Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?

Subject: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From: Rastrelnikov
Date: 01 Dec 97 - 11:59 PM

I once heard a Welch song by a woman on NPR. It was chillingly menacing, even though it was unitellible to me. It's still the only really menacing song I can recall by a woman in any musical genre. And there are very few songs sung spitting angrily by men too. I'm just wondering why there are so few songs that are like that. Do folkies just not stay angry long enough to memorize the lyrics (as I can never remember the words to Follow me Up to Carlow)? Or are most audiences unwilling to listen to even one spitting angry song?

Subject: RE: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 10:07 AM

perhaps singing 'about' ones feelings is another approach to anger...in many cases, too much anger would interfere with the 'musicality' and cause people to not listen, but if the tune is right and the singer is personally involved with the issue, the anger will be transmitted...listen sometime to Bruce Phillips sing 'Enola Gay', or 'Yuba City'....or even 'Larimer Street' for some truly angry songs...

Subject: RE: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From: Gene
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 11:29 AM

Wanna hear a song SUNG ANGRILY?....listen to:

The Willis Brothers sing; WHO'S NEXT ON YOUR LIST?

Subject: RE: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From: Nonie Rider
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 04:24 PM

Few of us like being around angry people. If someone regularly sings angry songs in an angry manner, there's basically three possible scenarios:

1. You agree with him, in which case you're either all sitting on your anger (and would probably rather not be reminded of it), or are rousing each other to action. Rabble-rousing angry songs do exist, on every side of any serious political issue.

2. You don't care about his issue, in which case the angry singing would get tedious pretty fast. You might find it amusing or guilt-producing, but neither would make you inclined to pay him a minstrel's fee or invite him back to your coffeehouse for next time.

3. You disagree with him. That makes him, from your point of view, an idiot, a jerk, or a dangerous malcontent. Not only are you not gonna pay him to sing this stuff (or invite him to your next barn-raising), but maybe you and the boys oughta meet him out back and persuade him to wise up.

I suppose one COULD sing angrily about things that have no current political status, like a Baron taxing the Chandlers' Guild or perhaps Equal Rights for Picts, but if you can maintain anger on those subjects for very long, your audience will be quietly calling the men in the white coats.

--Nonie

Subject: RE: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From: John Nolan
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 06:25 PM

Sometimes a song's words can be angry or bitter enough to be sung quietly and still get the message over. Cy Kahn's "Going to work on Monday" for example which says:
The politicians in the state are nothin' short of rotten,
They'll fill you up with empty words and sell you out for cotton,
Powerful stuff. Then there's "I'm a good old rebel" which has some of the angriest words ever written. I'll only sing this to local historical societies and only then, when I do a presentation on the life of V.P. Henry Wilson, who was involved in Reconstruction after the Civil War. It is a measure of the deeply ingrained hate that had to be overcome. The last verse, rarely seen in print, is as follows (and no offense intended to anyone):
And when the war was over I joined the Ku Klux Klan,
And for the Yankee nation I still don't give a damn,
I love to see a nigger hanging from a tree,
But if it was a Yankee it's all the same to me.
No need to sing that angrily - and no need to sing it at all, some would say.

Subject: RE: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From: Gene
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 06:53 PM

Hoyt Axton does the BEST JOB I EVER HEARD on:

I'm A Good Old Rebel.....

Subject: RE: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From:
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 10:13 PM

Many artists have their own way of delivering a song. If the song is a protest song, or a song of anger, they will be able to put across the message in the way they best communicate with the audience.

Two examples:

Leadbelly is very angry when he sings the Bugois Blues. He was known to be a quick tempered and violent man, and the song is based on his experience of discrimination; but he still doesn't spit out the works with his teeth clenched. Even the guitar playing is not as hard-driving as it is in other, less angry, songs. The message hits me whenever I hear it. Even in 1997.

Billie Holiday is very angry when she sings Strange Fruit, but she sings it like Billie Holiday and she talks to me.

On the other hand, of course, Johny Cash's Sam Hall would be flat if Cash doesn't sing it angrily. Of course, this is a style in which he works very well.

Murray

Subject: RE: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From: Jerry Friedman
Date: 02 Dec 97 - 11:16 PM

Another expert at singing angrily is Bob Dylan, e.g., "Masters of War".

Subject: RE: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From: Bert
Date: 03 Dec 97 - 01:27 PM

It's 'cos songwriters are such nice guys and gals.

Subject: RE: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From: Jon W.
Date: 03 Dec 97 - 01:48 PM

I say, if you want angry songs sung angrily, you can listen to gangsta rap. Just please be sure I'm out of earshot first.

Subject: RE: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Dec 97 - 04:53 PM

My kids introduced me to the recordings of Billy Bragg, and I think they're worth a listen. There's real anger in his style, and his words pack a powerful message. Many of his songs are traditional, and it surprises me that they have appeal to my 20-something-year-old kids.
My oldest has recorded three punk rock EP's, and I must say he's quite effective in expressing his anger. Now, if I could understand the words, maybe I could figure out what he's angry about. I think that's a characteristic of punk rock - there's certainly a lot of anger expressed, but it's hard to determine the reason behind the anger. I'm much more at ease when my son sings folk songs.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From: Nonie Rider
Date: 03 Dec 97 - 05:05 PM

Jon's right. Rap's the obvious exception.

Mind you, that testosterone-fed male anger makes it almost impossible for me to listen to it. How the hell does anyone not react to it with fight-or-flight? Gives me a sore spine and jaw trying NOT to react.

I'm not dismissing it; it's a valid and elaborate art form. But I don't go see murderous paintings or angry performance art either.

Punk I'll have to take other people's word for. Once someone starts slamming their guitar strings angrily, I can't make out enough lyrics to tell.

Subject: RE: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 04 Dec 97 - 07:16 PM

Again, I dunno. Seems to me that Picasso's Guernica was pretty damn angry. Dick Gaughan often projects vast quantities of anger (some unkind soul described it as singing like he was passing a kidney stone). In a more trad vein, Aunt Molly Jackson was preet good at expressing anger.

Trouble is, it's hard to transmit anger by singing angrily--too many listeners just shrink away.

Subject: RE: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From: Barry
Date: 04 Dec 97 - 09:14 PM

Try "Big Hewer" (by Ewan MacColl) or "Crooked Jack" (tune; "Star Of The County Down) without the voice of anger & (in my opinion) it falls short of it's mark. Try the "Star Of The County Down" in the same fashion, in front of a group & you'd be the mark. Barry

Subject: RE: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From: BK
Date: 04 Dec 97 - 10:14 PM

Ditto on rap; except I'm not sure anger and woman-hating-rape-glorifying are the same things.... You want to try "come out ye black and tans" for some anger; it's a good one, and it has resulted in some IRA oriented Irish groups not invited back... Is their anger legitimate.. I would think so... is it necessary now...??? I'm sure it depends on whom you ask. But I can handle it (most of the time..) I can't handle the hate mongering rap. (and for many of my freinds Dillan was an angry, expressive, persuasive blues singer - for me, he was a clean-handed white city boy, who had not likely ever done a lick of manual labor - let alone real dirty work, in his life, ripping off a black schtick. He also seems to have borrowed an occasional tune from Jewish/british isles folk music; I know, the Irish do it all the time... I just don't like him, and never took him as genuine.)

Getting Crabby, better go...

Cheers, BK

Subject: RE: Why aren't more angry songs sung angrily?
From: leprechaun
Date: 05 Dec 97 - 07:51 PM

Bob Dylan got to where he was singing "Like a Rolling Stone" angrily spitting out the lyrics, ostensibly in frustation at his fans' criticism of him for "betraying" his folk music origins. He stole from all styles. Another spitting angry song by Dylan was "Ruben Carter."

Rastrelnikov: Nell Flaherty's Drake and Bold Thady Quill sound like the same tune to me.

Pieces of "Mrs. Murphy's Chowder" (One of my all-time favorites) can almost be sung angrily.