Favorite Folk Songs

Subject: RE: Favorite Folk Song
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 04:24 AM

Hello,

I'm going to be a sad disappointment! I've been considering the question since this interesting thread appeared and every time I think I've answered the question in my mind, I find that half an hour later I've changed it again.

The trouble is I have too many favourite songs. They are old friends who have been with me through thick and thin for more years than I care to remember!

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Favorite Folk Song
From: GUEST,Old Git
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 07:48 PM

If I had to pick an all time favourite it would have to be Peter Bond's "Joe Peel"

Subject: RE: Favorite Folk Song
From: GUEST,old git
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 07:41 PM

Have sung "The Recruited Collier" for more years than I care to remember..with an extended final verse..
"For seven long years I've courted him
And now must live without him
There's nothing left for me to do
But sit and think about him
So break my heart.....

Subject: Lyr Add: MY JOHNNY WAS A SHOEMAKER
From: GUEST,Songster Bob
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 03:07 PM

To answer your first question, I find this on the Internet:

MY JOHNNY WAS A SHOEMAKER
(Irish Traditional)

Steeleye Span


My Johnny was a shoemaker and dearly he loved me
My Johnny was a shoemaker but now he's gone to sea
With pitch and tar to soil his hands
And to sail across the sea, stormy sea
And sail across the stormy sea

His jacket was a deep sky blue and curly was his hair
His jacket was a deep sky blue, it was, I do declare
For to reive the topsails up against the mast
And to sail across the sea, stormy sea
And sail across the stormy sea

Some day he'll be a captain bold with a brave and a gallant crew
Some day he'll be a captain bold with a sword and spyglass too
And when he has a gallant captain's sword
He'll come home and marry me, marry me
He'll come home and marry me

---

Is this what you were looking for?

I have no ready answer for your second question. I grew up singing around the house, everything from Stephen Foster to Irving Berlin, and don't remember what my first 'folk song' was. That is, the first one I KNEW was a 'folk song.' I suspect it was 'Little Brown Jug,' because that's the first song my uncle taught me on the guitar. By that time, of course, the Kingston Trio was wailing away on their wailing songs, and whaling away on a good guitar, but I had known 'Brown Jug' forever by then.

The first song I ever learned from a record, instead of by osmosis, was 'Last Thing on My Mind,' from an Elektra sampler record.



Bob Clayton

Subject: RE: Favorite Folk Song
From: lefthanded guitar
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 02:40 PM

I have played this song more than any other song I've ever played in over 35 years of singing. I have rearranged it every few years,not on purpose, but more in an intuitive way as the music evolved to fit my mood and times; and about every decade gone by, I have discovered a new verse that seemed to come to me out of nowhere- sung in an offbeat coffeehouse by some kid I've never seen before or again, sung by a friend who found an obscure verse on an old 33 album, and once I even found a verse in a mystery novel set in Boston.

Each new verse seems to come to me at some pivotal moment in my life, each verse, each new version of the song continues to speak volumes for me.

Hadn't been able to travel for a lot of years. I sung it when I was stuck and I sang it when I was rolling. And the first time I walked down Peachtree Street, I found myself singing to the sweet springtime breeze:


"I'd be more than satisfied
if I could catch a train and ride
If I reach Atlanta and got no place to go,
Make me a pallet on the floor."

Subject: Lyr Add: RECRUITED COLLIER
From: bobad
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 12:47 PM

Is this what you're looking for Janine?

Recruited Collier

"What's the matter with you, me lass, and where's your dashing Jimmy?"
"Them soldier boys have picked him up and taken him far from me,
Last payday, he went into town and them red-coated fellows,
Enticed him in and made him drunk, and he'd better gone to the gallows.

The very sight of his cockade, it sets us all a-cryin',
And me I nearly fainted twice--I thought that I was dyin',
Me father said he'd pay the smart and he'd run for the Golden Guinea,
But the sergeant swore he kissed the book, so now they've got young Jimmy.

When Jimmy talks about the wars, it's worse than death to hear him.
I must go out to hide me tears, because I cannot bear him.
A Brigadier or a Grenadier he says they're sure to make him,
So now he jibes and cracks his jokes and bids me not forsake him.

As I walked o'er yon stubbled field--below where runs the seam,
I think on Jimmy hewing there, but it was all a dream.
He hewed the very coils we burn, so when this fire I'm lightin',
To think the lumps was in his hands--it sets me heart a-beating.

So break me heart and then it's o'er, oh break me heart, me dearie,
As I lie in this cold, cold bed, of the single life I'm weary."

Subject: RE: Favorite Folk Song
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 11:17 AM

Perhaps because it was the first folk song that "touched a nerve" as I was about to enter military service in 1960, "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye" has remained prominent. A great singer/storyteller from Fresno, CA, Jon Adams, was the performer.

Subject: RE: Favorite Folk Song
From: GUEST,Janine Johnson
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 10:52 AM

It varies...at the moment that recruiting song which starts:
What's the matter with you my dear and where's your handsome Jimmy...
Does anyone know it's title please
Jan

Subject: RE: Favorite Folk Song
From: topical tom
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 10:03 AM

Oh, so many to choose from!I like most songs by Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, Eric Bogle, David Massengill, and many others.I guess my favourite song would be Eric Bogle's "A Reason For It All". It is so moving and touches on an aspect of human concern.Recently, a senior citizen was found dead in a senior citizen's home in Montreal. She had been dead for six days and no one knew.

Subject: RE: Favorite Folk Song
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 04:28 AM

'Martinmas Time', sung either by June Tabor, or Paul Brady and Andy Irvine.

Bryn Pugh

Subject: RE: Favorite Folk Song
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 09:31 PM

Toss-up---
The Two Sisters, as sung by Ed McCurdy
Most variants of The Golden Vanity

Subject: RE: Favorite Folk Song
From: GUEST,actually Joe_F
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 08:49 PM

Dink's song.

Subject: RE: Favorite Folk Song
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 02:59 PM

ummmmmm.....Lowlands of Holland (trad. arr. Steeleye Span). Also from Hark! The Village Wait

Subject: RE: Favorite Folk Song
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 02:52 PM

Aah've gorrit on "Hark! The Village Wait" by the original Steeleye Span line-up with Gaye Woods on vocals and Maddy P on backing vox.

My aall time favourite folk song is "Lark In The Clear Air"

Ever since aah hord Eilleen Pratt sing it in St Lawrence's Church in Winchester in a festival concert and' aah bubbled like a bairn - It wez just SO movin' and beautifully sung.

Subject: Favorite Folk Song
From: polkadots
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 02:41 PM

After reading other posts on here it has brought back so many happy memories of when i was younger, singin my folk songs during my lessons. My favorite was Jonny Was A Shoe Maker...does anyone know who this is by? Or what are other peoples favorites?