Good Songs You're Sick Of

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 25 Feb 15 - 01:33 PM

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Acorn4
Date: 25 Feb 15 - 03:53 AM

The anchor at Sidmouth impose a £10 fine for singing "The Wild Rover".

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Elmore
Date: 24 Feb 15 - 08:58 PM

At this point, I'm not sick of most of the songs that were listed at the top if this thread. I never liked Danny Boy 'til I heard the sublime Carol Noonan song ot.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 24 Feb 15 - 06:36 AM

But it's good to hear all of these songs once in a while. Especially for newbees.

Do any clubs actually keep a list/diary of what is banned or frowned upon? Then maybe they could auction or raffle the opportunity to sing one of these songs again after, maybe, six/twelve months? ;)

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Feb 15 - 06:14 AM

i get a bit pissed off with my own songs. you get the most popular ones requested time and time again. you end up wondering how to push the programme forward.

obviously its nice when you see a new audience laughing their asses off - but it sort of sets the mood. and usually - cos i never get many gigs - not being a serious artist singing about the first world war or some shit that happened the 12th century, something acceptable to the middle class remit. usually you haven't got a full a full evening to push the envelope to expand into.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 24 Feb 15 - 06:02 AM

At the risk of upsetting many open mic singers, mine is Hotel Califormia. At best I find it an ok song, at worse the beginning of rubbish modern cross ovr Country. but my big objection is you can't seem to go a month round the Folk and open mic scene without hearing it done yet again in the same old monotonous way, pleae someone put it in musical Room 101 and never let it be heard again. I'm rather tired of Jolene too!

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Bugsy
Date: 24 Feb 15 - 02:32 AM

Hallelujah!

Wild Rover

Fields of Athenry

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 23 Feb 15 - 07:10 PM

Pretty much everything from mid century folk boom. I have to be in a pretty nostalgic way to get through any of my 400+ LPs these days. They just have old sentiments.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: olddude
Date: 23 Feb 15 - 06:32 PM

Anything by ppm. I love them but enough already

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Feb 15 - 09:23 AM

Around here, everyone's been singing "Seven Spanish Angels" lately. It's a very nice melody, but after a certain number of repetitions you figure out the story in the lyrics, and then it becomes unbearable.

The same thing happened with Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" a few years back. But in that case people came up with lots of alternative lyrics and transformed it into a humorous song. Maybe that's what we need for the Spanish Angels.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST, DTM
Date: 23 Feb 15 - 05:45 AM

Alas, "Wagon Wheel" is swiftly falling into the 'done to death' category. Pity because it's a super song. Oddly enough, a Canadian friend of mine told me recently he has just discovered this song.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,Richard -Musket - Thompson
Date: 23 Feb 15 - 02:55 AM

Meet me at the folk club, don't be late
I need to sing some Richard and it just won't wait
Blow out the candles and turn on the light
I don't want to hear "The Bright Lights" tonight

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST, DTM
Date: 22 Feb 15 - 07:47 PM

As soon as I hear the first two or three words of 'No Man's Land' or 'The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' I cringe. Great songs but their misery has been done to death. (Sorry no pun intended).

Also, any song with more than five verses & I'm ready for bed.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Acorn4
Date: 22 Feb 15 - 06:16 PM

Athough I do like Bob Dylan I nominate "Knocking on Heaven's Door"

"Someone take this guitar off of me..."

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,Learaí na Láibe
Date: 21 Feb 15 - 09:35 PM

I just came across this almost 11 year old thread by accident while researching a song. Some of the songs mentioned remain as overdone as ever.

However, I only ever remember hearing one singer singing "Dancing with Bears". I don't think it's overdone in Rebel Cork.

I also haven't heard "Roddy McCorley" for years, it's been replaced by the much inferior "Seán South". I'd say many younger people wouldn't even recognise "Roddy McCorley".

"Caledonia" seems to be sung every night by some singer in every bar in every county in Ireland in the last few years. Sometimes you'll hear it twice in the same night. It appears to be the default song for many females. That song can also be included in the list of "Irish songs that are not Irish at all".

Lovely song nevertheless, but.........

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: emjay
Date: 10 Jun 04 - 08:38 PM

WEll, as an audience member rather than a performer, I will be a lot more sensitive to the feelings of the performers. I'm afraid I have seldom given much thought to how many times they have done the song when I go to a concert wanting to hear it.
I've gone to one Peter, Paul and Mary concert, and they did sing Puff. One Pete Seeger concert and he did Abiyoyo. And so on. I am more grateful than ever after reading your posts, but it won't stop my wanting to hear them. Some are so familiar from having played them over and over but I've never heard them live and that is what I really want when I go to the concerts.
And how awful that I LIKE the maudlin ones. Fields of Athenry; Kilkelly, Ireland; The Band Played Waltzing Matilda; It doesn't say much for my depth of character, I guess, but I do go to a concert hoping to hear them, and most times there is someone there who has never heard the songs before. Just as I have never heard so many mentioned here.
Just think how fortunate you are that you can sing something people want to hear so much. Not just the song, but you the performer must be pretty good.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Jun 04 - 08:01 PM

wouldn't any one of us be proud to have written any one of these songs?

As a songwriter I know I would

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,Working Men from Rita McNeil
Date: 10 Jun 04 - 06:26 PM

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Leadfingers
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 10:05 PM

The whole point is the WAY songs are done.If a really good song is done too slowly(or too fast) by the wrong singer, it can effectively
kill the song. And the Irish Song thing can be laid firmly at the door of those publishers of books that state 'The Irish Song Book' and then include songs written by Australians Scots and Americans.
AND of course where the song is performed.A Folk Club or Concert
Audience might not be impressed by your Wild Rover, but do it as part of an 'Entertainment' evening and the audience will be stomping along in time.
Innaccuracies and factual errors are what stops me doing some songs The Witches being an example, when the number of women killed by the Inquisition is usually greater than the population of Europe at the time of the Inquisition. And The Alamo -- Young Davy Crockett was about sixty wasnt he ?? Gawd I could rant on for ever but I must go and rehearse American Pie for my next Medieval Banquet.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Snuffy
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 08:12 PM

Mick

Yes, Streets of London is an ANGRY song, not a sweet, melancholy thing. Do it right and the power is amazing.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 07:38 PM

Maybe the thing to do if a song seemns too overdone to sing it is take a trip to somewhere where they've never heard of.

Probably most of the songs mentioned in this thread are ones I've either never heard at all, or only heard live on a handful of occasions.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 07:32 PM

"When all men sing"... I wish they would bl***y wel shut the f**k up!
Danny Boy... I leave the room
I like Waltzing with Bears tho

No accounting for taste is there?

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Big Mick
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 07:28 PM

Yeah, Rich, I know. I guess I just enjoy trying to put a spin on it that makes even tired old folkies take notice.

But as I said, I have put it on the shelf for a while because I am tired of it.

Mick

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Rich from Milwaukee
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 07:16 PM

City of New Orleans
The Dutchman (sorry, Michael, I love the song but enough is enough)
Anything by John Denver or Gordon Lightfoot
Any song that received significant airplay (unless done in a creative fashion, e.g. Sons of the Never Wrong doing "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" as one part of three in a blend)

RfM

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Big Mick
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 03:43 PM

It is important to acknowledge that the reason many of these songs are done to death is because they are wonderful songs. I delight in taking them and interpreting them my own way, and letting them wring the emotion out of a crowd that they were intended to do. I did this during my mini concert at the Getaway with "This Land". I was nervous as a cat about it, as I knew I would be in front of a very savvy group of folkies, but I wanted to see if I could take it back to the protest song it was originally intended to be. I think, and it is just my perception, that it worked.

I do The Streets of London as a "wake up, willya?" type of song, oft times substituting the name of a local town for effect. I make sure the arrangement is done in a way that makes one think.

Another song that I try and do a bit different is The Dutchman. It is done to death, but I try and almost act it out as a thespian would. And I only do it in the right venues. Truth be told, though, I am ready to let it lie fallow (to use Jerry's term) for a while now.

Just a little counterpoint.

Mick

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 03:23 PM

Dave Clark Five is a song you're sick of... never heard it :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Peter Woodruff
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 02:24 PM

Whatever happened to the Dave Clark Five?

Peter

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 09:08 AM

Hey! Are you the legendary Crazy Man Mickey of Black Rock Turnpike fame, arisen from the Ashes? If so, I've missed you, buddy! I figure nobody else did Old Blue Suit once, let alone got sick of doing it unless it was the original ACSB.

PM me, will ya? Even if you aren't the legendary Crazy Man. You're still a fellow Nuttymega.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,guest tom
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 08:41 AM

If performers can't bring something new to a song ,something that expresses the spirit that went into the songs composition ,they should leave it alone . I used to think The Holy Ground had been nearly murdered by countless drunken renditions until I heard a young woman singing it in a bar, slowly and gracefully ,without the shouted Fine girl ye Are chorus.
Television adverts are the worst killers of songs . The First Time Ever I saw Your Face could survive Top of the Pops but not the British Gas ad. May it rest in peace

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 08:21 AM

No offense taken, Mickey. Just tell me where you live :-)

There are songs I've written that I still think are good, but I'm sick of singing them, myself. Robert's Rooster is one. I never sing it, unless I run into Naomi Solo. She loves that song, and I know I'll never get away with NOT singing it, when I see her.

Even good songs have to lie fallow. Sometimes for a lonnnnnh time.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: MickyMan
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 05:54 AM

How about "Old Blue Suit", by Jerry Rasmussen. Kind of just kidding to get somebody's goat there, but the people I sing with did totally wore that one out in the 80's. We don't seem to sing it as much any more...but come to think of it , it qualifies as a great song that meant a lot to us for quite a while. Keep 'em comin', JR.
This thread has been very useful to me. I'm putting together some sets for gigging in an Irish/Celtic venue here in CT, USA. I'm getting some great ideas of what will go over well with audiences because the way I figure it... if everybody's sick of these wonderful songs then I should start doing them until I get sick of them too. I'll bet the listeners will love them, and I haven't done that much Irish/Celtic, so I will too.   Oh well, if they're good songs I won't mind, will I.
Now if you will please excuse me, I need to go work out "Puff, The Magic Dragon". Come on... you all know you loved it the first time you heard it.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 07:52 PM

"We Wish You a Merry Christmas" - people always seem to miss out the last verse about "Or we'll break all your Bloody Winders", which I think is a pity, because it drives away the slush.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 02:15 PM

"I hate to say it, but we were hoping you would do "Barrett's Privateers", as well as "The Unicorn", "Wild Rover", and "Streets of London""

Ya might get 2 outa 4... The Unicorn I refuse to even learn, and I've never done Streets Of London...

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: KateG
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 11:31 AM

Actually, I grew up in Westport, Ct. But that was 35 odd (very odd) years ago, before it became a yuppie paradise. Yes there was money, but conspicuous consumption was definately frowned upon. Very few Cadillacs, lots of VW's. Can't recognize the place now...it looks like an upscale NJ mall, all sense of restraint long gone. To the best of my knowledge only one of my high school classmates still lives in the town.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 08:35 AM

Westport, Connecticut, by the way, is like the Rodeo Drive of the East in a pretentiously unpretentious sort of way. Paul Newman and Joan Woodward live there, among others. A few years ago, my Gospel Quartet sang at a Sunday brunch at a very exclusive Inn in downtown Westport. From what I remember, the Inn only has eight suites. We were given a tour of some of the suites by a friend of mine who was working there at the time, and they were luxuriant beyond belief. The cost per night was in the thousands off dollars. Movie stars and the jet set come up from New York City to stay there. Luther Vandross had brunch there one time when we were singing. I tried to get him to come up and do a gospel song, and we'd back him, but I guess we WERE kind of intimidating, and he declined the offer.. :-)

How do you know about Westport, Amos?

Jerry

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 08:25 AM

Flower of Scotland, sung drunkenly or requested drunkenly! Oh...sorry, I forgot the thread was about GOOD songs...

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,Johnny in OKC
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 01:56 AM

Every Twelve-bar blues.

I groan in agony with each predictable chord change.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: open mike
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 01:45 AM

i ws looking for the favorite christmas songs thread...
was going to post this when the cat went down..
now can't find the thread...part was pro/con little drummer boy
I am in the pro drummer camp!

funny, i would think musicians would appreciate
the sentiment in "Drummer", that the gift of music
is the best gift of all...

and i would have to vote for John McCutcheon's
song Christmas in the Trenches as the best all-
around song for the season. It tells the story
(true) of how music helped to bring an end to
war, if just briefly, and was a unifying factor
between soldiers on "both sides of the rifle"

the song that bothers me the most when sung in public
is "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" because they
usually enunciate the "sh" part and slur it til
it gets all mushy like figgy pudding...

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Callie
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 12:50 AM

Maybe we could announce a ten year moratorium on these songs. With a decent break it will be nice to hear them again!

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Amos
Date: 17 Dec 03 - 11:25 PM

Oh, Jerry -- stay outta Westport Connecticut, man. It's has been invaded and overrun some thirty years since by aliens from another lifestyle, I yam here to tell ya!!

A

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Dec 03 - 10:32 PM

Good points, blackcatter: From a performer's perspective, there are certain songs that you feel you almost HAVE to include in a concert. If you don't, people will ask why you didn't. Rick Nelson pretty much summed up that whole experience in Garden Party. I don't think that most performers mind singing their few songs that they've become identified with, as long as they can mix in new songs, and songs they do infrequently. The only catch is if you really get SICK of a song that people are often requesting. It can sometimes be hard to keep a song fresh and interesting to yourself, that you sing a lot.    Musicians who are on the road and do as many as 200 concerts a year (and I've known some) sometimes can sound like they're on auto-pilot singing the same songs night after night with the same introductions and the same rehearsed impromptu comments and asides. I don't blame singers for that. Being on the road is about as draining a way of life as there is, and people have to find some way to survive. Fortunately, most of us bask in relative obscurity, so we're not as likely to get sick of songs we perform.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Blackcatter
Date: 17 Dec 03 - 08:54 PM

I see two interesting things in the above posts.

1 Many posters are complaining that performers are singing the same old tired songs over and over.

2 Posters who are performers are complaining that audiences are constantly asking for the same old tired songs over and over.

Hmm . . .

What I see is that a lot of the general audience members only occasionally attend live performances of folk musicians and they are looking forward to the songs they know to be mixed in with ones they have never heard before. Plus, it's common knowledge that most musicians take requests, and some people almost feel duty bound to put in a request along with a few bucks to thank the performer.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Dec 03 - 08:23 PM

Poppa Gator: I heard the Preservation Hall Jazz Band play in Westport, Connecticut a few years ago to a very well-healed, BMW audience. They finished their concert with When The Saints Go Marching In and invited the audience to march up onto the stage and around, and then march down the other side. The audience thought it was terminally cute, and there were more giggles than at an eleven year old's pajama party. I was one of the Saints who went marching outta there as fast as my feet could carry me.

Puhleeeeeeze!

Jerry

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: fantum
Date: 17 Dec 03 - 07:10 PM

And the band played waltzing Matillda
Again and again and again.....
A really great song but every performer who wants to be on for hours gives it another whirl. I see from some of the above posts others share my views. And then the ever popular Summertime done as jazz done slow done with trills but most of all done to death. The wild rover and the Manchester rambler will send me on tour anyday. When they start this musical wallpaper my heart sinks my boredom chip activates and like a reptile in the cold I drift into torpor. It must be obvious to performers that these songs need a rest. Give us all a break learn something less well known. Please

Fantum

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 08:44 AM

There are "done to death" songs which are relatively new, and get sung around a lot for a time. And there are songs which are quite long in the tooth, or been traditional, and everyone assumes everyone knows them, and in fact you never hear them sung. And when someone actually sings them you get a shock of recognition. (Yes, and there are songs which have been around a long time and which get sung pretty often as well, but that's understood.)

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,Winston Wellington-Jones
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 12:15 AM

If I hear fecking "Danny Boy" one more time----!

(some heads are going to be broken)

"Amazing Grace" is also quite annoying, but I combat this by simply remembering a certain barmaid in Kent who had some quite extraordinary physical endowments, and then I rather enjoy it.

WW-J

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Joybell
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 04:38 PM

Yes Mickey I love all of the songs I mentioned too, and I still sing all of them. The whole Irish thing puzzles me as well. If I feel I can relate to the sentiments in a good song I'll sing it, but songs become such good friends that you feel compelled to get to know them - and their roots, and the conditions around them that gave them birth. I'm doing great too, Mickey. Glad you are too! Joy

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 04:27 PM

I second Amazing Grace, also could do without This is a song for All the Good People

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 03:32 PM

Interesting dichotomy posed here-- I agree that Hard Times is overdone. BUT knowing that you can get 100s of people all singing it, that's FUN!
Similarly-- Wild Rover. If you sing in an Irish pub, then that (and Danny Boy) will probably be on the "request" list constantly. . . but maybe you can get others singing!

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 02:53 PM

Anything sung by Bob Dylan