The great Irish Song theft conspiracy

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: Hrothgar
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 06:05 AM

Let's pick a fight - aren't the Welsh reputed to be thieves?

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: greg stephens
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 06:00 AM

Come on Dekkers old chap. We're not allowed to say "the English" or "the Scots", for fear of being racist (your ruling, in your original post). I refuse to allow any of my English or Scottish blood to make me feel any collective responsibility for "Danny Boy", whoever wrote it. I hate it, because I can never make the high note. Do you think this Orac bloke is right, that it was written about Scotland? Seems unlikely to me. I know it's got pipes and glens in it, but I thought this was a general "celtic twilight" overwash on a portrait of Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: Declan
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 05:48 AM

Ok guest. The Kathleen thread didn't actually say steal - it said "claimed as trad. Irish" but I think this is not quite accurate. I'd say in most cases these songs have been attributed as trad Irish - in many cases by those who either knew no better, or were too lazy to go and check it out. Maybe I was getting a bit paranoid, but I've read a lot of these threads and the same stuff gets repeated again and again. Maybe I should have named this thread "Songs wrongly thought to be Irish" and everybody could have posted their favourites there. Then people could just add a link to that thread every time they felt inclined to rant on the subject rather than clog up the origin threads.

I'm all for accuracy. There are people out there who seem to feel qualified to publish song books who don't feel the need to research the material in any sort of a thorough way. But obviously there's a market there for this stuff, so they might feel there isn't any need for accuracy.

At the end of the day (as Roy Keane might put it) I think Rich M has the right attitude. I sing and play songs from many parts of the world, and if anybody can be bothered to listen to me, and they want to know, I'll tell them as much as I know about the provenance of the song. In the unlikely event that anyone was willing to record and publish any of that material I'd do my best to produce accurately researched sleeve notes, but there's no guarantee that people would read them.

By the way, as far as I'm concerned you (The English and/or The Scots) can have Danny Boy back now. We're finished with it !

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: GUEST,guitarfixer
Date: 27 Jun 02 - 02:01 AM

Irish groups tend to latch on to all kinds (usually good) songs or tunes. Of course, by they time they are passed around and recorded by 6 or 8 Irish groups, they are thought of as "Irish" songs. Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy had a pretty good hit with Bill Staines' "A Place in the Choir". Several groups "stole" it from them and I don't imagine many of them heard Staines' own recordings of it. On the other hand, many recordings have been made of Tommy Makem's "Four Green Fields" and seldom have I seen it credited. It is hard to keep track sometimes.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 09:52 PM

If you have corrections for any song origin threads, it would helpful if you'd post them in the appropriate threads, with whatever references you have. We'd like the Song Origins Permathread, with its links to those threads, to be as accurate as possible.

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: Midchuck
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 09:41 PM

One of the "Folksongs popular in Ireland" pamphlets that we have has Bill Staines' "A Place in the Choir," without any attribution whatever. I think Planxty liberated Norman Blake's "Billy Grey," more or less in cold blood, retitling it "True Love Knows no Season." I don't know if they paid any royalties, but I doubt it, since he grumbled about it in introducing the song at a concert once.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 09:30 PM

Last post referring to Lanfranc's post, but beaten to the Submit button by Den......

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 09:28 PM

It's NOT????? I thought it was ............... (insert nationality to taste in order to start another argument)

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: Den
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 09:24 PM

So the Irish are music thieves now...uhm! I thought they were all just terrorists and itinerants. Or is that just the crowd from the north...hard to know.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: Lanfranc
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 07:17 PM

Let it never be forgotten that "Sing Out" once described "On Ilkley Moor Baht 'At" as a Welsh folksong.

Errare humanum est.

Alan

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: little john cameron
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 05:31 PM

See there is a perfect example.Sonny's Drean was written by Ron Hynes from NEWFOUNDLAND.Ah'm surprised at ye Ewan.ljc

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 03:58 PM

My favourite reallocation as an Irish song is Sonny's Dream. A Nova Scotian composition, recorded in Dublin by Scot Hamish Imlach with Mary Black among the backing singers, then recorded by Mary Black herself, and at last performed on the Bringing It All Home TV series as a genuine Irish-American folksong. How irritating / embarrassing for all concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: gnu
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 03:44 PM

Perhaps the Irish are just better at performing these tunes ?

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: PeteBoom
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 03:41 PM

"people complaining that songs are marked or considered "irish" and they are NOT. "

Actually... it strikes me that Guest, 26-Jun-02 - 02:45 PM above, is slicing and dicing Declan's metaphores. I *believe* that the gist of Declan's original post (that songs like "I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen" and "Dirty Old Town" are considered "Irish" by many people) is not something to blame the Irish themselves for. The fact that The Pogues did a cover of Dirty Old Town does not make it Irish. Right? Blaming "the Irish" because of other people's assumptions (mainly Americans it seems) is silly.

It seems that Declan's main thrust is that there are folks too lazy to verify sources before posting in DT (and elsewhere) or so unscrupulous to publish a book of "Irish" songs that aren't.

The stuff I write is "American" although it may be written in a style similar to Irish folk or Scottish folk. If my cousin in Dublin sings it, or a friend in Ayreshire sings it, it is still American, not Irish or Scottish, but some folks may never figure that out.

Now let us quit violently agreeing... ;-)

Pete

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: MMario
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 03:08 PM

Guest does have a point in that as far as I can tell - recently - the trend has been in the other direction - with people complaining that songs are marked or considered "irish" and they are NOT.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: greg stephens
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 02:56 PM

well its been a friendly chat so far lets keep it that way, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 02:45 PM

I can't find the words thief/thieves/theft, or stole/stolen anywhere in the "Kathleen" thread.

Do you have an example of a "song origin" thread which "ends up with" a "list" of songs "The Irish" "stole" ? That is, it must be a thread about the origins of a song, there must be a list of songs (i.e. more than one) near the end of the thread, and in the same post with the list there must occur the words "The Irish stole" or similar words, with the object of "stole" being the songs on the list.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: Wolfgang
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 02:20 PM

I disagree, Pete, the second one looks to me like a later Irish theft of minor quality of the strongly worded true English original.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: PeteBoom
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 02:03 PM

Defintely, the second one is better....

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: greg stephens
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 02:00 PM

Sorry thought I'd lost the first letter, so I wrote it again and now it's reappeared. So youve gottwo versions. I think the second one's better, how about you?

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: greg stephens
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 01:56 PM

Come on declan, you can't expect people not to have a little chuckle finding "Any old iron" or the"lish young buy a broom" described as Irish. "Foksongs and Ballads Popular in Ireland" is thevery fair title of the little Ossian books, and that is a wonderful non-controversialway of putting it.
The English, Welsh, scottish and Irish have been sharing songs and tunes for untold centuries with enormous mutual pleasure. It is only a few rabid chauvinist cultural historians on all sides who stir things up occasionally by refusing to recognise this mutually beneficial borrowing, and adopt the line of "if it's sung in X it must have originated in X". And those sort of claims, believed by credulous people, do need jumping on, because they can feed feelings of ethnic superiority in inadequate people and we all know only too well where that can lead.
My own position is I love English songs and I love Irish songs, and most of the time I havent a bloody clue which are which. But just sometimes I do have a clue, and will take a humorous dig at any Englishman who claims "Spancil Hill" is an old Norfolk folksong.

PS Can we have St Patrick back?

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: greg stephens
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 01:36 PM

You're right Declan, it is boring.Those little Ossian song books that evrybody has are very rightly entitled "Folksongs and ballads popular in Ireland"...and it would be better if people remembered that.It doesnt say "Irish Folksongs".It's bloody lovely when songs move around the world and get adopted and changed andshared, and who coud object to that. But you must also understand that people will also get amused, or niggled, or both if a pattern develops of attributing certain musical itmems or forms to "Irish origin" when they clearly aren't( or if it's a moot point). "Any old Iron"and "Lish young buy-a-broom" have been raised as obvious examples in recent postings.
WThey are bound to make hackles rise if you call them "Irish", just as it would be plain ludicrous to go round calling "Spancil Hill" or "The

Flower of Scotland" English folksongs.
Thehistory of traditional music in Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland is a glorious mix ofpromiscuous borrowings and changing, and long may it continue. If lef to musicians it would chug along fine, but unfortunately contentious chauvinistic historians sometimes get a little predatory and then the feathers start to fly.AnwayI promise not to use phrases like "The Irish". In future, I will be very careful and only say "some Irish came and stole St Patrick from us, but the respectable law-abiding majority weren't responsible". I look forward to a reciprocal deal, and no more remarks about "the English" or "the Cornish" or "the Scottish" or "the Welsh". In fact, no rude remarks about anybody would be a grand Mudcat rule, but I might be being a bit optimistic.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: Mr Happy
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 12:58 PM

some years ago,a friend bought a cassette compilation called'songs of old ireland'

among the listings on the sleeve notes was, 'i belong to glasgow'!

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 12:57 PM

Hey, you sing about Kathleen, even if you are German you are writing an Irish song, I agree. I hope so does poor otherwise-misguided Kevin Reilly...!

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: Davetnova
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 12:57 PM

Well I have one songbook that has two entries for Macpherson's lament. One with eight verses is listed as a Scottish folksong, the other with only five verses is listed as an Irish folksong. So obviously the Irish were disturbed before they could steal the whole song.

Subject: RE: BS: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: RichM
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 12:56 PM

No one can 'steal' a song--I suspect this is one time I would agree with #1Peasant!
Some songs are like the wind: they don't recognize borders, countries, cultures or languages...They move freely because their musicality is recognized universally. I leave up to the scholars, librarians and historians to record and debate their origins.

I simply sing them, and enjoy them.

Rich McCarthy

Subject: The great Irish Song theft conspirac y
From: Declan
Date: 26 Jun 02 - 12:37 PM

Am I the only one around here who is starting to get a little bored with the fact that almost every song origin thread ends up with a list of songs that "the Irish" (whoever they are) have stolen.

For example a German American wrote a song about someone who he chose to name Kathleen (an irish name). This was then sung and recorded by a number of 'Irish Tenors' and lo and behold some people thought it was Irish. Is this a surprize. I suspect the author had an eye to the market in choosing the name. If he'd written "I'll take you home again Grunhilde (sorry about the spelling) it might not have sold so many copies.

Also a lot of Irish bands (both Irish and internationally based) have recorded songs that weren't written in Ireland. These may or may not have been properly accredited at the time, but not everybody studies the liner notes on albums, and some people may think they are Irish when they are not. The same is true of 'Irish' song books, not all of which are compiled by Irish people, who wrongly attribute songs as being Irish.

There are cases where people have changed the words to Irish place names to make them more meaningful to their audience. Some may have done so to avoid copyright, in which case they are guilty of theft to some degree, but this is surely part of the folk process. Were Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan thieves ? or did they just adapt songs to suit their circumstances.

I'd just ask people out there to think twice before they start generalising about "the" anything. If these threads were written about other ethnic groups they would rightly be the subject of messages condemning racism for what it is.

Or is it always only a joke ?

Rant over.