Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: jennyr
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 02:44 PM

I think what's acceptable and what isn't depends a lot on the club, and the only way to find out is to listen to what other singers do and pay attention to the response you, and they, get.

The other key, for me, is that people usually want to listen to something new and interesting. So if you want to do a very familiar song because you love it, that's fine - but you have to do it in a new way. A few months ago, a very talented and highly respected singer came to my regular singaround and sang 'Waltzing Matilda' - which had been on my 'don't-even-think-about-it' list. It was brilliant, and since then I've re-thought a lot of my taboos.

When I was new to singing, I sang 'Three Score and Ten' at a local club. Afterwards, someone caught me in the bar and said in a sarcastic tone ' that's not overdone much, is it?'. I haven't been to that club since, or to the one which he runs, and I didn't sing the song for a few years, but I got it out again a couple of weeks ago, gave it my own interpretation (no clever accompaniment, just a different approach to the story) and have had really positive comments when I've sung it since.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 03:01 PM

MikeL - I see your point. But I think one has a responsibility to ensure that truth prevails. If the poster of this incident [it wasn't my own experience, you will recall] had kept his correction so quiet & personal, then some people would probably have gone away with the conviction that 'Summertime' was a Cole Porter song - which it isn't; so the misapprehension needed correcting for the public good, surely? I appreciate this is a fairly trivial and hardly earth-shattering example; but I believe the principle, that truth and accuracy must trump courtesy if there is danger of an untruth or an inaccuracy gaining credence and currency, to be an important one.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: MikeL2
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 03:15 PM

Hi MtheMg

I think that saving embarrassing a probably very nervous singer would have been worth a few people thinking that Summertime was written by Cole Porter....

After all both Gershwin and Porter are no longer with us so they couldn't have minded.

Cheers

Mike

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 04:41 PM

Autoharp Bob.....if you are singing the songs you want to sing to the best of your ability, that's all that's needed!

If'n you do that, then most people will be rooting for you. Those that don't.....well......

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: terrier
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 05:00 PM

...This will run and run but will probably be taken too seriously then break out into warfare around post 20 (Les In Chorlton)

Well, that's 50 odd posts so far and still a good natured thread,are folkies starting to mellow or what?

I'm sure I followed a similar thread on the Cat a few years ago, or was that about what instruments one can or cannot play in a F/C, or which tunes are 'out of favour', or, heaven forbid that I should strum or flat pick a guitar when I should be finger picking.

Maybe we should compile a list of songs that CAN be sung in any folk club without SOMEONE complaining! OK, I know that's too difficult ;)

Cockles and Mussels? I've not heard that one since I was a school kid :)

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Peter Stockport
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 05:18 PM

Blimey, you lot are folk fascists.
To anyone reading this thread and thinking of going to a club ---If you turn up at most singarounds and sing, everyone will love you regardless of what you song you choose.
If they don't go to another one.
The worst anyone will say is " I haven't heard *that* for a long time"
Peter

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: oggie
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 05:52 PM

Do songs run in cycles?

Way back there was a whole canon of songs like "Freeborn Man", "Black Velvet Band", "Home, Boys Home" etc that seemed done to death. In reality I don't remember hearing many of them for at least a generation in the clubs.

Hopefully there will be a whole new generation coming along to find these songs for themselves for although they may seem old and hackneyed to us over fifties they're still cracking songs.

Steve

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Commander Crabbe
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 06:41 PM

Sing what you like!

Sing it well and others will like it too.

On the other hand!

Seriously though, when I was in the band we must have sung "Fields of Athenry" (and many others like it) two or three times a week for three years and it was often requested by the audience.

I now feel that I personally have done it to death and will seldom if ever sing it (or the others) myself in the singaround but will accompany it on guitar if it is being done. (provided the singer doesn't mind)

I think people have to realise that it is with many people a popular piece (along with many others) and that they will inevitably be sung both well and maybe sometimes not so well for the forseeable future.

CC

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,999
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 06:46 PM

I know what CC means. If I ever hear Suzanne (Leonard Cohen's song) again for the rest of my life I will throw up.

The first 2187 times I heard it it was OK. Along came 2188 and I just won't listen to it ever again. Every damned club a guy went into had a singer/interpreter doing it. Och!

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Dave Hunt
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 07:18 PM

I was once privileged to hear the late great Frank Harte sing 'Johnny I Hardly Knew You' - very slowly and with so much feeling. A wonderful moving rendition which really made one appreciate the horror of the events. After all it's a song about a poor soldier getting seriously wounded - not a jolly 'come all ye' which is how it's usually sung. And I'm sure some of you remember the great version of Wild Rover by the Dransfields - some different words and sightly different tune

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 07:47 PM

I think the problem people have is less with the songs than with just having heard some of them too damn many times. I don't go to folk clubs (mostly because there aren't any hereabouts, not of the version that seems common in the UK, anyway!) so I'm not tired of any of these really. As for Kumbaya, I think it's a great song when done with some energy. It has wonderful opportunities for harmonizing. I don't want to hear it slowly droned.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 07:54 PM

Of course (echoing Peter and Les somewhat), if I was at a singaround and someone sang one of my least favourite types of songs (and again I'm compelled to cite "A Mon Like Thee" as an example), which does happen, I wouldn't only suffer in silence, I'd also give them a hearty round of applause. Especially if they were also a nice person. At least they are up there doing something, even if not to my taste, and not simply lurking like me.

That could be another thread: lurkers at singarounds...

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Jan 10 - 08:32 PM

Drunken Sailor
Bonny Ship the Diamond
South Australia
Lincolnshire Poacher
Hopping Down in Kent
Athenrae (unless you do a parody)
Hallelujah (unless you do a parody)
Wild Rover (unless you do a parody)
Leaving of Liverpool
Dirty Old Town
Mucky Kid
Streets of London
Most Donovan (except IMHO "The Gipsy Boy and I" or "Season of the Witch" without the last verse)
Irish rebel songs unless you are an Irish rebel - and even then ask yourself if inciting acts of terrorism is acceptable.
Donald Where's Your Troosers
Paddy McGinty's Goat
Anything in a language you do not speak fluently
Two Magicians
Tell me Ma
The Black Velvet Band
7 drunken nights unless you know all the nights.

Just for starters...

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 01:46 AM

Anything in a fake (and, therefore, usually unconvincing or even cringe-making) Scots, Irish or American accent. We all have our own accent when we speak, usually acquired unconsciously by the absorption of the accent of our childhood locality - why change it when we sing? Why change it at all, for that matter?
IMHO. YMMV.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 03:00 AM

Because, Backwoodsman, one is acting when performing a song. If you sing "Apprenticed to trade I was bound", you weren't really. Even if it is just a lyrical song - "The sun has gone down and the sky it looks red, Down on my soft pillow where I lay my head" - you aren't really in bed, you are standing up in front of an audience in a folk-club. So one should make one's performance as convincing as lies within one's talents. Some people have a talent for imitating accents {see the Jean Simmons obit thread}. I happen to be one of them — after a play once in which I played an American, some American visitors to a member of my Drama Circle said "Weren't you lucky to get a real American to play that part!" (& I happen to have a silver cup for Best Actor in a Drama festival). So, if the accent will add to the characterisation of the song [it isn't always appropriate, but sometimes it is — & dramatic gesturing rarely if ever goes well with singing BTW IMO], then I might adopt a suitable accent if it is one I feel confident enough to use. Otherwise not - a matter of judgment. Most listeners seem to like it — even US or Scots or Irish or Geordie or Yorks or Lancs or Scouse friends. OTOH, if you don't think you can bring it off, don't try. We should all be aware of our own capabilities and limitations.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 03:45 AM

I understand what you're saying Mike. But sorry, I can't agree. Nothing drives me nuts-er than that shite American "Scots" accent that Shrek speaks with (and the chimney-sweep in Mary Poppins). And I can hear an Englishman pretending to be and American a mile away.

Lets all sing it loud, and proud of our own local accent (or maybe you don't have one? Elocution lessons? BBC-speak??). :-)

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Sooz
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 03:53 AM

How about the same songs you sang the last time you were there!

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Bert
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 04:21 AM

I think I'm with MtheGM on the question of accents. I'm not very good at them but sometimes you have no choice. Frinstance, there is no way I could sing Manurah Manyah in my London Accent.

But it's a great song so I sing it now and then without apologies to anyone.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 04:30 AM

Oddly enough as I was driving the youngest one to work this morning one of the discs from the "Three Score and Ten" collection was on the CD player and up came Dominic Behan singing "The Patriot Game".Now when I first began going to folk clubs you couldn't throw a brick but you would hit someone performing that or a million other Irish rebel songs. Then a few years after, for obvious reasons, they were never heard in the folk clubs again, seemingly to this day. Not that I particularly wish to hear them again but does this taboo still exist around the folk clubs? Nobody sings them at ours although Irish songs can make up a sizeable part of the evening.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 04:39 AM

They stopped doing The Patriot Game and switched to With God On Our Side. Now they've reverted to The Merry Month Of May. Saves learning new tunes, I suppose.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 04:40 AM

I haven't heard 'The Streets of London' for years ...

GOOD!!!

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 04:41 AM

"......one is acting when performing a song."
Personally, I find nothing more cringe-making than watching somebody act out a song (unless it is a storyteller acting out a story).
Irish traditional singers talk about 'telling' a song, and for me, that's what it should be.
As far as accents go, most songs in the English language Anglicise perfectly. If a singer chooses one that doesn't it is up to him or her to perfect the necessary accent so they don't sound 'Mid-Atlantic' or 'Oirish' or 'Morningside', or so it doesn't become a distraction away from their enjoyment of the song, otherwise they will never convince an audience. I used to sing in different accents a lifetime ago when I first started, until I realised that there were more than enough good songs I could sing in my own.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 05:01 AM

Does nobody else hate "The lord of the damp settee"?

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Will Fly
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 05:20 AM

I wrote this comment as a post in another recent thread, but it's relevant to the discussion in hand:

I was at a music gathering the other evening and a local singer-songwriter sang several of his own songs. I'm not a fan of such stuff, but they weren't at all bad - intelligent, tuneful, heartfelt, etc. However, he sang them all in an accent that was more American than any American I've ever heard, almost supra- James Taylor. By the end of his set, I'd wearied of the accent which was putting me completely off listening. His natural speaking voice was a pleasant Scottish accent, and I just wished he'd sung his own compositions in his own voice. I'm sure they would have had more impact. Somehow, the accent he'd adopted made his songs sound slightly dishonest - as though they weren't his. If he was singing American blues, I could have understood the accent, but not for his own material.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: glueman
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 06:11 AM

Accents - you can get away with any except RP. Queen's English types should avoid folk singing and join the Swingles. I love to hear a Roedean lady tackle The Merchant's Daughter but only for comic value.

On correcting mistakes (Cole Porter) the advisor should be prepared for some sharp banter in return if the performer has anything about him. High risk for pedants and the humour impaired.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 06:53 AM

Jim - I did say that the 'acting' should not include 'acting out' in sense of gestures &c: but songs have their own natural lilt influenced by the rhythm of the language or accent in which they should be sung, which is irresistible: if you are a natural accent-adopter, then that will follow. Apart from that I don't *do* vocal mannerisms: I still value the words of a critic of a folk recital I did once in Suffolk, to a theatre, not folk, audience, who wrote "He addressed us in pure middle-class tones & then went straight into the spirit of a song without putting on the Folk Voice..." {Norfolk & Suffolk Express, 14 Feb 92}.

I repeat — it is all a matter of judgment and knowing one's own abilities and limitations. The Scot singer-songwriter mentioned above who put an American/mid-Atlantic tinge into his own songs was just following the horrible precedent set by such as McTell & Allan Taylor, e.g. — what's the use of Streets Of London sounding like Streets Of Chicago, I often used to wonder... & wrote more than once: but as will happen on these occasions, answer came there none.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 06:58 AM

Glueman -
Re the ColePorter/Gershwin thing — What form do you think the 'sharp banter' should take in the case of someone who has made a genuine error of fact & had it pointed out to him by someone who knows better? — apart perhaps from the witty riposte of "Quick as a flash, he replied 'Why don't you go and fuck yourself!'"

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 07:04 AM

... I mean 'pedant' & 'humour-impaired' are easy insults to fling. But what is pedantic about prizing fact above error, or 'humorous' about publicly passing on erroneous facts?

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,LTS on the sofa
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 07:34 AM

"Wild Rover (unless you do a parody)" - Don't do even a parody in the Anchor Middle bar, Sidmouth - the fine doubles (I still owe them £15 for one of my parodies from 1996 - tripled because in my parody I made fun of a regular MB singer..... let that be a lesson)!

LTS

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 07:43 AM

"I did say that the 'acting' should not include 'acting out"
I don't think we're wildly disagreening here Mike. I believe a singer makes a song work by internalising it without making it introspective - does that make sense?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 07:51 AM

Ah...I'm beginning to get it.....folk songs are OK till the mass of people (the Folk?) start to like them. As soon as they enter the public consciousness, are sung in pubs, at work, at social gatherings....they are beyond the pale. What is worse is if one of the beknighted mass actually ask someone who considers themselves a 'folk singer' to sing one of them.
   Lets keep on adding to the list of songs not allowed in folk clubs but popular with the masses, you never know,,,there might be a folk revival.
   Never met a collector who frequented folk clubs looking for material!

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 07:59 AM

M the GM

I'm sure if anyone refers to your cagoule as an anorak you will soon find the right words to say.......

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Paco O'Barmy
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 08:03 AM

Streets of London. and anything by Bob Dylan

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Marje
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 08:49 AM

Tug the Cox: I think there is a useful distinction to be drawn between the songs that are popular in pubs and those that go down well at a folk club. It's not that the former are inferior songs or not good enough for the club, but when I go to a club I'm looking out for something interesting, something that will really make me sit up and listen. A standard version of one of the old chestnuts, where I know every word and every inflection, will bore me because,unlike yeraverage pub-goer, I've heard it a hundred times.

It's about choosing appropriate material for your audience, which is only good manners. I wouldn't sing the Wild Rover in club (not unless it was an unusual version that had something new to offer); but neither would I choose to sing an unaccompanied version of The Unquiet Grave to a noisy pub audience who wanted to sing along.

And if I were looking for new material, now, in the 21st century, I'd be much more likely to find it at a local club or festival than in a general public bar. The early collectors may have found precious gems being sung by horny-handed sons of toil in their local pubs a century ago, but they wouldn't be likely to find them now. The few remaining people who could conceivably be called "source" singers do sometimes appear at a club or festival, but seldom down the local, and the same applies to the song-carriers who are now seeking out and re-working old songs.

Marje

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: autoharpbob
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 10:04 AM

Yes, I'd forgotten Streets of London!

Some wonderful advice. I was just asking basically which songs have been done so often that people who go to folk clubs a lot have all heard them and are fed up of hearing them. This is difficult to know because of course the people who are fed up with them don't sing them, so I come new to a club, I don't hear these songs and think "Why don't I give that one a go?". I must say that the messages are getting through now, and I only have to do a song once to realise that it isn't working in that club.

I love some of the other advice! Sooz - don't do the same as you did last time!! I go to about 15 clubs off and on, and have to keep a spreadsheet to tell me where I have done what song, just to avoid this! I don't do accents - except mine own, which has been described as transatlantic Australian Devonshire! Comes from living in London, Lincoln and Exmouth when a kid. Some of the done-to-death sound great in a massed band singalong at the end of the evening. And as for pop songs, I have heard some fantastic versions of "Mad World", and am working on my own version of Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" - sorry Jim!

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,LTS on the sofa
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 10:08 AM

The problem with finding source singers is that we are rapidly running out of local pubs and places where you can sing for the hell of it and not get a) told to shut up or b) arrested!

These days there are very few pubs who do not have a juke box, a huge TV screen or a SkySports licence. A hundred years ago, Old Jethro in the corner would have been the juke box, buy him a pint he'll sing you a song.... Try doing that over the latest offering from Lady Gaga and getting round the PELs.

LTS

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: mkebenn
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 10:51 AM

Porter/Gershwin..once heard a singer give credit to Davy Jones for "Daydream Believer" I suddered, cursed under my breath, and kept quiet. prob'ly should have called her out. Rebel songs..stopped altogether after 9/11. Put "Patriot game" back in around 2005 as it's message is more about regret than violence IMHO. Started singing Roddy again 'cause I just love it so. If I ever hear "Heart of Gold" again, it'll be too soon. It isn't a bad song, just badly done to often. Accents.. I'm a Yank, and I try to avoid singing in anything but my own voice, but I have trouble with "I am a weaver,a Carlton weaver", just can't help it LOL.. Mike

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 10:59 AM

Liz - if you're ever passing through Lincs I'll take you to my local. I think you'd like it. We had a GREAT sing-song on Saturday night. :)

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Marje
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 11:15 AM

But (Guest LTS) do you think there really are still unknown source-singers with a secret cache of old songs no one has heard for decades, sitting in the corner of the pub waiting to get the chance to sing? My guess is that most pub regulars, if asked for a song, would offer "Delilah" or some other karaoke favourite rather than anything remotely traditional, and then trail off after a verse-and-a half when they realised they didn't know it all.

And yes, it's all tied up with the use of sound systems and recorded music, and the modern expectation that there will be background music in any place of relaxation. A kind of vicious cycle has taken place: publicans start playing recorded music, so spontaneous singing tends not to happen, so publicans continue to play recorded music even more because there's no other music taking place anyway, etc etc. Hard to say which happened first, but it's difficult to break the cycle now, except by setting up a regular session, arranged and expected, and asking the landlord to turn off the PA when it's due to start.

Song-collecting, like so many of the things we sing about, isn't what it was, and there's not point in pretending that if the pubs were quieter, people would start spontaneous singing again.

Marje

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Leadfingers
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 12:24 PM

Having been Off Line for most of the time this thread has been here , several points !
Firstly . I sing whatever I feel like singing ,and the 'Its Done To Death' folk police can like it or lump it ! IF its a singing club , ANYthing with a good chorus is fine
Incorrect attribution of songs should ALWAYS be pointed out , NOT just to the singer , but to the audience - WHY Carry on a mistaken attribution ?
And regarding Audience Participation , the Johnny Collins Day yesterday proved that MOST Folkies DO want to sing good Choruses !

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 01:15 PM

Someone mentioned earlier not doing such and such a song because "so and so always does that one", or else bear the bristling glares from said person. Having done that accidentally on occasion, I now swither between saying, "Sod it, I'll just do it" and "Mustn't upset so and so" who will probably come after up to me afterwards and tell me that I sang it all wrong, and he/she was the first person to sing that song around here, having had the words and tune personally imparted to them by the composer.
No-one can "own" a song, unless maybe they wrote it themself, and then it should be regarded as a compliment if someone else wants to sing it!

Oh and did anyone mention "Wild Mountain Thyme"?

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 01:36 PM

Talking about incorrect crediting of songs, what about incomplete crediting of songs' for example, if a singer introduced "Summertime" as "George Gershwin song" would I be impolite to shout out, "and Ira!"

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 01:45 PM

No, you would be absolutely right, Tunesmith. The Gershwin Brothers worked in brilliant collaboration and I think it shameful that Ira's memory has been so smothered under that of his brother George.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Zany Mouse
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 02:30 PM

For goodness sake - just sing what you like. You can't please all of the people all of the time. Sing and, more importantly, ENJOY SINGING! That's what folk music and clubs SHOULD be all about.

As to the groaners ... how rude can you get?

Blessings
Rhiannon

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 02:44 PM

More than performing a hackneyed song, I get irritated when somebody performs a classic song but without bothering to learn it properly. I'm not talking here about nerves or lapses of memory, but a performer who decides to sing a great song and it's clear that they haven't put the practice time in to do the song justice.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 02:52 PM

...What about Jimmy Jarratts wonderful song 'You can be a Muslim too' is that banned?

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: GUEST,Graham Dixon
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 03:08 PM

Considering the average age of the people who have taken it upon themselves to compile this list of 'Songs that shouldn't be sung in a Folk Club' - I suggest that 'Knocking on Heavens Door' should be avoided at all costs. (It could be considered 'Too close to home')

Graham Dixon
Too Old to Rock & Roll
Too Young to Die

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 03:49 PM

THESE ARE THE RIGS OF THE TIMES.

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 04:22 PM

The worst thing you can do to a (folk) song is not sing it!

Subject: RE: Songs you shouldn't sing in UK folk club
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 31 Jan 10 - 05:30 PM

Oi, Dixon - less of the old thank you very much.... I wasn't born when the folk revival started in the 1960's. The Beatles had had over 60 hits by the time I was born...

LTS