The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #155357   Message #3659318
Posted By: MGM·Lion
11-Sep-14 - 09:44 AM
Thread Name: What makes a new song a folk song?
Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
On the matter of whether other methods of transmission than purely the 'oral' element have a part to play in the folk process, I reproduce here FWIW a contribution of mine to an old thread about a children's song & its transmission from 5 years ago, which I think might have some bearing on this aspect of the topic

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Origins: Black Cat Piddled in the White Cat's Eye
From: MGM·Lion - PM
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 05:46 AM
BTW — we recently had a long thread on what was the Folk Process, or whether it even existed. Well, isn't this an example of the way it can work?
Consider - I learned a children's song in 1956 from a friend who remembered it from his early E London days. Two years later it took the fancy of Sandy Paton who became a friend while he was visiting London. Exactly 40 years later he posted it, most courteously attributed to me, as part of a thread about its tune. This thread got refreshed 10 years later, & the words caught the eye of Joy in Australia, who started this thread about it, ref-ing Sandy's 11-yr-old post. I saw this & revealed myself as Sandy's acknowledged source, & named my source;, which brought a response from Hootenanny, who comes from the same part of London, with a recognisable variant of the same song.
I mean, the Folk Process might not work quite as it did when Kidson & Gavin Greig, Sharp & the Hammonds, Moeran & RVW, were all at work. But doesn't this show that modern means of communication, like The Web e.g., have their part to play also?