The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #138897   Message #3181643
Posted By: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
05-Jul-11 - 04:40 AM
Thread Name: Steamfolk
Subject: RE: Steamfolk
Horsefolk might be a better term for it actually, but (get this) Horsefolk is one of the essences of Steamfolk, which has nothing to do with Steam per se, much less Horses, although it's mostly a matter of Cultural Evaporation resulting in the sort of twisted fundamentalism we know (and love) to be an integral aspect of The Colonial Folk Revival.

When I was a lad, we got all our genuine coal-steam powered electricity from Blyth Power Station which looked like either heaven or hell, or both simultaneously, depending where your head was at. Long demolished, it remains iconic in my dreams but has no place in Steamfolk, despite childhood memories of queueing in the rain on dark rainy mornings with our buckets to get our weekly electricty allowance. Grandma would make a tasty ice-cream-style dish from the used electricity as an end of the week treat. Hard times, but we were happy. Nuclear-steam electricity just doesn't taste the same somehow. I'm off to write a song about it.

Note: Actually, come to think of it, Ewan McColl did write a song about the building of Blyth Power Station, or at least the Irish workers who did the graft. It features here at around 1.30:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5xwK6dNhtw

And I climb the narrow ladder where the stack looks out the sea,
I'm building power stations now for electricity...


So Steamfolk in the literal sense...