I play and sing once a month at the local "Irish Night" at the Stadium Restaurant and Sports Bar in Garrison, NY, a continuation of the monthly seisiúns that used to be held at Guinan's Pub. One of the songs I usually sing is Peggy Gordon.

A few weeks ago some of the "Irish Night" singers got together to play at the Irish/Celtic Festival in Peekskill. When I got there one of the fellows was singing his version of Peggy Gordon. I sat down, listened while getting my guitar ready, and of course politely applauded when he finished. He turned to me and said, very pointedly, "That's the way it's supposed to be sung." I remarked that I sang the version that I learned, and that one of the most universal traditions in folk music is that folk music changes with time, as singers embellish on previous versions or just give their own interpretation of a song. He replied that "you should have respect for the guy who wrote the song and sing it the way it was written."

Now I could have told him that the origin of Peggy Gordon is lost in antiquity and that the first known version was published in 1823 with lyrics decidedly different from the way he sang them, but I didn't want to be unpleasant about it.

But whether he was singing the original version is beside the point. My question is, how often have the rest of you run into this type of attitude, i.e., that folk songs are sacrosanct and should only be sung the "right way"?

---

I removed the "origins" tag from this thread. We use "origins" for tracing the background of individual songs, and use of this tag for something more general, might be confusing.
-Joe Offer-