-Red Roses is one of Bert's, and drum their fingers & cough if somebody did Rose of Allendale. My trad repertoire is what matters to me as a singer, and I'd welcome the chance to dig into it and develop it. In reality, though, I've never known a club that didn't go as far as 4. or 5., and most of them in my experience go right to 8. They're are PB's 'anything clubs', in other words, and by and large they celebrate it - perhaps taking the view that the 'folk' quality resides in the amateurism, the lack of amplification, the participation, or just about anything other than the actual material.

This also answers Lighter's point:

nothing prevents one from concentrating their interest either on 1954-style songs or on current rap lyrics if that's the brand of "folksong" they prefer.

And nothing prevents me from going to any folk club and doing a set consisting entirely of songs that have verifiably been modified during oral transmission; when I first got the trad bug I assumed that was what I would do. But then you go to a club where everyone's doing pop songs or new material, making you feel like an archaelogy lecturer who's crashed a coffee morning; or a club where traditional songs are de rigueur the first time round, after which everyone relaxes and does whatever they feel like (which usually isn't traditional); or a club where half the material's traditional, but it's the other half that gets the big applause... and it wears you down. The clubs don't actually stop anyone being a traditional purist, but they don't encourage it, either. I wish there were more clubs that would.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 06:03 AM

"Most of your heroes used PRS to protect their commercial interest. "
Can't speak for others Muskie - most of those I know do no such thing.
Our collection is housed with the British Library, The Irish Traditional Music Archive and The Irish Folklore Archive at U.C.D.
It has been put there with instructions to make it available to all interested.
Our West Clare collection of 400 plus songs is about to go up on the County Library website along with photographs, notes and background information.
As virtually all the performers we have recorded are now dead, any money from the nearly two dozen albums we have participated in assembling is automatically donated to The Irish Traditional Music Archive - in the past it has gone to the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library and The British Library.
I don't acctually know of one collector who has made anything beyond covering costs in the production of such albums (apart from Peter Kennedy).
P.R.S. and I.M.R.O have only been allowed to get their predatory foot in the folk door thanks to anything goes merchants like yourself.
This has never been about '54 - it's all about honesty and integrity and pig-in-a-poke sales.
Nobody has ever suggested that anybody, club organiser, singer.... whoever, should adhere to anything other than music and song that bears soe ersemblence to 'folk' - that is a somewhat dishonest invention of people who appear not to know what folk music is, not particularly care.
THe term is now being used as a dustbin to dump anything that takes any particular wannabe's fancy.
"Folk song is enjoying a huge revival" - yeah, sure it is!!!
I've just counted and attempted to assess the (now monthly, once weekly) folk song clubs available to me the next time I visit Britain
Can't wait!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 06:51 AM

your heart bleeds - so it should, they are fellow musicians. often working class people who have their own stories to tell.

strikes me - you wouldn't know where folksong comes from if you had a bloody road map. it always has to be these picturesque romanticised classes for you doesn't it - gypsies, sailors, farmers, fishermen....

the poor sods engaging with society don't get a look in

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 07:50 AM

what you dont seem to grasp jim, is that a lot of folk music goes on outside folk clubs, a classic example is maritime festivals,
i performed at lancaster maritime festival for 15 consecutive years, so i think i am qualified to talk about it.
you on the other hand talk about folk clubs,but rarely visit them, you are uninformed and yet you pontificate on this forum as if you are.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Robin from Somerset
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 08:15 AM

For me, the only definition that is practically of value, is that a folk song should be one that anyone can sing easily and with enjoyment.

Most modern "pop" songs are actually quite difficult to sing (and are instantly forgettable as they are often written to a formula.

A traditional folk song is one that has been sung repeatedly for a period of time, lets say 50 years as a arbitrary number. This means that a number of people have liked it well enough to keep singing it and that its appeal has not been limited to a specific period in time.

Personally I don't care what the style of music is...

However I do like to feel I am singing something that sprang from our own land. I have sung more than enough African, Georgian etc etc in my time.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 08:45 AM

oh forget it Dick. its like that bloke in City Slickers who doesn't understand how his video player works.

Ewan MacColl has told him some nonsense and he can't see how folksongs work himself. Folk have to write them.

he doesn't get it. he'll never get it!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 08:55 AM

And I was particularly referring to MaColl when I spoke of his heroes using PRS to protect their interest. Even when the genesis of their copyright was traditional!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Howard Jones
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 10:00 AM

The think is, Jim, as you very well know, the word 'folk' hasn't meant exclusively traditional music for well over half a century. In my experience, not as long as yours but nevertheless going back over 45 years, 'folk clubs' have always presented a range of music across the spectrum of the broader meaning of 'folk'. Some clubs were more towards the traditional end, others towards the contemporary end of the scale. I can think of very few which were exclusively and deliberately one or the other, and they were often careful to differentiate themselves.

I would share your disappointment at going to a folk club and not hearing any traditional folk songs, and I probably wouldn't go again, but I don't agree that would disqualify it from using the label if what it did provide fell within the wider understanding of the word. Anyway I doubt whether such clubs are in fact as common as you suggest. Of course if it consisted mostly of acoustic covers of pop songs then I would be entirely on your side.

As for whether this damages traditional music, I am not so sure. I know that my route into traditional music was via the Spinners, who mixed traditional songs with recently-composed ones, albeit both written and performed in a folky style. If people are exposed to some traditional music while looking for something else it may trigger their interest. There now seems to be a considerable number of young musicians performing wholly or mainly traditional material, so I think the music is in safe hands.

The reason I no longer go to folk clubs is less the nature of the material than the quality of performance (at risk of reviving yet another well-worn topic). The old folk club model of professional guests with selected floor singers has mostly been replaced by all-comers singarounds. I'm not prepared to sit through long hours of often poor performances, whether or not of traditional songs, for the chance to do a couple myself. I prefer to spend my time in tune sessions where I can play all evening.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 11:07 AM

Jim Carroll
I have never advocated a purist club, I have never supported such a narrow idea,

Never said you did, Jim. I'm just trying to determine the criterion for what is acceptable outside the 1954 definition, exactly what it does say on the label. The Singers Club and Court Sessions seem to have got round the problem by not saying very much on the label at all. The closest we have got so far is music that "corresponded to what I [Jim Carroll] thought folk song sounded like. Do you still maintain that that isn't subjective?

"I have been going to folk clubs for forty years, quite often more than once a week. "
Well done you -- about the same time I was involved - and your point it....?

Not true Jim, you stopped going 14 years ago since when you've been to folk clubs a "dozen or so" times. I am still going. I probably go to folk clubs a dozen or so times in three months. My point is that I may have a better idea of what is going on in UK folk clubs than you.

The example I gave was of one that is being argued here - a folk club that didn't know its folk arse from its elbow.

ONE club, twenty or more years ago, didn't appreciate the value of Walter Pardon. WOW! What more proof could we possibly need of the moribund state of folk clubs in 2014? Nuff said.

What exactly is your point here Bryan - that the folk revival is booming and I'm making it all up - that people who have no interest in folk music yet call their clubs 'folk' are figments of my imagination.

My point is that the state of folk clubs in the UK is not as you describe it. There is plenty of traditional music and song and new music influenced by the tradition being played up and down the land and not just in Lewes. Do you think I am lying or that it is all a figment of my imagination? Yes, there are clubs which tend more heavily toward contemporary singer/songwriter music. I have heard indirectly of clubs that are actively hostile to traditional music but I have never personally come across one. You have given permission for anyone to play what they like. Your idea of what corresponds to what folk song sounds like has no more authority than anyone else's.

Are all the people who take part in these forums and say their experiences the same as mine lying.
Are those who agree with that conclusion yet defend the situation by saying nobody wants to listen to the old stuff anymore because its had its day figments of my imagination?

Just examples of your selective reading of the evidence as I pointed out before. (You called me an arrogant little prat.)

Can British folk song both in performance or as a research topic look forward to a glowing future

Yes, I think so but it would help if we had more support from people like you instead of the constant, destructive negativity.

There was little sign of that being the case fourteen years ago - even less now.
There certainly wan't much sign of it when I spent a week in London earlier this year

Gosh! You spent a week in London. Which clubs did you go to?

Off to Oxford next month to do some research work on two radio programmes on Ewan - any suggestions of what to look out for

Well. you could try these.
Nettlebed Folk Club
Oxford Folk Club
Martyn Wyndham-Read on 10th October at Oxford is an excellent singer and a great exponent of Graeme Miles' songs.

P.S. You still haven't responded to my post of 02 Sep 14 - 01:13 PM.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 11:10 AM

Well said again, Howard.

Jim,
You are misrepresenting again
When we're at a TSF meeting we all know at least roughly what we're referring to when we use the word 'folk' and this roughly corresponds to 54. But, Jim, believe it or not there is a big wide world out there which we folkies sometimes venture into and 99.9% of these people in it have never heard of 54 or the TSF. These funilly enough are the REAL FOLK and they have their own perceptions of what 'folk' is.

If you look closely at the Roud index alongside the mainly 54 stuff you will find all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff that has been found in the repertoires of traditional singers.

However, there is another reason why you perhaps shouldn't attend TSF meetings: Nowadays we frequently discuss the probable origins of the songs (which you touch upon) but that's a separate matter.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 11:16 AM

Jim carroll
Same with the Roud Folk song Index.
Whenever anybody has asked about British folk song I have guided them to Steve's index and told them that they would find a fairly comprehensive referenced list of songs and where they are to be found.
Now, it seems, it would be dishonest of me to do this - that his list is far from comprehensive, or is misnamed and only deals with a certain, unspecified type of folk song.
To be complete, he would have had to include - what - The Hank Williams song book, The Best of the Fifties, Max Miller's Little Ditties, Songs From the Victorian Parlours, Elvis's Greatest Hits......?

So are the songs of MacColl or Seeger or Pete Smith or Matt Armour or Ed Pickford or Helen Fullarton or Graem Miles or Jerry Springs or Don Lange or Dick Snell Eric Bogles or Miles Wooton or Con 'Fada O'Driscoll or Adam McNaughton or Sean Mone or Fintan Vallely or Tim Lyons or Brian O'Rourk or Gordon McCulloch or Enoch Kent or Hazel Dickson or Colin Meadows or Donniell Kennedy or Jack Warshaw in the Roud index?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 11:44 AM

Well, Jim, you guide them to the Roud Index, and if they look and say, "Wot, no Bogle???" you know they're already lost.

Otherwise, no problem.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 11:49 AM

back in 1985 or '86... Lou Killen gave a three day workshop on sea music/folk music sponsored by NYC Folk Music Society. One thing I never forgot... mainly because it made me bristle a bit... was when Lou very empathically stated that country/country western was the "new" folk music of the US. Since I, for one, would be quite content to never hear another CW song - even though there have been a few that I did like - it seemed unlikely that that genre would be widely embraced.

Well, it's been a number of years and even here in western NY it's hard to escape country music. So, I guess Lou was more canny than I thought. "Folk" music is the music embraced by the "common man/woman" for whatever reason. How else is it to enter the tradition? Not by sitting in a book on a shelf. It may be lost and refound, but to get there in the first place, it needed to be sung and sung widely.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 12:14 PM

It saddens me to say it, sciencegeek, but even here in the UK 'country music' is more of the people than 'folk music', in the sense that more ordinary people listen to it by far than listen to folk music. Louisa was absolutely right.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 12:31 PM

But at least as many people listen to rock and hip-hop. And some of them are the same people.

Doesn't that mean that these are America's *real* folk music?

(Just being perverse. No popular genres is realler than any other.)

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 12:45 PM

"But at least as many people listen to rock and hip-hop."

They may well listen... but do they then sing it themselves? Do they sing it to their kids? Is it being passed on by any means other than listening to a professional- live or recorded?   

Just a query... but one tht seems relevant.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 01:04 PM

Maybe they don't (though there's seems to be a rock band in every garage, with folks writing and performing their own songs according to established idioms).

But saying that people have to sing it and pass it on in person to make it a "folksong" could be just another arbitrary standard of the past.

Frankly, I'm for it, but we're already at a place where music is mostly a passive "activity," made for us by the pros and semi-pros. I used to have a quite a repertoire, but my grandchildren just yelled "Don't sing! Don't sing!" Then they turned their media music on loud. So I quit. Now I hardly remember any 1954-type "folksongs" all the way through.

No big loss because I learned most of them right out of books and off records. So if you want to hear me sing "Brennan on the Moor," just download the Clancy Bros. & Tommy Makem. It won't be me singing, but the song will be the same.

Better, in fact, because they had more talent.

*Real* traditional music (never mind "folk" or "not folk") works when there's human interaction, when you can say (even if just to yourself) I learned this from mom, dad, that crazy guy, whoever. Those associations are part of what traditional singers treasure.

But now they're more likely to download. It remains to be seen whether today's kids learn and sing the "new folksongs", or just say, "Grandma used to sing something called 'Leader of the Pack.' Here it is! The Shangri-Las! Let's download and listen!"

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 01:27 PM

'. I used to have a quite a repertoire, but my grandchildren just yelled "Don't sing! Don't sing!" Then they turned their media music on loud. So I quit. Now I hardly remember any 1954-type "folksongs" all the way through.'

i did that with my grandad - miner/clog dancer from an Irish gypsy family.it goes with the territory - being young. i don't think you can blame kids. the world they grow up in is different.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 01:45 PM

Every Xmas Eve night, my step Dad got back from the welfare and collapsed in his favourite chair, singing Old Shep.

If we managed to force an extra pint down him before last orders, we could normally rely on him falling asleep before getting to the bit about shooting the dog.

Older generations eh?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 01:57 PM

"But saying that people have to sing it and pass it on in person to make it a "folksong" could be just another arbitrary standard of the past."

well, if there IS any point to calling something folk or traditinal, what criteria is there? passive listening applies to most jazz, classical, choral, opera, etc. If you take away the personalizing of the music, how is your definition of any meaning, much less value?

Does this mean that watching the Nutcracker Suite at Christmas time has become folk music? Or Handel's Messiah has entered the folk tradtion? When a definition become too broad, it loses any ability to define with precision. I can make a better case for singing Happy Birthday, which is still under copyright - justly or otherwise.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,ecadre
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 02:07 PM

"Folk song is enjoying a huge revival".

Blimey, what a statement, where on earth does that come from?

I'm sadly with Jim Carroll on this one and his sarcastic "yeah, sure it is!!". Not that I'm sad to agree with Jim, but that the statement is evidently not true.

On that, um, odd folk club "Rose scale", most that I know of are resolutely stuck on 8. Full of pop wannabee singer songwriters with their tedious, unmemorable and unrepeatable dirges, and as someone else has pointed out, no quality control; either through policy or peer pressure.

Yes, I know that there are some decent folk clubs around where you can actually and consistently hear the odd folk song or tune, but they are few and far between in these parts.

The anything goes attitude effectively drives out folk music, whether that is the avvowed intention or not. Running an event, club or session that majors on folk music and defends that position can be hard work. A singers night or floor spots are incresingly just seen as another pub "open mic" event. These performers are not interested in folk music or the tradition but in aping the latest vacuous "acoustic pop" styles at an event where they can find an audience.

Yes, I'm quite acerbic about most "singer-songwriters", and I think rightly so, though some of the artists I value most highly might be described as "singer-songwriters" if you were so minded. I suppose that's to do with the quality control thing again.

At a local "folk club" a group of the performers were chatting afterwards and I overheard what was clearly meant to be a witty remark, oh yes, he opined, folk music is just music played by folks, so we're playing folk music.

I know that's bringing up the whole "horse" thing, but it was a genuine remark that I heard recently.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 03:40 PM

> how is your definition of any meaning, much less value?

You'll have noticed that I'm not urging a particular definition, though personally I'm very partial to the 1954 def because it describes English-language songs that I'm interested in. And that, besides pedantry, is the only reason. Frankly, I'm not much bothered by other points of view. Really, there's nothing of importance at stake here.

But this thread seems to boil down to two questions:

1. What is the "proper" definition of a folksong?

2. What makes it so?

3. How do we get everyone to agree on this?

Issue 3 is easy: we can't. andel's "Messiah" is obviously out, but the limits on what is called a "folksong" are broad, including the "I dunno what it is, but I know what I like" (showing once again the sentimental *value* placed on the label alone).

As to issue 1: there is no single, "proper" definition. There are "conservative" or "narrow" definitions, like 1954, which focus on a particular kind of song - a kind which even in 1954 had *almost no remaining popularity* in the English-speaking world except as taught to schoolchildren (with a mixed reception from the children), or as interpreted by recording artists, which discourages much trad-style "variation," not to mention "trad style."

But the interpretation of what is a "folksong" by people who "like folksongs" (everyone on this thread, for example) is much more personal, especially when people feel compelled to get some of their favorites to fit. Is "Sixteen Tons" a folksong? You can explain rationally why you think so, but you won't get general agreement. You'll probably get agreement on "John Henry," but then people will begin to name their favorite *performance*, which probably doesn't sound much like a field-collected performance sung in Alabama in 1905. Is the slick modern performance as much a "folksong" as the old, rural, unaccompanied one? Another question that quickly leads nowhere.

What is or is not a "folksong" is just not a provable, objective judgment (which addresses issue 2). Saying "I like folksongs" is like saying "I like books." People will have a vague idea of what you mean. If they ask, you'll have to explain. This is no one's fault, it's simply one way that meanings develop.

My desk dictionary defines "folk song" as first, a 1954-style song ("originating among the people...passed on by oral tradition...several versions") and second as "a song of similar character written by a known composer."

"Of similar character" covers a lot of possibilities, many of them entirely subjective. (How similar to a traditional song, really, is an introspective "folksong" like "Both Sides Now"?) And not even serviceable definitions will quite fit every personal interpretation that's appeared on this thread, interpretations that people also insist are the only "right" or logical ones. You can accept the authority of a dictionary or encyclopedia or not, your choice, it's a free country.

People who really want a "proper" (i.e., authoritative) definition of "folksong" can peek in their own dictionaries, where they'll find similar (though not quite identical) definitions. Writers may do this, but millions of others won't, because they have minds of their own and aren't too interested in being "accurate."

The first definition has the value of focus and clarity; it also has the weakness of applying mainly to academic discussions. The second has the value of explaining what most people now generally mean when they use the word "folksong."

Yet the specific songs they have in mind, and why, may be hard to guess at.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 04:03 PM

PS:

As Steve Gardham implied, dictionaries don't define what words "really" mean or "should" mean. They explain what most people who do use them evidently do mean.

And, yes, there was a time, before about 1960, when most people who wrote of "folksongs" did mean "traditional,...oral,...several versions."

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 04:23 PM

If Gurst ecadre spent as much time listening to the huge resurgence in folk as he / she did in a withering explanation of how he / she has no idea, this thread might be known by its brevity.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 08 Sep 14 - 05:56 PM

How similar to a traditional song, really, is an introspective "folksong" like "Both Sides Now"?

Not similar in the least - a narrative pop song like Eleanor Rigby is closer. Next!