Jim

I apologise for misreading the 'largely disappeared' in your post of 11.07. I thought you were using the disappearing venue as a reason for the decline in folk singing and the need for hearse chasing by Sharp.


I don't know enough about Child to comment on his theory of what folk music was; to judge from what Roud says about it, it was a) not entirely coherent b) elitist, as opposed to seeing folk as the song of the people. Yes, he was looking at old ballads/fables/ but I don't think he was necessarily claiming they originated or were transmitted by ordinary people ie medieval peasants. Not sure how he imagined they were transmitted. In his view, some of them don't seem started out in any historical form of the English language!


For me, as I understand it, one aspect of Roud's definition and discussion that might be one you are unhappy with is the idea that to count as 'folk' it has to be passed on. I don't have my copy in front of me, but he says something like 2 or three generations. That would mean that any songs written by travellers and collected within the same generation would not come within the definition.


On that criterion, Little Boxes Made out of Ticky Tacky could not yet be included, and may never be, unless people are passing it on now.

However, in the case of any such songs you had collected, it would appear that the songs are not in immediate danger of being forgotten as they are published.

I understand you are unhappy with various aspects of it, this is just one part that seemed relevant.

Also part of my point was that as a layman, not used to specialist definitions, I would probably have counted MacColl as a folk singer and Dirty Old Town as a folk song, using not sure what criteria. So my idea would have been in terms I guess of style, mostly as hinted above, relating to denim and guitars. The socks with sandals seem to have gone out of fashion. I was tring to spot some yesterday and there weren't any.)


Tzu.