The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #42020 Message #608841
Posted By: Steve Parkes
13-Dec-01 - 03:36 AM
Thread Name: History and Folk Music
Subject: RE: History and Folk Music
I think songs, like novels, can give you a feel for what it was like to live in a particular time or place or situation, like getting a postcard from a far-away friend. It's not necessarily accurate, but it's very atmospheric. "History" is written by academics, but accounts of land and sea battles (before tv and radio) are largely based on the on-the-spot notes written as it happened by officers taking part, even to the point of the exact time of each event; the various accounts would later be combined into the official account.
I've been singing "Alabama" for a good many years (without knowing much about the actual events until relatively recently), andf I've always ended with "Off the three-mile limit in 'sixty-five/The Alabama went to her grave". A couple of weeks ago someone said he'd learned it as "Off the three-mile limit in 'sixty-four/The Alabama went to the ocean floor"! (BTW, how should I pronounce "Kearsage"?)
Steve