Inconsistency in folk song stories

Subject: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: mandoleer
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 04:11 PM

Just a thought when the words of Spencer the Rover came to mind. If Spencer had been away for so many years that he hardly recognised his home, then where did all those prittle-prattling children come from? Any more examples of song stories that just don't add up?

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 04:16 PM

Spencer the Milkman?

Don T.

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: Megan L
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 04:20 PM

Heck laddie de ye no ken that abody in wur village wis cried Spencer :-)

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 07:14 PM

It's called the 'Folk Process' - many songs are thoroughly folked up.

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: Celtaddict
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 07:16 PM

A lot of versions of "Black Velvet Band" start in "a neat little town they call Belfast" and end up warning to beware of those ladies "who roam the streets of Tralee."

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: Celtaddict
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 07:19 PM

In a rather more recent song "Christmas in the Trenches" the singer starts out that "two years ago the war was waiting for me after school," then describes the Christmastime event, then talks about every year since then, which of course would not mean very many years at all.

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 07:23 PM

The folk process is NOT Bessy Smith's hair style!! ;-)

It is the process a song goes through---moving from one person to another---changing all the while -- in order to make it a fully fledged folk song.

Art

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: michaelr
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 07:26 PM

The greatest howler I've come across is in "The Seven Rejoices of Mary" where it is said of Jesus that "he read the bible o'er"...

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: Snuffy
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 07:41 PM

"'Twas on Good Friday morning, all in the month of May" - that would be the year Christmas Day fell in the following January then, would it?

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 08:04 PM

Spencer was confused (first verse) but probably hadn't been away for a very long time. His wife was surprised, but the children seem to have taken it in their stride in broadside versions. In sets from oral currency, the whole family was often amazèd, but probably only because they weren't expecting him.

Black Velvet Band (originally set in London) was later localised (among other places) both to Tralee and Belfast. Both forms were popularised through commercial recordings during the 1960s, and no doubt people who learned them later on muddled them up sometimes.

Inconsistency is part of the deal, really, when dealing with tradition. Sometimes it's built in, sometimes it's the result of misunderstanding. Christmas in the Trenches is a modern song, so I wouldn't consider it particularly relevant; though it does illustrate that if you don't think carefully enough when writing, it may come back to haunt you.

Mind you, God's in France all Sunday.

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: Celtaddict
Date: 06 Apr 05 - 11:43 PM

"God's in France all Sunday"
Okay, I won't argue that, but I seem to have missed the song reference. Sounds like a great title though.

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 12:44 AM

In some versions of the two sisters ballad, the sister is pushed into the water
by the seashore, yet somehow she floats down to a dam. I don't know much
about practical hydrology, but this strikes me as an inconsistency.

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:42 AM

Jesus did read the bible (or even the Bible) but it didn't have as many books in it as the versions some of us have now!

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: Peace
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:47 AM

Darn near any song that glorifies a gunslinger in the American west is likely to have its issues.

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:54 AM

My God, He Is a Rock has "the Lord God read the Bible through."

I used to think that was a mistake, but I've seen the expression used in a few situations - I think it's an expression we don't understand, not a mistake.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 03:05 AM

"the Lord God read the Bible through."

Course he did, and Lolita, and Five Go To Smuggler's Top, and Mein Kampf, and the steam tables- he's om blooming niscient.

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: GUEST,neovo
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 03:29 AM

You have to adopt a willing suspension of disbelief and go with the flow. As to God reading the Bible - of course he did, he was proof reading.

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 05:55 AM

"'Twas on Good Friday Morning, all in the month of May..". No it wasn't - it can't be!

Ah well..

Regards

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 06:03 AM

Em, wasn't the OLD testament written before the birth of Jesus?

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 08:00 AM

Didn't Spencer travel through Britain and Wales, despite the latter being, um, part of the former?

I like the way your mother, father and siblings can burn you at the stake, and yet your loyal footpage can ride to London to alert your love, who STILL has time to gallop to your side before you're toasted

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 09:47 AM

... depends on which century the song is set in.... :-)

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: Michael
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 11:14 AM

Perhaps Spencer was a Welsh Nationalist and refused to recognise Wales as part of Britain! Anyway it was only 'most parts of Wales'so perhaps he kept away from the Englishy bits on the border.
Mike

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: EagleWing
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 12:27 PM

In the interest of accuracy, he only managed "Great Britain and most parts of Wales".

Frank L.

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:00 PM

Children prattle at a variety of ages.... 9yr old Limpit does it daily. And if Spencer is anything like me, he can't remember where he was this morning, let alone where he lived a few months ago....

LTS

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:13 PM

I remember it as "He travelled through Old England and the most part of Wales", but I got it from listening to a singer in a folk club, so perhaps that's not the original.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: GUEST,Seaking
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:17 PM

'Ginny on the Moor' - where the girl doesn't even recognise her own fiance !

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: michaelr
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 10:43 PM

Am I to believe the Old Testament was widely circulated in print around the year 10 AD?

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: NH Dave
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 10:53 PM

From what we seem to be learning from the Dead Sea Scrolls, much of the Old Testament had been put to scroll, along with parts of what became the first few books of the New Testament.

Of course they weren't called by those names nor were they dated as BC or AD, such definitions being meaningless to most of the world at the time. AFAIR, the nativity story was dated "during the reign of Ceasar Augustus . . . "
Dave

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 10:54 PM

They may not have had books as we know them being 'widely circulated' but they certainly had scrolls and written text.

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: Pauline L
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 01:45 AM

I've heard and sung Christmas in the Trenches many times, but I never noticed the inconsistency until Celtaddict pointed it out. It's still a great song, though.

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 04:09 AM

I don't know 'Ginny on the Moor' but in the broken token songs the girl doesn't recognise her lover because they were very young when betrothed. A boy back from years at wars or from the sea would have matured and grown and may even be scarred so would be hard to recognise even if the girl had had a photograph to remind her what he looked like.

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: pavane
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 06:16 AM

Not sure about Sandy Denny's version of Banks of the Nile - was there a Queen on the throne (The Queen she has commanded us..) when we were fighting (?Napoleon) there?. Perhaps some historian can advise.

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: GUEST,Seaking (still at work)
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 06:37 AM

Fair point Manitas, I get the same problem after I've been offshore for a fortnight !!

Subject: RE: Inconsistency in folk song stories
From: Young Buchan
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 07:07 AM

Somewhere in the bowels of the School of Scottish Studies there is a version of High Germany beginning
O Germany O Germany you are a dreadful isle
The length all of High Germany is fifty thousand miles.

Doesn't leave too much room for Lower Germany! (As someone said when the Welsh lost at rugby to Western Samoa - what will happen when we have to play ALL Samoa?)