The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #22617 Message #3342328
Posted By: Jim Carroll
23-Apr-12 - 07:38 PM
Thread Name: Origin: High Germany
Subject: RE: Origin: High Germany
"Whilst that still stands, and this is about the 20th time "
Not to me it isnt.
"every known version of 100s of ballads, stall copies and oral tradition"
As the collecting of traditional song only began in an organised way at the turn of the 20th century how do you manage to trace through 100's of versions and decide which (if any) originated on the broadside presses?
Today I pulled around a dozen books from the shelves containing songs made by miners, weavers and agricultural workers (some previously published, but most selected to illustrate the songmaking of working people)... 'Sharpen The Sickle' by Reg Groves (History of the farmworkers Union), 'Songs of the People' Brian Hollingsworth, 'The Industrial Muse' Martha Vicinus, 'Music and Tradition in Early Industrial Lancashire' Roger Elbourne, 'The Colliers' Rant' Robert Colls, songs and poetry by Scots miner Joe Corrie, weaving songs by Laycock and Bamford.....
In the sixties I worked through some of the radical newspaper press cuttings in Manchester Central Library, listing songs from their regular column. Eddie and Ruth Frow, the Salford historians gave me access to their library (then private) where I found many more
Picton library in Liverpool has a small collection of unpublished miners songs.
Walter Pardon sang a few songs which were made to support the re-setting up of the Agricultural Workers Union in East Anglia, notably 'The Old Man's Advice' A little more than your "examples .....from a few latterday writers/singers written in their retirement", don't you think
Working people have always made songs about their lives, in England as well as Ireland, yet you would have us accept that "they were too busy earning a living".
You mentioned back up the thread something about me not being able to provide info on 'Bonny Bunch of Roses'
Er no - I did no such thing; you provided 'evidence proving' it originated on a broadside, I asked you how you knew it hadn't appeared earlier in the oral tradition, you beat a hasty reatreat giving a somewhat patronising answer - yet no proof.
Which brings us back full circle; we have no idea of the traditiional repertoire other than the comparatively small number of songs collected from oral tradition in the 20th century and a few earlier.
We know for certain that working people made songs - ample evidence of thet both in Britain and Ireland.
Given all the questions that you have avoided or made a half-hearted attempt to answer (and failed IMO), you have no basis whatever for claiming that "the vast majority of them originated in these printed forms in towns under commercial conditions", and you certainly have no basis for claiming that you know which ones did.
"much of the rest originated in high art!"
Utter nonsense - folk beliefs and lore, tradititional storytelling, traditional dancing - all originating from high art. Where on earth do the Jack Tales appear in high art, or the jigs and reels played for dancing for centuries, or the traditional cures....
You really are on a mission to prove that working people had no creative culture whatever of their own aren't you.
Now where did I put that Kylie album?
Jim Carroll