And finally, on the music and music scholarship:

What song do you want at your funeral?        24 Feb 01

For me, "Linden Lea", I think. 'Spaw's choice is pretty damn good, mind.


Lyr Req: Reynardine as performed by Pentangle        13 Apr 01

Ah; he made it up, then. That's all I wanted to know. Where traditional songs are concerned, I think it's important that people do not tell lies about their provenance, as it confuses the issue. You have to remember that these are not just songs; they are also a part of our common heritage, and of our history. They do not belong to individuals. Deliberately to falsify historical evidence is to defraud us, and our children, of their rightful inheritance; which, above all else, should be the truth.


100 Years since Cecil... 15 Oct 03

For one thing, it needs to be no longer a self-conscious and deliberate thing, something you go out and do on purpose on, say, Thursdays and at no other time; but something which is an integral part of your life and as natural and normal as hoovering the stairs (well, perhaps having a beer is a better analogy. I don't hoover the stairs that often, though I gather there are people who do).

As you know, I'm very interested in the background, and the minutiæ, of the whole thing; but that's because it's a study of something living. I'm not interested in history for its own sake, but because it's the history of people like us and their lives, and that makes us what we are now. If we lose sight of where we've been, we are likely to get lost. That's why, I think, so many people are lost; they think they exist in a discrete, separate "now" in which only they are real. "There is no such thing as Society", a famous and rather regrettable person once said; "only individuals." That was a grotesque and destructive heresy. You might as well say "There is no such thing as an Individual; only molecules."

Folk music, if we are to call it that, is best preserved by living it, rather than doing it. Not necessarily in arts centres, but just in the normal course of everyday life. Capitalism tends either to ignore those things which do not lead to immediate profit, or which cannot readily be made into private property; or to fear and despise them (hence all those half-witted jibes from "clever" journalists about beards and so on). If it is not "product" then it is beyond their control, and that diminishes both their self-image and self-importance.

Cecil Sharp believed that he, and those like him, were saving from oblivion something important and beautiful which possessed an inherent regenerative power. Whether or not we agree with that, or with how they went about it, we have the results of their work. The majority will no doubt continue to snigger; be damned to them for the fashion-victims that they are. Live it, be passionate about it; believe in it. That's the way to make converts in the long run.


Sex and Instruments.         23 Dec 03

    See what you've done now, jOhn? These people are not going to rest until they've listed every woman who has ever lived who can be shown to have played a banjo at some time in her life.

    A couple of examples would probably have been perfectly sufficient by way of illustration, but that isn't how things work in threads like this, of course. We can expect a great many more names to come, I have no doubt; but I can promise all female banjo players of my acquaintance (including those now deceased) that I will not betray their trust. They will not be named here by me.

    Since I, too, am a little bored and looking for excuses to postpone something more important that I ought to be doing instead, I'll just add the following, absolutely fascinating nugget of information.

    My grandmother, although she had ready access to a banjo for some 30 years, never once gave in to any temptation she may have felt to play it. Not only that; she deliberately hid it from her husband, and concealed its existence from her sons (except for my uncle John, who is deaf and therefore immune from banjo-related problems). As soon as she felt I was old enough to understand, she gave it to me (on the grounds that I was the only member of the family who could play it without causing undue distress or injury) but swore me to secrecy; which I faithfully maintained until all danger was past.

    I still have it. If I had a daughter, I would want to be sure that she was able to play the banjo, should she ever wish to do such a thing; I would also want to be sure that she was able to kill an assailant with her bare hands. I wouldn't actually want her ever to do either of those things unless compelled by absolutely unavoidable circumstance. On the whole, you get sent to prison for longer when you have killed in self defence than you do for committing unprovoked banjo crimes upon innocent members of the public; somehow that seems terribly unfair.

---

We'll miss you, Malcolm.