The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #157044 Message #3706479
Posted By: The Sandman
04-May-15 - 06:48 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Barbara Allen
Subject: RE: Origins: Barbara Allen
Subject: RE: Origins: Barbara Allen From: Jim Carroll - PM Date: 03 May 15 - 10:31 AM
"The word 'traditional' is only useful when both the user and the audience have a good idea" Thankfully we have a literature, a history of research and a pedigree to fall back on to sort out the wheat from the chaff as far as folk/traditional song is concerned. There may come a time when those who would have us accept the misuse and misunderstanding of the terms as valid, produce their own literature and scholarship - not in my time, I hope. Then we'll have to follow Bert Lloyd's advice: "If "Little Boxes" and "The Red Flag" are folk songs, we need a new term to describe "The Outlandish Knight", "Searching for Lambs" and "The Coal-owner and the Pitman's Wife". Jim Carroll I would rather not follow Lloyds advice, his statement is bollocks, he lumps together two songs, one of which is social comment song[ little boxes], the other was the song sang at labour party conferences,they have little in common, it is exactly the nonsense that has reduced Lloyds credibility as a scholar. please tell me why little boxes cannot be considered a folk song, but the coalminer and the pitmans wife can.