The Whole Song?

Subject: BS: The Whole Song?
From: GUEST,Jimmy C
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 11:37 PM

I just returned from a great time in Ireland visiting family and friends and while frequenting a lot of clubs and pubs I noticed on a few occasions that groups did not sing the entire somg. During one 40 minute set in particular it appeared that the idea was to get as many songs covered as possible, but by leaving out some key verses the story of the song was lost. My question is,

" Do you think it is OK to omit verses" ?. I realize that some songs are extremekly lengthy and can get quite boring, but in general is it not better to sing all verses. ?

Jimmy C

Subject: RE: BS: The Whole Song?
From: GUEST,mack/misophist
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 12:12 AM

I never sing in public. In the shower though. I freely omit the verses I don't like.

Subject: RE: BS: The Whole Song?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 12:20 AM

I only sing the first two verses of Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More". I figure that's about as long as the song can hold people's attention. In fact, it's as long as it can hold my attention. When I hear other people sing it in its entirety, I sleep through the third and fourth verses.

Subject: RE: BS: The Whole Song?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 08:23 AM

Why is this thread in the BS section?

Subject: RE: BS: The Whole Song?
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 09:42 AM

Yes, why IS this in the BS section?

Subject: RE: BS: The Whole Song?
From: Scrump
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 10:11 AM

" Do you think it is OK to omit verses"

Yes, as the singer you can omit what you want. Whether that's a good idea or will improve it is subjective, so don't be surprised if anyone in the audience thinks you've b*gg*red it up by leaving some of it out.

I sometimes omit verses on the fly, if I judge that the song isn't going down particularly well, or if I get bored with it myself and want to sing something else (or if I forget the words ;-)). But I would only do that in a 'story' song where leaving verses out wouldn't affect the story in such a way as to make it unintelligible.

Subject: RE: BS: The Whole Song?
From: Marje
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 10:35 AM

I suppose it depends whether the song tells a story, in which case it's plainly silly to omit verses if that leaves the story incomplete. But otherwise, with traditional songs there may be many versions, and a short version may be just as valid as a longer one.

I suppose if it's a recently composed song, it's only fair to the composer to try to sing all of it, but some new songs are just too long for their own good and deserve to be subjected to a bit of pruning. Long traditional ballads are another matter, and it's only to be expected that they should take a while, but it needs to be in the right context, with a receptive audience.

If there's a chorus that people enjoy singing, they want to have at least four repeats of it in order to get into it. I have a theory that four or five verses are about enough for most songs (largely because I can't remember long songs very well). The are exceptions; if the verses are very quick and short, or if there's a story that will keep people listening, it can run to a lot more verses. Most songs take somewhere between 3 and 5 minutes - maybe less if there's no instrumental padding. Any longer than that and you risk people getting fidgety, or the MC getting impatient because he wants to fit in another spot.

I guess it comes down to the same thing as a lot of issues in folk music: if you think about what you're doing and why, and care about the decision you make, you won't go far wrong.

Marje

Subject: RE: BS: The Whole Song?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 10:56 AM

It sounds as if at least some of the occasions you mention, Jimmy, were pubs where the owner has paid a group to provide Irish Atmosphere. The agenda of the group is therefore to "sound irish" and sing some "Irish songs" (you know the type - Dirty Old Town - written about Salford, Green Fields of France - by a Scot living in Australia).
In many such situations the assumption is that the music or song is there just as a background to whatever conversation and drinking there is going on. Nobody is actually expected to listen closely to what is being sung, so why should it matter if the odd verse is missed. Who really cares?
I generally would prefer to be in a situation where the band or singer is expecting people to actually listen and therefore treats the material with a bit more respect.
That said, sometimes I find it more annoying when somebody insists on adding verses which do not belong to a song (here is an extra verse I have written because I am a self important prig) as they usually spoil the original.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: The Whole Song?
From: Genie
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 12:23 PM

I second the sentiment that it's not necessary to sing the whole song unless omitting a verse would leave the story incomplete or miss the main point of the song.

In earlier centuries there may have been a demand for longer songs. People didn't suffer from "entertainment overload." But it's hard to keep people's attention much beyond 3 or 4 minutes with a song now.   

Also, some songs have a virtually endless supply of sequence-unimportant verses.

Geoff, as for adding verses, I think it's different when the "original" is trad. or author unknown.   The folk process involves improvising, either by accident or by design.
Oh, and people have been known to add a verse for other reasons than "because I am a self-important prig."   They may want to "update" the song* or make a one-verse + chorus song a bit longer - and if others pick up and sing that new verse, it's obviously not because of vanity.    My appraisal would depend on whether the new verse "fits" or not. The new verses don't always spoil the original.

*E.g., Joni Mitchell's song "The Circle Game" ends with the boy being 20 - about Joni's age when she wrote it. I've often wished she, or someone else, would add a verse from the perspective of someone closer to "the last revolving year."
On the flip side, I heard someone do a time-constrained version of Harry Chapin's "Cat's In The Cradle" recently, and she omitted the college-age son verse, and the story came through loud and clear without it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Whole Song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 12:38 PM

I confess to omitting verses, but I make that decision when I first learn the song, and not withoug careful consideration.

The easiest example would be a song like "Lord Randal." After is established that he's been poisoned by his "true love," there is a long litany of verses where the mother asks, "What will you leave to. . . ." and she goes through brother, sister, father, and in some versions, uncles, aunts, and cousins by the dozens. The next to the last verse, she asks what he will leave to her. Reasonable to assume that if he's her only support, she could be concerned about how she's going to get along. Then, what will he leave to his true love, and he responds, "A rope to hang her, mother!"

Reciting the whole family tree gets bloody boring for both me and my audience, so I skip over it until the next to the last ("What will you leave to your mother?") and then the last, where the punch is.

Makes for a tigher, more dramatic ballad.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The Whole Song?
From: Maryrrf
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 12:42 PM

Yes, I think it is okay to omit verses, as long as the story (if there is one) told in the song is clear. Many traditional ballads are so long that they would drag on for many minutes if you sang all the verses. That might be okay in a room full of ballad enthusiasts, but not okay in other settings where the audience had a shorter attention span.   There are some verses in songs which I just don't like very much so I omit them. Casting around for an example - OK Star of the County Down:

I've traveled a bit, but never was hit
Since my roving career began;
But fair and square I surrendered there
To the charms of young Rose McCann.
I'd a heart to let and no tenant yet
Did I meet with in shawl or gown,
But in she went and I asked no rent
From the Star of the County Down.

I just don't think the words flow very well and frankly I don't care for such lines as "I'd a heart to let and no tenant yet." So I don't sing that one. And there's a verse in "The Flower of Magherally" that says something about the Grand Tisrok Ali or some such nonsense and I don't sing that one either.

I think it's up to the performer.

Subject: RE: BS: The Whole Song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 02:02 PM

When I was at the University of Washington, I took a class in "The Popular Ballad" from Dr. David C. Fowler (he has a couple of books out), and when it comes to performing traditional songs and ballads, his opinion was that it depends on how you regard what you are doing.

If you are a scholar collecting songs and ballads, you should write them down as you hear them, even if you might find some of it boring or offensive. Good scholarship demands it. Also, if you are performing something as an example of an authentic, traditional song, you should sing it as you found it.

But his suggestion to performers who are seriously interested in presenting the spirit of the songs themselves was that you are walking a line between doing justice to the song and entertaining your audience. Changing a few words in a song if it makes a line flow more smoothly and it doesn't substantially alter the meaning or eliminating repetitive verses that don't add to the story, he regarded as okay, as long as it was done for a good reason.

He recognized that singers of folk songs who were professional entertainers had an obligation to their audiences, and some reasonable editing of a song, as long as it didn't alter or dilute the spirit of the song, he referred to as "exercising a minstrel's prerogative."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The Whole Song?
From: Skivee
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 02:29 PM

Generally we Pyrates try to keep songs to 5 to7 verses. This cuts down on the eye-glazing factor. I frequently cut verses if they don't move the story along.
On the other hand, I added a verse to Lord Franklin, cobbled from 2 half verses of early versions.
If you are a scholar, copy it exactly. If you are a performer, you have as much right to change stuff around as your performer forebears
did in bygone eras. This is how new versions of songs appeared.
The trick is to do it with respect for the original material.

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 01 Sep 06 - 05:39 PM

Please god can somebody find a way of cutting "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" and "The Green Fields of France" in half and do it well enough that they get more popular than the original?

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: GUEST,racheal blight
Date: 02 Sep 06 - 01:52 AM

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Genie
Date: 02 Sep 06 - 09:04 AM

Quoting Maryrrf: "There are some verses in songs which I just don't like very much so I omit them. Casting around for an example - OK Star of the County Down:

I've traveled a bit, but never was hit
Since my roving career began;
But fair and square I surrendered there
To the charms of young Rose McCann.
I'd a heart to let and no tenant yet
Did I meet with in shawl or gown,
But in she went and I asked no rent
From the Star of the County Down.

I just don't think the words flow very well and frankly I don't care for such lines as 'I'd a heart to let and no tenant yet.'"

---
LOL, Maryrrf!   Shows to go ya how personal tastes differ.   That verse is my favorite in the whole song, and the lines about having a heart to let but no tenant yet and asking no rent from young Rose are to me some of the best lines of the song.

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Sep 06 - 03:12 AM

I've been told that the art of the balladeer is to get the whole story over in the fewest words possible, this requires a good deal of imagination on the part of the listener. A perfect example of this is "Yangtse River Chanty" that Charley collected and put together. Lord Randal/ Henry my son, from previous correspondance, isn't harmed by just including kids and mother out of the extended family of the poor deceased. We leave verses out, for which we have had our bottoms smacked by some, I understand the argument that, in our examples, it changes the meaning and tone of the songs, well, that is what we set out to do. I don't think it is insulting to the writer but more of exploring how many different emotions can be wrestled from the words and music, and, just as important, it is how we percieve and interpet the song or songs.
My boredom threshold is about three and a half minutes, stretched maybe to four, at which point I glaze over and switch off. I don't think I am peculiar in this because it is possibly a Darwinian duration of most songs (survival of the best fitted!)
In all I think it is fine to leave verses out so long as it makes sense
Peter

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 03 Sep 06 - 08:43 AM

I don't go for this minimality-uber-alles line at all. When a ballad describes what six of the seven brothers do before the seventh does the killing, it's performing two *non-narrative* functions: decribing some of the alternate human responses to the situation, and involving the audience in a ritual where suspense and the passage of time are essential to the effect. The first gives the singer an opportunity to portray character, the second provides one of the most easily comprehensible ways for a modern audience to experience an alternative to the hegemonic soundbite/video-game culture of the present day. If you can't enact those ritualized repetitions in a way that involves the audience, you shouldn't be doing that sort of song.

Child ballads are miniatures compared with the narratives of the Middle Ages, anyway. People's brains haven't changed over the last 1000 years, just their expectations.

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Sep 06 - 08:50 AM

I often shorten songs.
Less can be more.
I would not sacrifice the narative though.
Keith.

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Sep 06 - 03:46 PM

It's hardly a matter of "minimality-über-alles." Nor is it a matter of the performer being unable to portray character or sustain the drama of a long ballad. It is that, in many ballads, there are verses that are simply ritualistic and neither reveal character nor add to the drama.

I am fully aware there are epic poems, which scholars believe were sung or at least chanted, that, literally, go on for days. In fact, it is believed by many that Homer's Iliad was one of these, recited or chanted to occasional chords (or whatever passed for chords before harmony was organized and codified in the recent millennium) played on a lyre or other plucked instrument. Beowulf is another. I haven't actually seen it in any book, but it's my understanding that one of the Child ballads (one of the Robin Hood ballads, I believe) runs over 800 verses.

I do a version of "Edward" that, when I encountered it, started with a long string of verses that said, "How comes that blood on thy shirtsleeve?" to which Edward responds that it's the blood of his old grey mare. His interrogator doesn't accept that and asks him again, so he says it's the blood of his old grey hound—and when she (presumably she, the ballad never makes that clear) doesn't accept that either, he continues through a whole flippin' menagerie before finally we get around to the meat of the story and he admits that he killed his brother-in-law.

Now, it is important to the story that he responds to the initial question with a lie, and when that doesn't work, he tries another lie. But from that point on, to have him continue in this vein, or for his interrogator to tolerate this beyond the first couple of times, undercuts the characters themselves and delays the narration for no good reason whatsoever. So I sing only the verses with the mare and the hound to establish his evasiveness and her persistence before he realizes that it isn't going to work and he confesses. Then we can get on with the rest of the story. It makes for a much tighter and more gripping narrative.

I sing a version of "Mattie Groves" that runs twenty-seven verses—very short by Middle Ages standards, but pretty long for modern audiences who are used to two verses, a bridge, and a final verse. Those modern audiences, of the "soundbite/video-game culture," follow it with rapt attention, because it is a gripping story full of suspense and it doesn't get diverted into whole strings of verses that are repetitious and merely ritualistic.

On the other hand, there are a few songs or ballads that I liked as found (good set of words, tune that I especially liked), but that I felt was incomplete, especially if it was a narrative,. I have selected verses from other more complete versions of the same song or ballad, did a little judicious rewriting if necessary, and inserted them. I'm fully aware that this is not the "scholarly" thing to do, but in these cases, I invoke, as Dr. Fowler called it, "the minstrel's prerogative."

I firmly believe that this sort of should not be done frivolously or indiscriminately and that deletions, additions, or changes should be thought about long and hard before doing them. But, in the end, this, after all, is what is known as "the folk process."

Believe me, it would make it a helluva lot easier to work up a set list for an evening's singing if all one had to do was pick one long narrative ballad. "Minimality-über-alles" has nothing to do with it.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Genie
Date: 03 Sep 06 - 04:05 PM

One type of verse that can be tedious (if there are many like it) is the kind where the first two lines are merely 'meter-rhyme fillers' to set up the line or two that really continue the story.
Verses such as "O the crocus in the early spring
And the aster blooms in the fall,
And my true love was such a ding-a-ling
That he burned down the bleeding hall!"

(OK, that's not a real verse, but I haven't been up long enough to think of an example from a real folk song, though they are there.)

Anyway, that type of verse - as well as the format where you sing the same two-line refrain or 4-line chorus between each two verses - can make a song very long.

Some songs, such as chanteys, involve a lot of repeated lines, because they are designed to make time pass more quickly.   Songs like Down In The Valley, C'est L'Aviron, Sinner Man, etc.
I often sing "condensed" versions, leaving out a lot of the repeated lines.

E.g., in "Sinner Man," instead of singing:
"Run to the sun, "Sun, won't you hide me? .... All on that day.
and
"Lord says, "Sinner Man, sun will be a-freezing," ... All on that day,"

I just sing, "Run to the sun, sun will be a freezing ... All on that day."

I don't even think I originated that shorter version, but that kind of condensed version does work well in settings where the audience expects a song not to go over 3-4 min.

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 03 Sep 06 - 04:53 PM

I think that there are a few other things that the reasons that the older & longer ballads were not just repeat verses boring themselves into a yawn. And I do agree with Don to a certain & again wit Jack. We all know the todays attention span is nil compared to when people entained themselves bu fireside & candle light. They also sang to their peers, both younger & older as ways of communication not just as entertainment. Lessons were told, say of subjects like courting, payback, sibling behaviors, marriage, life in a communal setting, etc. These lessons took repeating in not only the same songs but the same lesson could be learnt in a different fashion & cover the same topic but overlap an ajcent lesson area by singing a different song. It was a past time enjoyed by elders watching youth develop & feeling the joy & respect of knowing that a good lesson was being passed on & of the lesson being learned well. There's also the pride of hearing a mid aged singer knowing that an elder, possibly their mento is listening & hearing an old lesson getting pasted on by a former fleagling to a youth who's just hearing their fir the first time that it's not just a song getting past on but also a life's lesson. In some cultures one a song gets passed on from a mother to a daughter or father to a son, the elder will no longer sing that song, where before hand the younger singer wouldn't sing the same song without the elder's permission.
Also in the older & longer ballads there's a sort of trace building when sung within one's own community. The futher one looks, under the stone , behind the cupboard, below the floorboards not only the suspence build up but it's job was to draw in the listener who know ofthe same stone, cupboard & floorboards.

Todays society doesn't require the same from it's singer as it did long ago but it still requires the story at least if not the basics
of some of the lessons. Most of us don't need to know the whys & whats aboyt farming hunting, fishing, courting & all. Even when if we did we now learn them from otjer sources outside of our communities. So the singing of the longer & more complete texts of the ballads is a choice & a line for the singer to draw. The singer also needs to be aware of it's crowd too & where they'd like to draw the line. To long & you're lost your crowds ear, too short & you've cut the ear off prematurely.
I also think it's an important responsiblity for the singer to first know as much of & about the ballad as possible so the making of the song as one's own to sing is as possible as can be. The same would be true of making one's self as familiar with one songs versions, varients, cousins & offsprings as warranted. Of course this vcan only go so far & only be expected within reason. Thought the futher one goes with this the greater the grasp on the song, it's story, it's meaning, it's lesson & it's joy in singing & hearing. Voice also counts for something here too, as does presentation.
So what's been whittled & culled or added & replaced to should be given a decent amount of care & thought.

Barry

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: toadfrog
Date: 03 Sep 06 - 04:57 PM

Normally I sing a ballad, or ballad fragment, just the way I heard it. Or even leave our one or two verses that don't add anything in particular. As Ewan McColl leaves out the verse in Thomas Rymer about wading through rivers of blood.

Many American versions of the Child ballads are only ballad fragments. They are good fragments; sing them as they are. I for sure would not go borrow verses from a Scots version and try and paste them in, because they would sound artificial. If the audience knows the story, they can live with gaps. IMO, the question is not whether what you sing tells the entire story, but whether the song would gain or lose force if verses were added/omitted.

Often they gain something if not all the story is told. For example if the ballad is about a criminal (e.g. Young Hunting) we don't really need a lot of detail about how the criminal is punished. Some of the most bloody ballads just become unbearable if all the verses are sung; examples are McColl's versions of Lamkin and Sir Hugh and the Jew's Daughter. Those are extremely good versions, and I guess you should sing all the verses, if you sing them at all. I couldn't.   

And not all ballads are worth singing all the way through. My favorite version of Old Bangum is still the Burl Ives version, which leaves out almost all the story. It has a haunting effect the long-winded version simply lacks.

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Sep 06 - 05:10 PM

Yeah, Genie, I do pretty much the same thing on "Sinner Man." I learned it from one of Guy Carawan's Folkways Records, and that's the way he did it. Including switching from the melody to singing a high harmony line on the last couple of verses and going full blast! (Ending a performance with that is a great way to milk an audience for a couple of encores!)

Sometimes I'll vary the way I do a song, depending on circumstances.

For example, "The Old Settler's Song" (or "Acres of Clams," which Ivar Haglund used as a theme song for his 1940s radio program before he set his guitar aside and started opening seafood restaurants all around the Seattle area) runs nine verses. It repeats the last line of each verse twice, then the next to the last line, and the last line again. This essentially doubles the length of each versed and makes for a pretty long and repetitive song.

If I'm doing it as a solo, I sing just the four line verses without any repeats, until I get to the last verse, then do the repeats to wind off the song:

No longer the slave of ambition,
I laugh at the world and it's shams
As I think of my happy condition
Surrounded by acres of clams
Surrounded by acres of clams
Surrounded by acres of clams
As I think of my happy condition
Surrounded by acres of clams.

But if there are a whole bunch of people champing at the bit to sing along on choruses, I'll sing the whole shebang.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 03 Sep 06 - 05:17 PM

Some minor comments:

"The Whole Song" is an odd concept anyway, in our context. With something like "Lord Randal" - there's no such beast! Which version you sing, and which verses you include/exclude depends on the context and circumstances. Where there IS a story, it usually (not always) pays to include enough to tell that story. On the other ahnd, as was implied in earlier posts, part of the appeal of (traditional) ballads is that they usually DON'T tell the whole story!

I know that there are a number of long songs I do where I semi-consciously know which verses I can safely omit if the audience are getting bored, I need a drink, the landlord is looking at his watch or whatever. Equally there are songs where I know people expect standard short versions and where, if the conditions are right, I can sneak in other verses and turn the prism by which they see the song.

Shortening songs just to squeeze in more numbers in a set seems particularly pointless to me.

Regards

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Genie
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 03:09 AM

Yeah, Don, refrains and choruses can be saved for the last verse or thrown in after every other verse, etc., to keep a song from going into extra innings.

As an example of an omitted verse being "accepted," I first learned the song "Urge For Goin'" from an album by Tom Rush, and I began to sing it that way, starting out with the verse that goes:
"I had a [man] in summer time with summer-colored skin
And not another woman my own darlin's heart could win.
..."*
*(Yeah, I [shudder!] changed the words to sing it from my own, female perspective. Sue me.) ;)

Later on I learned that Joni Mitchell wrote it and recorded it before Tom - starting with a whole other verse:
"When I woke up this morning, the frost lay on the ground.
It hovered in a frozen sky and gobbled summer down ..."

Now when I sing the song in public, I often find some people surprised at hearing the first verse, because I guess a lot of other folks know mainly Tom's version.

Joni's lyrics are such that they tend to make all her verses worth including, yet some of her songs, including this one, can stand on their own just fine with a verse omitted here or there.

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 03:48 AM

I am wrestling with the question of how much of "Famous Flower of Serving Men" to sing, and how much if any to prune....

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 04:22 AM

Oddly enough, I sing two songs that are only one verse long each... people sit expectantly waiting for the rest when if they'd been listening they'd know the story was finished.

LTS

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: freightdawg
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 12:03 PM

TWOTEF for the attention span challenged:

"The legend lives on
'bout a ship that went down,
and a long song we don't have time for.
Just fill in the blanks,
for us culturally deprived yanks,
and we'll call it TWOTEF"

(with sincere apologies to Gordon Lightfoot)

Freightdawg

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 12:11 PM

Liz the Squeak, tell us more!

(or was that the end of the story?)

~ B in T

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Genie
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 06:25 PM

Another song that could go on painfully long if you included all the verses is "Battle Hymn Of The Republic."   I usually sing 5 or 6 verses when I do the song, depending on the setting, and even then I'm including 1 to 3 verses that most of my audience doesn't know. (They just join in on the chorus.) But I think Julia Ward Howe wrote at least 10 verses to it.

John Newton also wrote umpteen verses to Amazing Grace (not including the "... ten thousand days ..." verse, which someone (J W Howe?) added later.   Nobody sings even half his verses, do they?

The US Civil War song "Lorena" is a favorite of mine, and, as originally published, it has 6 verses. No chorus, but the last line of each verse is repeated.   I used to do the whole song but found people remarking about what a long song it was, so I dropped the 4th and 5th verses, and the story comes across very well without them - plus that leaves time for the instrumental breaks by the banjo, mando, fiddle, guitar, etc., to fill up the rest of the 10 minutes. ;-)
John Hartman (sp?) does a wonderful version of this song, using only the first 3 verses and not repeating the last line of the verse, but playing the whole tune on banjo between verses.

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Genie
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 06:32 PM

Growing up as a preacher's kid in churches where we had at least 3 hymns plus offertory music and choir anthem in every service, I found it very common for the hymn leader to announce something like, "Let's all stand and sing the first and last verse of Hymn # ___."
Now, in many hymns that works fine, but there are others where the lyrics have a definite sequential logic to them, and some just don't make much sense unless you sing the whole song.

My mother used to roll her eyes at the "verse sampling" used for some songs.   One Christmas carol stands out.   What on earth sense does it make to have the congregation stand and "sing the first verse of Good King Wenceslaus!?"
LOL

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 08:00 PM

The long ballads, as Barry was saying above, used to have a social, work, or educational function in addition to an entertainment function. The entertainment function is probably the only function that our general audience is now interested in, once we move beyond folk clubs or historical societies. It does seem a pity, given how much richer some of the longer ballads are.

I'm trimming down one of my favorite C. Fox Smith poems, "Old Fiddle," primarily because it breaks the 6-minute rule, but if enough people get interested in it I'd love to sing the W-H-O-L-E thing.

Anyone for another round of "Kilkelly Ireland"?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 12:57 PM

If I lead the song, we sing all the verses. Or at least all the verses I can remember.

If you lead the song, it is your call and I am comfortable with your decision.


Russ (Permanent GUEST)

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 01:11 PM

Another thought...

If you feel the need to shorten the song, i.e., sing fewer verses than you ordinarily sing, I would take that as a good indication that it is the wrong song for the occasion.

Notice that I am talking about shortening a song "on the fly" as it were.

If you want to customize a song, i.e., create your own version, that is just the normal folk-process at work.

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 01:11 PM

A classic example of a cut-able song is "Greensleeves," oft regarded by many who are not all that familiar with folk music as the quintessential English folk song. I was under the impression that not many current folk-oriented singers do this song any more, or have recorded it, but a casual check shows that it's still alive and out there. Anyway, I believe in its original (?) 1580s form, it runs some eighteen verses, most of which consist of cataloging all the lavish gifts the suitor has bestowed upon the lady, and culminates in his whining that after all this, she still won't flop for him.

Not quite the sweet love song that most people think it is.

I would say that what a singer does with this raw material depends on how they see their role in relation to the audience. If you are basically entertaining your audience, you might want to cut "Greensleeves" down to a manageable two, three, or four verses at most and maintain the song's recent image of pastoral sweetness (with maybe just a hint of its real nature). If, however, you are heavily into authenticity and see yourself in the role of educating your audience (and blowing their illusions, perhaps), you might haul off and sing many more verses, or the whole thing, revealing the lovely ditty's dirty little secret that it's really about courtly bed-hopping, and that the suitor is trying to buy the wench.

"Greensleeves" is kind of "either / or" that way. But I do believe that with many longer songs and ballads, one can maintain an authentic presentation and still cut some of the repetitive, ritualistic verses to make the song more manageable by modern audiences. Better that than bore them tears and make them lose interest entirely.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Genie
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 03:46 PM

" But I do believe that with many longer songs and ballads, one can maintain an authentic presentation and still cut some of the repetitive, ritualistic verses to make the song more manageable by modern audiences. Better that than bore them tears and make them lose interest entirely."

There's little point in actually singing all the verses if the audience is going to tune out all but the first 7 of them. :)

But I've never figured out how to cut this one down to a reasonable length without losing the story:

THE COWBOY'S LAMENT

"It's lonely in the saddle
Since my horse died."

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 07:06 PM

Along with

"Tom Pearse, Tom Pearse, lend me your grey mare!"

"No!"


or


"I'll sing you one-oh"

"Oh no you won't, you know!"

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 09:26 PM

One of the more lengthy love ballads that seems to be uncut-able:

My sweetheart's the mule in the mine,
I drive her without reins or line.
On the bumper I sit
And I chew and I spit
All over my sweetheart's behind.

(Sniff.   Overcome by emotion. . . .)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 09:51 PM

He stole my wife,
The horsethief!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 05 Sep 06 - 11:33 PM

I figure that if a song has a good chorus or refrain, it shouldn't matter how long it is--the audience will still enjoy it (assuming of course the singer is not reading it off a sheet--or especially out of the Blue Book of Death.)

From my perspective as an audience member that's certainly true--I love choruses. "I know the value of a kindly chorus". I also feel that if the song is good, like any other pleasurable activity--you want to prolong it. No cantus interruptus.

If I'm singing a song, I want to sing as many verses as I know, give any instrumentalists chances to take breaks, and in general spin it out and enjoy it. I hope anybody else singing will do the same so I can enjoy a good song well sung--with others' participation.

Admittedly I don't sing Robin Hood ballads (warned by Eric Bogle--or was it Dave Diamond?--"I'll fix you with Bold Robin Hood--that's 80 verses long") or Lord Randall ballads.   Though I do love the Little Musgrave ballad--at least the haunting version done by Planxty.

But I pity anybody who can't take 4 verses of Hard Times--there are only 4!--or 6 of Lorena. I find both very evocative of a long-dead era when self-created music not pre-programmed for a 90-second attention span was the rule for entertainment.

I sometimes feel I would have been more at home then--but of course there are the little negatives--like pandemics, no sanitation, etc.--which tend to tip the balance.

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 12:08 AM

I am definitely not in favor of "Reader's Digest Condensed Folk Songs." I do sing some long suckers. "Barbara Allen" gets the full treatment as I learned it from a song book that had pretty complete versions of most of the songs it contained. I've seen longer versions of B. A., but I've also seen ones a lot shorter. In the version I learned, it tells the complete story and I can't see that there is any way it could be improved by cutting. In fact, it never occurred to me to try to cut it, because it's all there and everything that's there is a necessary part of the story.

Believe me, I am most definitely not advocating cutting songs unless the cuts would tighten up the story and reduce a given song's boredom factor (endless repetition that adds nothing to the story).

Songs with choruses? If the audience feels like singing along, let 'er rip! I recall a memorable occasion when I managed to stretch "What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor" out for better than a half-hour. People started making up verses and they were having a ball, so I went with it. (Got pretty raunchy before we ran out of steam!)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 01:19 AM

As for "Hard Times," four verses? No sweat. The only problem I have (had) with "Hard Times" was that when I heard someone do it, I thought it was a great song and put it on the list of songs to learn. And then suddenly everywhere I went, someone was doing "Hard Times." Around here, it quickly became one of those songs that you just can't get away from, and it wasn't long before it was just worn out as far as listeners (and other singers) were concerned.

Well . . . I haven't heard it for awhile. Maybe I'll go ahead and learn it. All four verses.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Genie
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 04:13 AM

Ron Davies: "But I pity anybody who can't take 4 verses of Hard Times--there are only 4!--or 6 of Lorena. I find both very evocative of a long-dead era when self-created music not pre-programmed for a 90-second attention span was the rule for entertainment."

I agree that some people's attention span is bewilderingly short, and a song that's 6 or 7 min. long, including instrumental breaks and choruses shouldn't really tax one's patience all that much. But I don't think the push for shorter versions always stems from people being borderline ADHD.   In jams, song circles, and singarounds, the reality of the situation may be that one person stretching their turn to 7 minutes results in someone else not getting the chance to lead or present a song. Sometimes the consensus favors going around the circle 3 or 4 times, with shorter songs, instead of once or twice, with epic ballads.   

On the other hand, there's the mysterious phenomenon of the old-timey musicians or the fiddle groups playing the same AA-BB-AA-BB melody over and over for 20 minutes on end.
(OK, it's not really any more mysterious than when the Balkan line dancers link arms and do a Pravo or Les Noto for 20 minutes.   You kind of "zone out" and let the music and motion carry you almost hypnotically, and there's a strong sense of bonding and all that.
I guess what's frustrating is when part of the group is in the mood for that kind of social/musical experience and wants to do 20 min. of "Shallow Brown" in the slowest possible tempo, focusing on vocal harmonies, etc., and the rest of the group is hoping to hear or present a few more songs before calling it a night.)

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Genie
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 04:17 AM

Don, are you trying to tell us that people singing a song like "Drunken Sailor" actually got carried away and started making up verses that wouldn't be G-rated?

What IS this world coming to!!?

G

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Grab
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 07:34 AM

The one that's been annoying me for a bit is "It ain't necessarily so". Round our way, everyone seems to leave out the last verse. Up to that point, it just seems like a nice little comedy number making mild fun of the Bible, until you get that absolutely *classic* punchline of "You tell all your chillun, the Devil's a villain - well it ain't necessarily so" and you find who's singing it and why. Until you know that you're assuming the role of the Devil in singing it, you can't do it properly - without that, you're just mouthing the words.

Graham.

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: GUEST,Bruce Baillie
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 11:49 AM

...I've added several verses to 'Step it out Mary'

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 12:13 PM

read it some where that Step it out Mary was a song made up from an Irish childrens skipping song weith the words... step it out mary my fine daughter, step it out mary if you can, step it out mary my fine daughter cock your legs for tyhe country man!

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 08:20 PM

Well, as always, it's different strokes....

Have to admit I'd without doubt be in the group that wants to wallow in Shallow Brown--focusing on vocal harmonies--and forgetting about time. Sounds great.

But I wouldn't be likely to frequent a singaround where the norm was epic ballads--I wouldn't think you'd get many people who could sing them from memory--and if they sing from a sheet I'm likely out of there. So the sessions and parties I go to have, by definition, few long ballads--and virtually everything memorized.

But sea chanteys--the longer the better--I'm just captivated.

"Old time music"--just doesn't do it for me--I can get my fill of the same tune real fast--and go looking for chanteys, C & W, doo-wop etc. Which is too bad, since old-time songs are just great--how could it be otherwise with Charlie Poole, Uncle Dave Macon etc? Why don't old-time sessions do more of their songs--and fewer instrumentals?

Though I'll have to admit the issue of time usually doesn't enter into my calculations--mostly the venues I go to are music parties--so they can stretch out quite a while--they're not singarounds. The official local singaround seems to have been taken over, I believe, by the Blue Book of Death--it doesn't take many of those to ruin a sing. So official Open Sings have had to be replaced by individually sponsored parties--closed sings, as it were,--where the Blue Book is not seen.

Subject: RE: The Whole Song?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 08:29 PM

whatever works.