The great Irish Song theft conspiracy

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 03 Jul 02 - 04:32 AM

Jimmy C and Beachcomber have very good points. In the 17th and 18th centuries there was a fashion for ascribing jigs to Ireland as they tended to sell better. People had got it into their heads that Irish jigs were the best and the composers pandered to this belief.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: Grab
Date: 03 Jul 02 - 09:49 AM

Frank, can I say "bollocks"? Yep. Good. I suggest you re-read Declan's first post - he said that he was OPPOSED to ppl complaining about the Irish "stealing" songs, and that the fact some songs are popularised as "Irish" is just a part of the folk process.

I can understand why serious music researchers would get annoyed by CDs like "20 favourite Irish songs" though. It's rather the same way that films like "Elizabeth", "Braveheart" or "U571" annoy historians - they give the public the impression that the songs originated in Ireland or were written by Irish people, which is provably false for some of these songs (eg. Wild Rover). Whether it's a big deal depends on how much you care.

I'm not sure how you bring all this back to the Troubles - does everything ultimately come back to that for you, like Freud says it all comes back to sex? FYI, folk music hasn't been Britain's "national music" for ages, Britain's national music has been whatever the latest (American-inspired) pop music is, for over half this century, from American dance-hall jazz forwards. There sure as hell isn't anything "sacred" about it - just check out Shambles' threads about local councils shutting down folk clubs to see how much anyone non-folky cares about it!

For the record, many folk songs popularised by Irish bands (and sometimes labelled traditional) were actually written by English, Scottish or American authors. And many folk songs popularised by English bands were actually written by Scottish, Irish or American authors. Big fat hairy deal.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: GUEST,Frank McGuiness
Date: 03 Jul 02 - 12:34 PM

Dear Grabby Graham,

Can I say bollocks yerself? And now I'm quite sure we'll all just get along.

The English folk scene is where you will find English people claiming Britain's folk music as the national music, even today. Just ask the illustrious editor of Folk Roots magazine about it. He can wring his hands and bitch about the Celts, particularly the Irish Celts, with the best of them. For examples of English begrudgery towards Celts/Irish, see uk.music.folk newsgroup just about any day of the week.

My point is that the complaints about the Irish stealing English folk songs and taking credit about them is rooted in anti-Irish begrudgery, not fact. It is an urban myth, fueled by (some/many--take your pick) English people's anti-Irish tendencies. Why do they have anti-Irish tendencies? 30 years of being at war with the Irish does have an effect on the English national psyche. English people view the relationship between themselves and the Irish in many different ways. Of course many of them are positive. But many of them are quite negative, and I view the anti-Irish begrudgery so common on the English folk scene in the latter context, not the former. Others have a right to view the context differently of course, but that doesn't make my interpretation wrong, now does it?

What I'm saying is, the complaints Declan speaks of are, IMO, rooted in anti-Irish sentiments among English and some Scottish nationalist leaning folkers. I simply don't see these attitudes expressed when I am in the company of people who have little interest in the English and Scottish nationalist wings of the folk scene. It seems to me to be a phenomenon peculiar to the nationalistically inclined.

Cheers.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: DonD
Date: 03 Jul 02 - 09:03 PM

Creeping desperately here, in response to Kat's Stravinsky reference, and away from the skirmishing between the Tans and the IRA --

When Dame Myra Hess made her post-war return to the USA, my friends and I were kicked out at the beginning of the second half for uncontrolled hilarity and guffawing. During the intermission, the lady in front of us had referred to the famous Russian cellist Piatogorsky as "Paddy O'Gorsky", another shameless Irish theft that left us hysterical (we were only 17). We supposed he was related to that other noted Russo-Irishman, Marshal Tim O'Shenko.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: Declan
Date: 04 Jul 02 - 05:54 AM

In a similar vein to DonD's last post, there's a story that a well known classical violinist holidaying in Donegal was once introduced "And now we'll have a few tunes on the Fiddle from Hiudai Mc Mennaman.

And what about Peadar Rooskey and Pat Ganeeny. The list of Irish classical musicians is endless.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 04 Jul 02 - 07:16 AM

I read uk.music.folk everyday and I wonder when the last such thread appeared. I can't remember one at all.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: GUEST,Song Fein
Date: 04 Jul 02 - 07:44 AM

In the interests of peace, harmony, & parity of esteem, we are willing to admit that "Dirty old Town" & "The Shoals of Herring" are NOT in fact old Irish Folksongs.
However, in return for this major concession, we DEMAND that "The English" admit full responsibility for the unprovoked & unjustified promulgation of "The Wild Rover"

Crazy Eddie

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: Grab
Date: 04 Jul 02 - 08:05 AM

OK Frank, I got a bit OTT there, sorry. :-)

I'm not sure how it's an urban myth, for songs which are well-documented as coming from particular areas of England or Scotland. Sure, Irish ppl play some songs which originated in England. English ppl also play "Whiskey in the Jar". If you know where each came from, no big deal. If you say, "This is an Irish song" and someone says, "No it isn't, it was written by Fred Dibble from Chipping Norton, and the original broadsheet is in the Bodleian Library" then it's hardly a matter of prejudice.

I guess the thing is for those songs which don't have a well-known provenance. In that case, anyone can pursue their private agendas. And there'll always be some nutters around. Some may have reasons for being anti-Irish like getting caught up in IRA bombings (just as many NI Catholics have damn convincing reasons for being anti-English, like being shot and beaten up by English soldiers), and some may just be nutters out for a fight. It's not the whole English folk scene, it's just the loony fringe. That's the difference between saying "the English" (from your first post) and saying "some English nationalists", which makes a pretty serious difference! So you're right on that, it will just be those nationalist nutters who pursue this, the rest of us just want those nutters to stop bloody talking so we can carry on playing! :-)

I've checked the archives of UMF on Google. I can't find a single thread for the past two months on the subject. So I guess there can't be too many nutters around wanting to fight about it, compared to the number of "normal" ppl who just want to listen to good music. :-)

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: GUEST,Frank McGuiness
Date: 04 Jul 02 - 01:54 PM

The point, again, is that if you are looking for national origins of songs, there is a nationalist politics which not only informs that search, but defines it.

There are imbedded political agendas and assumptions inherent in the search for "origins" of folk songs by nation. The roots are in the European movement known as romantic nationalism, which is where the origins of what we now refer to as "folklore" and "antiquities" and "anthropology" and "archaeology" lie. In the very recent past, when Europe was constructing the modern nation-state. The nationalist study of folk song was part and parcel of that process, and while that now antiquated model of enquiry still drives the study of much folk song in Ireland and Britain's academies of higher learning, it is considered outdated in the US especially, because of it's racialist and nationalist assumptions and essentializing.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 04 Jul 02 - 05:11 PM

That would certainly be the case when considering the putative origins of older material, but in fact the majority of songs found in tradition are not very old; many began life in the theatre, music hall, vaudeville or minstrel show, and can in many cases be traced to their original writers. It is equally true that a great many songs circulating at present in the early stages of aural transmission were written by people who are still living or are only recently deceased; and are beginning already to acquire false attributions.

I do not see how establishing correct attributions or clarifying the history and origins of a song, where this can be done accurately, can reasonably be considered nationalist, let alone racialist. Perhaps some academics, in America and elsewhere, are over-compensating for the preconceptions of their predecessors; this is normal, but can itself be a manifestation of political agendas quite as destructive of objectivity as those which they have rejected.

It is all too easy to impute ignoble motives to others with whom one disagrees; harder, but more worthwhile ultimately, to approach even subjects about which one feels strongly, with a reasonably open mind.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: GUEST,Frank McGuiness
Date: 05 Jul 02 - 10:31 AM

Citing proper attribution for a song is never wrong. It is the way it's done that causes the offense being discussed here (as I understand it), Malcolm.

If we are to have a reasonably open mind, then that means accepting the fact that most of the Irish/British or Irish/English "arguments" are rooted, at least partially, in people's (usually unexamined) prejudices about the other.

I'm not saying that doesn't cut both ways, it does. But there are differences too, as I pointed out in my analogy about whites treatment of blacks in the US. Irish bigotry towards the English is a result of being on the shallow end of the colonial relationship, and living with the British as occupiers for centuries. OTOH, British bigotry towards the Irish on the folk scene seems, to me, to be rooted more in recent politics of the Troubles, and the fact that Irish music has, in the past few years, enjoyed more popularity than English and Scottish music has. So it really just seems to be more about jealousy, than anything else.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: GUEST,Frank McGuiness
Date: 05 Jul 02 - 10:39 AM

BTW, the reference I made above to uk.music.folk involved a fairly recent thread wherein Dick Gaughan challenged Ian Anderson's claim (my paraphrase here from fallible memory) that the Celts were getting more attention than they deserved. It summed up this whole argument rather neatly for me.

So I went to google.groups to check the archive, and I can't find the thread in question, of course. Both men are somewhat prolific usenet contributors, and I've just not got the time to keep looking. I do wish I'd saved the exchange, however. See how useful it would be now to quote the two of them on the subject!

What I did come across though, was an interesting thread on how historians view folk song, which is something of a side issue to this one. The argument that it is only one community striving for accuracy about the origins of songs is misleading, I think. There has never been a tremendous amount of accuracy among folk music scholars, most of whom have been amateurs, not professional academics, with an entirely different agenda. So I'll quote a good post from Dick Gaughan here, which may illuminate the bigger issues at work here for some.

Quote from Dick in the following post.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: GUEST,Frank McGuiness
Date: 05 Jul 02 - 10:42 AM

Quoted from post by Dick Gaughan in the Google Groups archive:

Subject: Re: Folk song as historical document...any help? Date: 2001-11-14 06:25:59 PST

A previous, unattributed poster had written:

>I need to be able to explore the validity of folk song >as a useful document for historians.

I doubt very much whether such validity could be proven to the satisfaction of historians. The orthodox historical method is to seek corroboration and supporting evidence and most historians would regard folk song as being interesting but necessarily anecdotal. Which is missing the point somewhat as they are different phenomena with different purposes.

Perhaps it might be useful to look at it this way - where "history" is largely interested in trying to establish what happened, "folk song" is largely a record of how those involved perceived and reacted to what happened.

Where folk song *can* be useful as historical evidence is when contemporary 'official' records of events were heavily tilted towards one point of view ("history is written by the winners") and the bulk of the songs give a different picture, as in the case of the 1798 United Irishmen attempted revolution in Ireland. In such cases, folk song can present an alternative view of events.

But given that songs present the subjective views of individuals, they are open to romanticism, sentimentalising (as in the 'Jacobite' songs of 1715-46 in Scotland), bowdlerising and misinterpretation. As an emotional record, songs are wonderful and probably totally truthful; as an objective record of events, they are often less reliable.

-- DG

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: GUEST,Frank McGuiness
Date: 05 Jul 02 - 10:55 AM

As a follow up to DG's post, I think Irish singers have a tendency to come to "own" the songs as performers emotionally, and that comes through in their performances of material, regardless of the song's source. Of course, the same can be said of other cultural groups too, but the "emotional truth" of the song is central to Irish traditional singers interpretation of any song they perform. The words often tend to matter less than the emotion evoked by the song. It is the emotion that is being communicated in a good performance.

Once an individual "owns" a song in this way, in the Irish tradition, it often does become "their" song, and other singers likely won't perform it publicly. It is a very different idea of ownership of song than the standard used by folk song collectors interested in attributing a song to a specific nation/ancestral group. Which is another issue I don't see being discussed here much, though I don't know if gnu was half serious or half joking when he said 'perhaps the Irish perform the songs better'.

Misattribution of the national origin of the composers of songs (folk or pop or jazz or gospel) is very common. So why is it that the British/Scottish/English focus so much on the misattribution of songs to the Irish, and not the other way around, or about other cultural groups/nationalities, d'you suppose? Prejudice is the only rational answer I can come with. I'm not suggesting it to be inflammatory at all. Declan asked, and I gave an answer I believe is at least partially correct.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: GUEST,Frank McGuiness
Date: 05 Jul 02 - 11:13 AM

And now one more thing, and I'll leave it to rest. The following link is to the British government's Commission on Racial Equality Adobe site. It is a report on anti-Irish prejudice and bigotry in Britain:

http://www.cre.gov.uk/pdfs/irinbrit.pdf

People will, of course, likely already have their minds made up about this. But it apparently still bears repeating: the Irish have largely been treated much worse by the British than the other way around, and that certainly continues to be the case in Britain, as this study found. It would be quite unrealistic to say that those prejudices and bigotries are not an issue in this discussion.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: Declan
Date: 05 Jul 02 - 11:18 AM

This has turned out to be a very interesting debate. Thanks to all who contributed. I've no doubt there's a bit of the truth in a lot of what people have been saying around here. For some the desire for accuracy is paramount, for others there is an element of begrudgery/jealousy/ prejudice.

It is possible, for example, to post accurate information as to the provenance of a song, without having a little side-swipe in the process. All I wanted to achieve with this thread was to get people to think for a minute before they make generalisations which others might find offensive. There have been several different points of view from a number of people who I assume are Irish. This is healthy and natural but goes to show that it is pointless to generalise about any group of people - the begrudgers might say it proves that the Irish can't agree about anything, but Brendan Behan had the right attitude to begrudgers.

I'm going to be off-line for the next couple of weeks as I'll be over in Miltown Malbay puting some of this theory into practice. I'll look forward to seeing how things have developed when I return.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: GUEST,Frank McGuiness
Date: 05 Jul 02 - 11:34 AM

And I for one suffer no delusions about the side-swipping of the Irish in this regard ending any time soon. But it is possible, in a small forum like this, to curtail it when we anti-Irish remarks occurring in our midst. As the study I linked to points out, it is just these sorts of so-called "jokes" about the Irish that feed the hurtful stereotypes the British hold of the Irish as frauds.

That said, have a grand time and enjoy the craic in Miltown Malbay!

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 01:41 PM

Interesting that "Craic" has now been accredited as a word of Scottish origin (I was told this by a friend who is an eminent Irish archaeologist!).

He also enters into the debate on musical origins and makes the point that the movement of Scots to Ireland and vice-versa has been occuring for over 10,000 years. There is now evidence for the first settlers to the island that is now Ireland (since the last ice age) having gone over from the area of Britain that is now known as Scotland. Since then, there has been a constant movement of people of all social classes between the two countries.

The other thing that makes it so confusing is that many of the people in North America who are probably of Scottish origin think they are of Irish origin as a lot of the boats last port of call was in Ireland to pick up fresh water, regardless of the original origin of the boat. Apparently, when the ship arrived in the USA the people would all be listed as coming from the last port of call if they couldn't be understood.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: Gareth
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 01:57 PM

Belated comment from Wales - We are proud to pray on our knee's and prey on our neighbours.

Click Here

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: Amos
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 02:02 PM

You lot do carry on!

It seems to me that these national labels mixed up with these genetic labels mixed up with these cultural labels mixed up with these commercial labels -- all using the same terms to mean different things -- are producing an incredible foaming up of codwallop.

As that famous Irishman, Mister O'Data, would say, "It is completely illogical!"


A

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: weerover
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 02:58 PM

I started to catalogue the Irish songs for which I have words in songbooks, record sleeves and so on, and enthusiastically copied from websites at the same time to keep the collection growing. I at first agonised over what I should include as Irish. I set a few ground rules:(1) include anything with specific reference to Irish places, people or institutions (2) anything which appears to have been in the irish tradition for generations (3) anything obviously Irish in language or context and (4) anything written by Thomas Moore, Percy French, Thomas Davis, Samuel Lover, etc.

I specifically did not include fairly recent Irish acquisitions from such as Ewan MacColl and Eric Bogle. Apart from a few particularly extreme examples, I did not "filter" on the grounds of taste or quality and I'm now at 2600+ and counting, many hundreds fairly recently added with the help of Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: Big Mick
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 06:26 PM

Neither Ewan MacColl nor Eric Bogle are Irish.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: Leadfingers
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 07:25 PM

Provenance is something which I and a number of friends think is of
greater importance than others think.It is absurb to credit a
'written'song to the singer,rather than the author,which is where all this bother starts.Just'cos some very capable Irishman sings 'Black
is the Colour'(and credits his source on record)does not make it an'Irish'or even a Christy Moore song.By the same token,if you've nicked a 'real'traditional song from a non source singer or group,
credit the singer you stole the song from if you dont know the 'traditional'source.And I speak as a known thief of songs,simply
because I'm incapable of writing any thing worth singing.I always
try to credit authors if known,and often singers if author is not known.
      Frank.I think you are overstating the case about bigotry.But
everybody should carry on singing anything they enjoy and the Hell with the clots who say'You cant sing that here,this a 'folk'or what
ever club or venue.Was it Burl Ives who when asked how he knew a
song was a'Folk'song said 'I never heard a horse sing it'.

Subject: RE: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: weerover
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 10:52 AM

Big Mick,

The fact that neither Eric Bogle nor Ewan MacColl is Irish is the very point I was making (I spent a weekend at Eric's house in Peebles once, so I'm well aware of the fact). The point is that some of their songs have become phenomenally popular in Ireland and are beginning to be regarded by some as Irish.

Subject: RE: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: Big Mick
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 11:25 AM

I specifically did not include fairly recent Irish acquisitions from such as Ewan MacColl and Eric Bogle.

Your post seemed to indicate that these were "Irish" songs. I didn't editorialize, but I also felt it was important that we not leave the implication here for future readers.

Subject: RE: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: weerover
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 01:15 PM

I can see that my wording could have been better - I tend just to type it in as I think it rather than compose. What I should also have said was that songs with specific Irish references are included regardless of authorship, such as Eric Bogle's "Plastic Paddy" and "My Youngest Son Came Home Today". It's a very mixed bag - because I was very unselective there are a few Orange songs in there, though heavily outnumbered by "rebel" songs.

Subject: RE: The great Irish Song theft conspiracy
From: Big Mick
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 01:29 PM

hahahahaha..........I compose the same way, and it has gotten me in trouble over a few times over my years here.

My Youngest Son Came Home Today..........powerful song. Thanks for reminding me of it.

Mick