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BS: How would you rate folk music?
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Subject: How would you rate folk music? From: hesperis Date: 24 May 01 - 12:27 PM Okay, so I was wandering around in www-land, and I found a site that rates other sites by specific criteria. Parents can then set their browsers to only allow certain criteria, and everybody's happy. Well, I was looking at the questionnaire that the site uses, and was wondering how other people would rate a site that is heavy on folk music. Especially their definitions of "violence":
Folk music can be pretty gory at times. Is that suitable for children? Or is it excused as it is in an "artistic context"? Just wondering what y'all think. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: GUEST Date: 24 May 01 - 12:39 PM I for one am fed up with the cruel and unusual treatment of animated characters in folk songs. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Hollowfox Date: 24 May 01 - 12:48 PM How does that site rate sites dealing with opera, Shakespeare, and the Bible? The textual content of folk music cuts a pretty wide swath, and some of it isn't violent at all. The most violent, gory sub-genre of folk music could possibly be the stuff kids make up on the playground. Some of those taunts and chants would get me fired if I used them in a children's program here at the library. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Jim Krause Date: 24 May 01 - 01:21 PM Yep, folk music can be pretty gruesome stuff, at times. Such songs as: I quit doing Banks of the Ohio because I had audiences laughing at what I thought was an inappropriate part of the song. In fact, I thought the laughter was inappropriate period. Pretty melody, however and alas. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Grab Date: 24 May 01 - 02:04 PM Rate each song individually - you can no more make a judgement for "all folk music" as a single entity than you can for "all books", or "all films". Re Hollowfox's point, some of the most violent stuff I can think of would be children's stories. Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood and all the rest are pure blood and guts - H&G in particular has a child kept to be eaten and the baddie burnt alive. The un-bowdlerised 1001 Nights is sex and violence all the way. And the ones for older children (authors such as RL Stevenson, CS Lewis, Tolkein or JK Rowling) have plenty of violence. Even the Hardy Boys got to fight ppl. Trouble is that for all their well-meaning attitudes, these ppl get it _so_ wrong. I think the purpose of these kind of stories is to try and prepare kids for the world. They all finish with happy endings for the good guys, and the lesson the kids draw is either "yes, bad stuff does happen sometimes, but when it does you have to be brave and you'll usually come out OK" or "if you do something bad then something nasty will happen to you". However naive this may be, it's not a bad place to start from - it's a lot better than either "the world is all lovely and everyone is nice" or "you can be as nasty as you want to ppl and they can't do anything about it". Back on the folk music side, the ones that kids wouldn't get would be murder ballads like Pretty Polly - basically any where there's no good reason given for the killing or where there's no resolution. But Frankie and Johnny or Streets of Laredo would probably be OK, for example (although maybe not by these guys' standards). Graham. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: mousethief Date: 24 May 01 - 02:14 PM Well said, Grab! alex |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: SDShad Date: 24 May 01 - 02:26 PM Jim-- I'm just curious. At which part of Banks of the Ohio were these yobbos laughing? I just can't see anything humorous in the lyric. Unless, Beavis-and-Butthead-like, they were chortling, "huh huh huh, he said 'willie'".... Shad |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: John Hardly Date: 24 May 01 - 02:38 PM Rate each song individually - you can no more make a judgement for "all folk music" as a single entity than you can for "all books", or "all films". I think you're missing the point of THIS discussion. The question as I understand it would be ----taken as a whole, what rating would you put on folk? just as ----taken as a whole, what rating would you put on a site that discusses the Bible...or what rating would you put on a site that discusses Shakspeare, etc... Other than that, the comment about context is more to the point and question--that being should context influence rating?
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Jim Krause Date: 24 May 01 - 02:49 PM Shad, They were laughing at the part where he stabs her with his knife and chucks her in the river to drown, in case he didn't do the job right with his knife. Mind you, I was trying to sing the song as a serious illustration that domestic violence in not a new phenomenon. I finally got disgusted at my inabilty to get that point accross and have quit singing the song. Jim |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Roughyed Date: 24 May 01 - 04:19 PM I've long had this fantasy of a rock band saying to their record company "Yeah, we got this real great new song. It's about a leper who thinks that if he drinks the blood of a new born baby he'll be cured so he hangs out in the wilds until this guy leaves his wife alone with the au pair and new born child. The au pair lets him in and he cuts the kids throat and drinks the blood, gets caught in the act by the wife so he stabs her. Just as he's about to escape the guy comes back home kills him, burns the au pair to death and commits suicide." It's just the plot of Long Lankin but what would it get to number one? |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Chicken Charlie Date: 24 May 01 - 04:25 PM Having finally faced the fact (tough for an old geezer) that multitasking can be fun, I have opened a file called "Mudcatwisdom" to which I paste an occasional pearl. Checking there re. this question, I find that I scrap-booked a statement by Dick Greenhaus, "If anyone wishes only for music that reflects current sensitivities, might I suggest that folk music might be the wrong place to look?" Amen. I don't like gratuitous violence, or anything else just for its own sake, but folk music portrays the world rather realistically, and that is a big, big plus. I don't think hearing "Little Brown Bulls" is going to motivate anyone to go chop down a tree, or "Greenland Fisheries" to go kill a whale. We do have to be careful what we model, but the "sensitivity" pendulum has swung way too far in the pollyana direction. CC PS to Jim--Maybe this isn't the ideal solution, but Doc Watson did a song which sounds to me a lot like B/Ohio, but with totally diff. words--"It's midnight on the stormy deep ...." I happen coincidentally to be working on it myself, so I'll post lyrics tomorrow or so. I agree--lovely melody. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: GUEST,djh Date: 24 May 01 - 04:26 PM WoW add Bugs Bunny Flattening Elmer Fudd with a steam roller and LONG LANKIN alone will get folk a NC17 rating. I never heard of it what are the origins of the song? |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Stevangelist Date: 24 May 01 - 04:42 PM I think that problem with these "ratings" is that these people doing the rating are, for the most part, looking for a scapegoat to answer for the bad kids they themselves have raised. You would be surprised at how many parents I have heard blame everyone and everything else in the world for their kids' poor attitudes and bad language... except themselves and their own example. Sure, folk and rap and others have very hard lyrices sometimes... but being raised in a home environment where one is taught how to maturely handle life's problems is surely going to counteract the effects of these songs. Blaming the songs, however, and ignoring one's own responsibility to the children of the world is pathetic escapism. I for one am all for expressing one's self lyrically in whatever wau one chooses... as long as what is meant for adults is kept completely out of the sphere of influence of children. May The Road Rise To Meet You, Stevangelist
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 24 May 01 - 04:58 PM GUESTcjh, Long Lankin is old Scottish, a Child ballad. Maybe what, three hundred years old? older? I will say that I've never heard a version that made Long Lankin a leper, though. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: GUEST,Melani Date: 24 May 01 - 05:03 PM Jim--keep "Banks of the Ohio." Get new audiences. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Burke Date: 24 May 01 - 05:51 PM Interesing site. It's asking web sites to rate themselves. Their software apparently then allows parents to restrict access to sites labeled kid safe. I should think the software could be adapted to be used in a reverse form & provide a list of snuff sites. Let's face it, labeling cuts both ways. The movie rating system resulted in a G or X being just about a kiss of death for a movie. Just enough swearing & violence has to be included to avoid the G rating. Folk music should remain unrated. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: hesperis Date: 24 May 01 - 06:18 PM I like G-rated movies! (Well, actually, I haven't seen enough movies to know what I'm talking about.) Much interesting stuff, phoaks. Myself, I've had my stomach turned by a few folk songs, and I don't like porn. But I don't necessarily think that rating anything can work in the long run... for the same reasons that Grab and Hollowfox stated. Children's stories are pretty graphic sometimes, and children themselves can be pretty bloodthirsty. I remember wishing to boil people in oil when I was being tormented by the other kids in public school, when now I would be horrified to have that happen to anyone, even to my "enemies". Not only that, but another music team member of hero6 was unable to access my work to evaluate it, because his parents had installed a rating system that objected to "brassfire". Go figure. Now, on to sex. Maybe children would have a better chance of having less hangups about sex than the "normal" population if sex itself was almost normal? Not relegated to "adult" movies and porn, and always behind locked doors? Also, does a graphically sexual song have the same effect on a child's psyche as a movie of the same thing? In some cultures, the parents and the kids (and sometimes other relatives) are all in the same bed, even. That must be pretty open about sex, by default... Is a rating of sexual content too "americanized"? Just some more thoughts on this. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: kendall Date: 24 May 01 - 08:15 PM Some people laugh or giggle when they are very nervous. It nearly ruined the career of Sir Lawrence Olivea. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Little Hawk Date: 24 May 01 - 08:59 PM Hmmm...I think it would be more fun to rate folk music as compared to other music: Folk: the music of the people, the music of the ages. +10 Classical: equally good as folk, but more highbrow. +9 Rap: I could puke. -30 Disco: Lord have mercy. (But it's good if you only want to dance...) 0 Christian: Save someone else, please. But I'll listen if it's Dylan... +2 Pop: mostly sucks, but some of it is almost folk on rare occasions. +2 Country: Varies from godawful to pretty cool...then it's actually folk. +4 Blues: See country above. +5 Jazz: Jazz is not music. It's mathematics put to a tune. Listen to some middle period Joni Mitchell to confirm this. (N/A) Heavy Metal, Death Metal, Hard Rock, Acid Rock: Please kill me now and end the misery. Actually, this kind of music is great if you want to bring out latent violence and commit antisocial acts, but it can make your budgies get ill and fall off their perches, so I can't really recommend it -5 except for Spinal Tap. they get +6 Nigel Tufnel is my hero! Broadway Musicals: Almost as fluffy as cotton candy, and with about as much real food value. +2 Soft Rock: see pop. New Country: see pop. Trance: Ummm...I forget what I'm up to here...ummm Techno: see Disco. World Music: Can be pretty cool. +7 Ethnic Music: Is that world? See world. New Age: Great, when it's not a sub-form of jazz...so...well, let's give it a +5 and if it's Enya then +10 Opera: VERY DRAMATIC. His its place...which is at least a mile away from my present location. +4 I figure at this point I should stop, because I might offend someone, and I certainly wouldn't want to do that. Specially the rappers. I would never want to offend rappers. Well, not to their ugly faces, anyway. :-) - LH (giggling uncontrollably at the keyboard)
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: dick greenhaus Date: 24 May 01 - 10:46 PM Back in the days of entertainment radio, Fred Allen (may his memory live forever) had a skit in which a New England character told another, "Go feg your dill". The censors bleeped the phrase off the air. Allen protested, saying that the phrase was something he had made up, was void of any meaning and was something that he thought sounded funny. Censors were adamant about keeping filth (read PI material) off the air. Finally they compromised: on a re-run, the character was told "Go dill your feg". Public morals were spared. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Bill D Date: 24 May 01 - 11:37 PM the 'folk', bless 'em, sang about what moved them and what they were familar with...Rating? You may as well try to rate 'life'. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: ddw Date: 25 May 01 - 12:49 AM LH — what're you giggling about? That struck me as a pretty succinct summary, except for giving disco a 0 because you can dance to it. I've never seen anybody do much except jump up and down and flail their arms when it's on. Not my idea of dancing. More like an auditorily-induced Saint Vitus's dance. david |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: RichM Date: 25 May 01 - 12:50 AM St.Vitus is a dance?? what are the steps?
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Art Thieme Date: 25 May 01 - 01:09 AM Jesus, life is just life. The songs simply reflect what we people do and/or did. It's not what's good or bad. It's just what is in this best of all possible worlds. There's two f...... sides to every coin. I suggest we quit judging each other---get up off our asses and get and live our lives. Lean toward what is good and honest for you personally and leave your neighbors alone. That goes for individuals as well as governments ! Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Art Thieme Date: 25 May 01 - 01:20 AM The songs are nothing but articles in an oral newspaper. No different than the tales told in the Bible. Art (again) |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: GUEST,Joe Offer Date: 25 May 01 - 02:27 AM Little Hawk says jazz is not music, that it is mathematics set to a tune, or something like that... Say it isn't so, LH. "Soft jazz" may fit that definition, but not REAL jazz. "Soft jazz" makes me gag. We get occasional complaints here, people saying that our lyrics are not suitable for children. We may have lyrics that are sexual or violent, but I don't think lyrics have the same impact as the graphic effect of televized sex and violence. We may not rate a "G," but neither do I think we rate an "R." I don't think our lyrics will harm children - the kids won't even understand the worst lyrics we have in the @bawdy category. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Naemanson Date: 25 May 01 - 09:13 AM Several comments: Ratings: A close reading of the book would have it banned not just in Boston but world wide. It includes graphic scenes of murder, extra- and pre-marital sex, child pornography, cannibalism, slavery, lying, cheating treachery of all stripes, etc. But where would we be if we banned the Bible? And if you can't ban the Bible, why would you ban anything else? Art is right. Ratings are a useless waste of energy. Worse, they are the first step towards banning the rated activity. Jazz - When I hear an audience applaud a particularly wild piece of jazz improvization I want to scream out "The Emperor is not wearing any clothes! That ain't music!" But the old jazz, big band stuff and slow moody stuff, is good and I consider that to be music. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: GUEST,djh Date: 25 May 01 - 09:41 AM This should probably be a diffrent thread, but, Jazz is music. It is not my favorite kind of music. Frequently with the more improvisational stuff it doesn't qualify as song, But it never stops being music. I agree to an extent sometimes the improve goes as far as being musical masterbation in the guise of Art, but not ussually when the music is in the right hands.Now as far as soft jazz, why? Why? Why does it exist? |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Grab Date: 25 May 01 - 10:51 AM Hesp and John Hardly - maybe instead of just a yes/no, you'd want to say "X% of pages on this site feature this". Then something like Mudcat or Shakespeare or the Bible can put into context how much that happens - 0.5-1%, maybe, as against a porn site which makes 99%. Graham. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Little Hawk Date: 25 May 01 - 11:18 AM Yeah, I was just taking a cheap shot at jazz for humorous effect. Some jazz does sort of fit the mould I was suggesting, while other jazz does not. I actually like some jazz (gasp!), but not a lot of it. If you see them playing it live, it certainly helps. I was not hugely impressed by Joni Mitchell's jazz-influenced period, but from her point of view I'm sure it was sublime. Not only does every coin have 2 sides, it also has an edge... On the subject of getting a life and living one...there is a shred of hope on the horizon. The local K-Mart has a special on this week...the "Get-A-Life Sale!". For only $65.00 Canadian you can purchase a laminated certificate entitling you to an official life, courtesy of some corporation that manufactures them ready-made. If anyone tells you to "get a life", you just whip out the certificate contemptuously, wave it in their face, and say "I've got one". I believe K-Mart has done this in a desperate attempt to recoup some of the business that WalMart has stolen from them. WalMart will no doubt be offering the same deal for 10% less (i.e. at a loss) any day now. Stay tuned. The glory of free enterprise marches on. Someone oughta write a song about it. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Naemanson Date: 25 May 01 - 01:09 PM I don't have time for a life. I'm too busy working during the day and making music and taking care of kith and kin and... Wait a minute! Isn't that a life? |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Roughyed Date: 25 May 01 - 03:39 PM Re Long Lankin, I haven't come across a version of the song that identifies him as a leper either but I think it was either in the notes to the version in the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs or in Bert Lloyds's Folk Song in England that he said that the background to the song was that the villain believed drinking the blood of a new born baby was a cure for his leprosy. I'm not a scholar so I took it at face value. Sounds feasible to me considering what people thought/think would cure them. On unpleasant songs the nastiest one I know is Mad Tom O'Bedlam, which as far as I can make out is about making fun of mentally ill people in eighteenth century England. But I do love the song. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Chicken Charlie Date: 25 May 01 - 04:05 PM It may be because I am tired to start with, but it strikes me that this is one pointless thread. To consign an entire category of music to the Devil simply means the consigner has never bothered to ask him/her/itself what the people in that category are trying to do, and, given that, how to tell the good examples from the bad examples. Except for those others who posted in protest to the rating idea, this is an exercise in subjectivity. CC |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Art Thieme Date: 25 May 01 - 10:54 PM Guest:DHJ,
OOOOhhhhhhhhhhhhh, wow !!!--that felt sooooooo great. |
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Subject: RE: BS: How would you rate folk music? From: Justa Picker Date: 26 May 01 - 12:30 AM Well, as long as any conceptions occured while the forebearers were listening to folk music, and, planned to raise the offspring Catholic, Protestant or Jewish, I would rate folk music very highly. |