Well, hello there … it’s déjà vu all over again!

“Do We Still Need That F-Word?” was the title of an article published in issue number 68 of the magazine Living Tradition (2006). In it, I suggested that we might find it helpful to reserve the word traditional for ‘songs of unknown authorship, which have survived generations of oral transmission’, while the word folk might be more usefully applied to ‘songs – whatever their origin – that the members of a particular community sing regularly, and acknowledge as their own.’

An obvious example is ‘The Blaydon Races’. We know that the words were written by by George Ridley in 1862 (and set to an American minstrel-show tune).   So, it isn’t traditional in the same sense that - for example - ‘Lord Randal’ is. Nevertheless, Blaydon Races has been sung as their local anthem by generations of Tynesiders - at school, in their homes, and at football matches - and it seems petty and pedantic to deny it the status of a folk song.

Looking back on those thoughts with fifteen years of hindsight, I’m still willing to stand by them.

Wassail!