Sorry interrupted
Can I just reiterate that, here in Ireland, rural people were making their own songs right up to the mid 1950s - mainly anonymously - we uncovered at leasy sixty o them within a twenty mile radius of this one street town, and were made of a hundred more over the other side of the county
It is almost certain that this was repeated in every county in Ireland
While the political situation was different, the economic situation was similar to that of England
The post famine situation gave rise to many new songs - Terry Moylan published a magnificent 700 page book of them last year on political songs, but hoe we came across were on every subject under the sun, farmwork (including songs about hiring fairs), shipwrecks, emigration (probably the largest number, naturally), fashion, arranged marriages, murders, weddings, births, marriages, deaths..... everything touching on human existance.
Scotland has a fine repertoire of Bothie Songs made by farmworkers - the Tweed industry produced improvised songs made on the spot and political upheavals were marked by angry protest songs in Scots Gaelic
We know from John Holloway's 'Oxford Book of Local Verse' that similar songs have been made throughout England for centuries
I spent months in Manchester Library poring through microfiche copies of ld newspapers which carried regular columns of songs contributed, mainly anonymously (probably for fear of reprisals) by mill workers and land workers trying to get the vote
None of this is hard and fast evidence that working people made our folk song, but is shows (beyond any doubt) that they were capable of doing so.
"I'm not sure who "you people" are "
How about those who make accusations likke, "They seem equally agenda driven and attention seeking"
I have put my points without agenda and without attention seeking
I make no claims of percentages, nor do I dismiss the idea that these songs also appeared on broadsides in great numbers - a fact I have been aware of since Bob Thomson told me about them in 1969.
My reason for arguing as I do is that we examine all the facts and all the possibilities, gathering as much evidence and as many opinions as there are available.
"Fortunately, this is a very long distance relationship."
The ball's always been in your court Bryan !
Jim Carroll