The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #55002 Message #853545
Posted By: Abby Sale
25-Dec-02 - 10:25 AM
Thread Name: are there any happy folk songs ???
Subject: RE: are there any happy folk songs ???
Numerically, if not proportionately, there are many. Just thinking of ballads, endless happy-ending love songs where they do wed & live happily ever after (even if there is a death or two in the process).. Almost all the "broken token" songs, Banks o' Skene, Banks of Sweet Dundee, Canadee-i-o (usually) and several where young lovers elope and live through it.
Plus countless songs where the battle is won (eg 8th of Jan) or the hero achieves or the devil is thwarted or the attempting murderer is slain or the husband sheds (or tames) the harridan wife or the wife agrees that sex is nice to include in the marriage or Wife proves how much more work she can do than scoffing He or the workers not properly paid but make a strong enough statement that they are happy about it anyway (eg, kill the boss) or all get drunk and have a good time (fire, funeral or not) or the shephard wins his bet and a new suit of clothes or the whale gets caught or Rake gets laid and takes Whore's money, too (happy for him) or Whore takes all Rake's money (happy for her or rape is cleverly averted or Lulu seems happy...
Lulu had a baby,
Born on Christmas day
Washed it's head in brandy,
Called it Henry Clay.
Oh, endless happy folk songs, even ignoring the 10's of thousands of trad. silly, playparty, work and drinking songs.
But, referring further to the ()famous "happy?" file, one also finds this reference for today:
AP News report for 12/25/1929--Walnut Grove, No. Carolina:
"Becoming suddenly insane, a Stokes County farmer today slew his wife and six children and, after having laid them out for burial, went into a patch of woods and killed himself"
It was on last Christmas evening
The snow was on the ground
At his home in North Carolina
The miner he was found.
"The Story of Charlie Lawson" Country Gentlemen, Folkways FA2709
Well, maybe that's not quite so happy a song but it does come from the "happy?" file.