Dating songs (determining the age of a song)

Subject: Dating songs
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 01:26 PM

This Summer I read Melvyn Bragg's book about the origins of the English language and Bill Bryson's book on the same subject.

There seems to be quite a sound academic understanding of the evolution of written and spoken English. Can this be used to throw light on the age of traditional songs?

Subject: RE: Dating songs
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 02:52 PM

Ia a Dating Song different to a romantic ballad ??

Subject: RE: Dating songs
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 05:00 PM

It seemed so simple when I thought about songs and the dates when they were collected. Now I know I will be hounded by endless punsters.

Anybody with a genuine interest or should I throw a double six?

Subject: RE: Dating songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 06:41 PM

Seems to be a good question, Les. I think we all subconsciously use language and style to guess at the age of a song or a written work, but I don't know of any serious studies that have been conducted from that perspective.
Maybe I'll add to the thread title to keep the discussion on track.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Goose Gander
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 06:52 PM

Hmmm.... What makes this so difficult is that language is constantly shifting in traditional music. Print is easier to nail down, but then you have to account for broadside writers deliberately using 'older' sounding language to make a nineteenth century composition sound like a relic from the 'olden times'.

Interesting question.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Les B
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 07:30 PM

Les in Chorlton - This is a subject I'm geuinely interested in, but as Michael points out, what's to stop someone from 50 years ago "updating" the words they don't understand, or like, from a century ago ?

I suspect it's the clues of people, places or things revealed in a song's "story arc" that are more pertinent - ie, if you found a California Gold Rush song, from 1849, talking about an American Civil War battle (1860's) you'd know it was out of kilter with the time (anachronistic ?).

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Sep 05 - 08:02 PM

A very difficult and interesting topic. Because songs keep changing in the world of folk, "origins" are notoriously hard to pin down. Even a reference to an obvious historic event does not necessarily suggest the original date of a song, as old songs are frequently updated to be of relevance to recent events.
The converse is just as true, antiquarian types love writing songs about the old days (what are often called "fake songs"), and these can confuse the credulous who dont spot the modern style of the lyrics. Plenty of people think Stan Rogers stuff, or the Long Black Veil, or Copper Kettle, or Ellen Vannin. or even obviously modern rock songs like The Night they drove old Dixie down, are old folk songs.
IIt's quite easy to date a genuine lyric that has survived intact from its origins, but folk songs by their nature change in strange, wonderful and unpredictable ways
   Take a trivial example like the reference to "riding the rods" in "The Lakes of Pontchartrain". Does this prove that the song dates from after the invention of railways, and the coining of the phrase "riding the rods"? Of course, it proves no such thing. It merely means someone has at some stage inserted that phrase into the song to make it sound good. That is why they are folk songs! And that is why people try to invent modern ones, with variable degrees of success1

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: open mike
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 02:14 AM

glad the title was amended....changes the meaning entirely...
i was thinking of double date, blind date, hot date, etc.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Paul Burke
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 07:48 AM

I'm told that the Procrastination Song ("..tomorrow we'll be reaping..") was written specifically in response to a self- declared expert in English folksong back in the sixties. This chap claimed he could date a song almost infallibly by the language, form, tune etc. On hearing this song, he declared it to be undoubtedly 17th century, so was only 300 years out.

On the other hand, the egregious Evergreen magazine (my mother-in-law's, not mine!!!) a few years ago publshed Cawsand Bay as an ancient English sailor's song.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: MMario
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 12:29 PM

there could be some dating from the usage of language - but most of it is negative. For example that a particular version had to be from POST a certain date. That doesn't mean it wasn't derived from an older version - of adapted from such.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Anglo
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 12:47 PM

Well, Paul Burke, what should I know about Cawsand Bay that I don't?

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 01:07 PM

Love this subject!
Language might not be able to date a song conclusively, but it can narrow things down somewhat. Say, some Edawrdian turns of phrase appear among older ones, say 1820s. Regional differences help too.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 01:29 PM

I blush to confess that at the age of 20 I was surprised to discover that "Old Man River" was not a folk song.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: 15. Never Go to a Man's Apartment       167 / 16. How to Behave When You Get There    173 :||

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 04:09 PM

Thanks a lot -especially Joe for clearing up the title.

Something that suggested this thread to me was the strong point that Melvyn and Bill both make that if we could return to say, the 14C just how confusing would we find language. Move on then to the traditional songs that have been collected and the language seems very recent - not old at all.

Now, this could be the nature of the oral tradition, people re-working songs to suite their mode of speech, or are we just wishing songs to be much older than they really are?

Is it true, for instance, that nearly all the songs collected by Sharp et al had appeared as Broadsides 50 years (?) earlier and that the origin of most old songs is in a written tradition which in practice is not very different from the way most songs have recently been written?

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 04:58 PM

Most, very possibly the vast majority, of songs collected by Sharp (and Baring Gould and others of the time) clearly derive from printed broadsides of the period 1800-1850 - or later. In a great many cases, maybe most, the words sung to Sharp were not very different from those on the broadsides.

Of course, without the collectors we'd have no idea what tunes the songs were sung to. Without the collectors, few of the tunes would have survived beyond the mid 20th century at all.

The words of the Child ballads, other than those that also appeared on broadsides, are a somewhat different matter. If you want to see how even written language can change over time, compare any early version (pre-1750 should do it) in Child with any 20th century version.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Goose Gander
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 05:14 PM

I think it depends what Sharp collection you're talking about. Most of the songs and ballads in English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians are quite far removed from print antecedents, and most British emigration to the region predated the 1800-1850 time frame you reference. Of course, Sharp generally ignored sentimental
American parlor songs, and these are probably the closest parallel to the nineteenth century broadsides you mention.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 05:17 PM

Go on Michael, I think you are opening up a rich seam

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Goose Gander
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 06:23 PM

Well, in the specific case of British ballads in the Southern highlands, I think the textual evidence supports the conclusion that these ballads and songs were brought to North America pre-nineteenth century. There is great deal of variation from British broadsides in the Appalachian versions of popular ballads such as "Gypsie Laddie", etc. Instead of "milk white steeds" you find mules, for example. So you can conclude the ballad has been in the oral tradition for some time. You wouldn't mistake a North Carolina variant for a nineteenth century stall print.

Nineteenth century Irish broadsides in North America (circa early twentieth century) are generally closer to print versions simply because they aren't quite as old, and they are more likely to have been learned from print or from stage performers using print sources.

So the degree of change in a text and the degree changes reflect local conditions can at least tell something about how long a song or ballad has been known in a particular region. Not quite the same thing as positively dating a song, I know.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From:
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 06:40 PM

I'm sure someone started a thread about dating songs by language contained in the song, but I can't find it right now.

I DID find a few threads on the topic:

What are the oldest surviving tunes?
Oldest Folk Songs Still Sung
Origins: Earliest Known English Folk Song

There are undoubtedly more than those. Have a go at the Lyric & Knowledge search

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 06:45 PM

I was thinking of Sharp's English collections - except for the sea shanties, of course.

While most of the areas visited by Sharp were "settled" before 1800, movement into southwestern Virginia and Appalachia in general continued for a long time after that. I can't remember if Sharp got into the Georgia mountains at all, but they were wilderness til about 1825.

I'm not disputing your point, just saying that the appearance of a text in Sharp & Karpeles is not automatically a guarantee of pre-19th century origin.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 08:34 PM

I don't recall the URL for the site created by Bruce Olson, but he did a tremendous job of tracing earliest known versions, including Child ballads.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: GUEST,Sieffe
Date: 22 Sep 05 - 10:45 PM

Dang . . . when I saw the title I was thinking . . .never mind . . .

Anyway, (or anyways, or anyroad, as I note Americans saying!! hahahaha!)
I see the topic of old songs and their origins is still a hot topic . . .nice to check in here now and again and see the world of folk music I love still with a pounding heart . . .keep it up Erudite Ones . .

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Paul Burke
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 04:09 AM

Anglo: according to 'credible rumour' (i.e. my mate back in c1970), Cawsand Bay was written in the fifties purely as a challenge, to get the words 'and out of her bosom she hauled his discharge' sung without making the audience titter.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 07:28 AM

I have Cawsand Bay descibed as 'Old Sea Song, Arranged by the Editor' in a song book called'The Open Air Song Book' complied and edited by Aurthur Poyser for the The Boy Scouts Association in 1947.

Back to the business of ascribing dates to songs. Perhaps accademics from the world of English Literature and Poetry might have something to say here?

I seem to remember an article in The Jounal of the EFDSS showing how accademic analysis of Morris Dancing suggested an origin ......... i Courtly Dances?

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 07:28 AM

Many a song has some variants in lyrics and tune, and many are changed in the run of time.
Mostly you can only a give a "terminus post quem" - the time when it was first recorded, which can be very early, e. g. medieval manuscripts or renaissance printings.
When you are lucky you can find a reference to a special song in an early source before the time of its recording, maybe only a short quote or a line.
Historical references to persons or events could be misleading; e. g. a German song about the French war of 1870/71 (Napoleon I.) could stem from a song about the French defeat of 1812/13 (Napoleon I.) with some changes to the then modern times.
So the good tidings are: You'll never know for sure, and you have the possibilities of endless learned disourses (the phologue's delight).

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Paul Burke
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 10:27 AM

I've traced Cawsand Bay to Arthur Quiller Couch's Oxford Book of Ballads, 1910, so it wasn't the fifties... but I wonder if HE wrote it? It has a bit of the Q 'folk song' style about it- "Bedad, that taught 'em the thrick!". It certainly tastes Victorian or later to me.

Or, back to language, are there any other songs at all like it that you would think of as 18th century?

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: GUEST,John Moulden
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 12:11 PM

Try Baring Gould "Garland of Country Song" 1895 - p. 48. He had suspicions about its traditional origins but says it was popular among sailors in Devon. For my money it's in a tongue in cheek, 'let's imitate the peasants' style. However, the claim that it was a cook-up of the 50s is patently otw.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 12:50 PM

I suppose something worth considering is a possible relationship between the age of a song and the number of varients, ie the morevarients the older the song. I wouldn't want to get carried away but it might be worth thinking about.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 12:54 PM

Sometimes trad. singers told collectors when in their lives they learned certain songs and who they learned them from. From this information you can estimate the minimum age of a song (to within a couple of decades). so, for example, the Hammonds collected 'The Bold Benjamin' from Joseph Taunton of Corscombe, Dorset, who told the collectors that he got it from a 'man-o'-war's man' in the 1850's (see 'Classic English Folk Songs, EFDSS, 2003). This could take the song back to the Napoleonic Wars; although I admit that the MOWM could have learned it a couple of weeks before he gave it to Mr Taunton - but you get the general idea.
Similarly, I seem to recall that Joseph Taylor told Percy Grainger that he learned 'Creeping Jane' when he was a young man and that he learned it from an elderly woman. I once remember estimating (when I had all the information) that this could, possibly, take the song back to the late Eighteenth Century.
I emphasise that this (admittedly not very good) method only gives very rough estimates of minimum ages.
Incidentally, I also seem to recall that the earliest version of 'The Bold Benjamin' has been found on a broadside dating from the late Seventeenth Century - so it was already pretty old when the MWOM learned it!

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 12:59 PM

Paul, thanks for coming back on Cawsand Bay. I first heard it from Dave Burland's recording. I also knew it was in Quiller-Couch, so I knew it wasn't _that_ recent. To me, it does have the air of an 18th century song written in "historical romantic novel" mode in the mid-late Victorian era.

John, thanks for the Baring-Gould reference. The tune he prints is obviously related to Burland's, but the latter is much better. Maybe he took it on himself to improve it.

Sailors often did take sentimental songs to heart - see for example some of the logbook entries published by Gale Huntington in his "Songs the Whalemen Sang." And a song like The Bay Of Biscay from about 1795 was a popular contemporary stage song, the tune of which at least was apparently learned in the navy. We sang it at school!

Loud roared the dreadful thunder, the rain a deluge showers,
The clouds were rent asunder by lightning's vivid powers.
The night was drear and dark, out poor devoted bark,
Till next day, there she lay, in the Bay of Biscay-O.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Anglo
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 02:08 PM

Well, sorry about the last anonymous post. It was I. IE seems not to want me to maintain my identity.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 09:41 PM

"The procrastination song" turned out to be an unacknowledged translation into English of a genuine (German) song of pretty much the period the "self appointed expert" had thought. In the end it was the ever-so-clever hoaxers (as they thought themselves; they didn't know the truth of it) who look stupid; they had imagined that their friend had made the song up all by herself instead of plagiarising it. They, as it turned out, were the gullible ones. See various past discussions here for more details.

Creeping Jane has also been dealt with here -up to a point- not so very long ago; see Origins: Creeping Jane. A song of the mid-19th century, it appears, but based on another of the latter part of the 18th.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 24 Sep 05 - 04:01 AM

I have just had a very small trawl in the Bodleian Library Broadside collection. Some ballads sound much older. Apart from the use of f for s and so on. Since much of this stuff is dated could it be used to bench mark language usage?

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/ballads/

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 24 Sep 05 - 08:25 PM

f for s? as in in fong and broadfide? Are you sure that it isn't a misreading for the stretched s?

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 24 Sep 05 - 08:43 PM

Don't rely on the use of old-fashioned typeface on broadsides for dating purposes. It was cheap print, and the printers carried on using old type long after more up-market publishers had abandoned it. Don't rely on broadside language for dating, either; much of it was re-worked from older material.

The only reliable way of dating broadsides -for most of us- is to find out when the printers or publishers concerned (where they are named) were in business.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Gurney
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 12:53 AM

I tried dating songs long ago, but gave up in irritation.

    If it was written in English, it can't be older than 12C. But was the original in English (containing words of French origin) or in Saxon?
    Copyright is no help. People claimed or were credited with songs which predated their birth, sometimes by hundreds of years.

    Many if not most songs have been updated. Hey, they were collected from folksingers!

    On the folk scene, and there are the odd sly ones who can write in a style and then pretend to have 'collected' the song. I suspect that this sometimes starts as a joke, and gets out of hand.


If you should manage a reasonable assumption of age, who are you going to tell? Audiences aren't interested, and other folklorists and musicologists are likely to argue with you. I decided to give up, having reached the point of diminishing returns.
If you should go ahead, you could publish here. Someone could be interested.    Good luck.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 08:26 AM

After all these discouraging posts (including mine) about the [exact] dating of songs, let me put before you a totally different point of view:
I always tried to learn something about everyman's experiences in life when singing folksongs. There are a lot of themes, e.g. love where the experiences don't change over the millennia. The same feelings are expressed in a Greek poem of 700 B.C. as in a song of mid 18th century.

A very personal experience: When working on a construction site we used wooden scaffolds tied together with ropes There is an old song about the dangers of a bricklayer's job on such a scaffold and falling to death. When I heard it first I remembered my work, and I didn't give a dime for the time of its origin - such accidents could have happened from antiquity until the eighties, when they went over to better scaffolds of metal, screwed together, and with a lot of safety devices. So I can say I shared a dangerous work with people gone for centuries, and this was of greater value for me than the age of this song.

But be consoled: there are some songs about historical events which are easy to date (I just remember some famous songs from Germany): The first use of heavy artillery by Emperor Maximilian shortly after 1400 A.D., the battle of Pavia in 1525, the storming of Belgrad by Prince Eugene, and the battle of Sedan in 1870.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 12:15 PM

Good songs for Dating

By the Light of the Silvery Moon
Bicycle Built for Two
Beautiful Brown Eyes
Leaving on A Jet Plane
I'm Beginning To See The Light
My Funny Valentine
Satin Doll
Prelude To A Kiss
Love Me Tender
Pretty Girl
Let Me Call You Sweetheart
When It's Springtime in the Rockies
It's Cold Outside
Five Minutes More
For the Two of Us
Ten Cents a Dance
Love Me or Leave Me
Cherish
Why Do Birds Sing
Moon River
Indian Love Song
Ramona

Looking for more? Try the BBC Sunday Radio Love Songs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/sunlovesongs/

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 25 Sep 05 - 01:36 PM

Am I correct inassuming that these songs can be dated from evidence from contemporary sources ie such a song was written by what's his name beacause people remeber hm doing it? And that songs have cultural clues which place them at a partcular time?

Both these strategies work to some extent with old songs (say 16C - 19C).

What struck me when reading Broadside Ballads from the Bodleian Collection is how manneredand artfully constructed many ballads seem to be when compared with the more straightforward style of songs collected from men and women a hundred odd years ago.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 04:15 AM

And sometimes the author gives his name in the song itself. At the end of his song about the newly founded Imperial soldiers called "Landsknechte" (= lansquenets) the author sings: These are the the usages and laws of the lansquenets, sang Joerg Graff ...
He must have been well known in his time because he had his songs printed and sold them to the audience. In Germany we called this "Fliegende Blaetter" (= flying leaflets).

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Goose Gander
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 07:12 PM

But then you don't always know for sure, "this song was written by Billy Gashade," (or was it LaShade?) but who really wrote Jesse James?

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 08:05 PM

In re: sources giving info about how old a song might be.

As a friend of a number of Lomaxes, I was present once when a group of them discussed a particular little song ("All The Little Chickens In The Garden") and how they knew it. Whose mother had taught it to the older members in the room? When? Which grandparent had she gotten it from? When? Which aunt had he learned it from? When? What had she told him about when/where she had learned it? They worked with pencil and paper and finally had a guaranteed 120 year (to that point) stretch of time that someone in their direct bloodline had been singing that song and teaching it to others. That they were sure of....This happened before I married Hubby (in 1966), but I'm not sure how long before.
Guest Joe F., I hope you are coming to Getaway. I enjoy reading your posts.       Tw

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 09:10 PM

That was quite a neat piece of work; the original song (by James A Bland) seems first to have been published around 1878. See thread  Little Chickens In The Garden  for more detail.

Every case is a separate case, though, and there isn't any single "right" answer to Les's question. As I've suggested before, Les, when you've asked similarly broad and non-specific questions, you really need to do some background reading first, so that you can ask a more clearly-defined question that people can answer in something more than vague generalities.

My answer to your original question in this thread would be a plain "no", but, as we've seen from other answers here (some of which address some of the questions you should have asked), there's more to it than that if we widen the remit a little.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 27 Sep 05 - 02:23 AM

One may as well try to date a Perrault story by the language. How much was his, how much did he learn from, say, his nursemaid and what did he change.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 27 Sep 05 - 01:27 PM

Good point Malcolm, but my intent was to open up and perhaps have discussed the age of the songs we call traditional. I think this has happened a little, though you point is supported in that people didn't know where I was hoping to go.

What proportion of traditional songs can be traced further back than the middle of the 19C. The language in most of them seems quite modern. What proportion of those songs grew out of a much longer oral tradition? Are they simply songs written by people between 1800 and 1850+?

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 27 Sep 05 - 01:53 PM

That's a big question, to which you won't get a specific answer; it depends on what you mean by traditional, for one thing. I don't know if anyone has done statistical work of that sort, though I think there's some concentrating on the repertoires of individual singers. Unpublished doctoral thesis territory in the main, I suspect.

That said, a large number (perhaps most) of songs found in oral currency and treated as "folksong" do seem to be no older than the first half of the 19th century or even later. Many can now be traced to known writers. Although there are certainly songs which seem to have had an independent life before their appearance in 19th century cheap print, my guess would be that they are fewer than used to be thought.

For obvious reasons, fewer songs survive from the 18th century, still fewer from the 17th. Very few indeed from before that, though there are some of course. As a general rule, folk songs are rather less old than people would like them to be, though we're learning new things about them all the time. Just recently, Steve Gardham mentioned that Here's to You Tom Brown, which Frank Kidson had thought 19th century, is a condensation of a 17th century broadside song.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 27 Sep 05 - 03:01 PM

Thanks a lot that is very clear.

It seems that the analogy that Sharp used of folk songs being like (I think) birds in a group flying across the sky with those at the front peeling off and changing the shape of the flight, is not true for many songs

Contemporary singer-songwriters that I have discussed the origins of old songs simply see them as old songs written by anon.

Defenders of the faith of traditional songs would have them as the distilled essence of something or other, passed on so much as to have no creater.

Do we all stand near the middle now or closer to one or the other?

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: GUEST,Lighter at work
Date: 27 Sep 05 - 03:48 PM

And the fact that so many trad songs were of broadside origin suggests the still more anti-romantic notion that a good many were undoubtedly written by the same few authors !

The earliest collectors, inspired by romantic theories about an identifiable "essential genius of the nation" and the fact that some Child ballads do reflect traces of rarely recorded popular superstitions and practices, and little known historical events, were ready to believe that any old song collected from the "folk" was likely to contain some valuable fragment of forgotten lore just waiting to be teased out. Much of Lloyd's _Folk Song in England_ (1967) and many of his LP liner notes demonstrate a similar faith.

Scholars also used to hope that long circulation among the folk increased the number of great moments and poetic gems within the songs as the "genius of the nation" polished the lyrics to a high gloss. By about 1960 it was obvious that the opposite was more usual. The "folk process" was often just a fancy name for "forgetting," and except for some of the more impressionistic lyrical songs, long circulation tended to wear the lyrics down rather than to build up them up.

So, every song has a different history. But the way I see it, the best, most coherent texts of traditional songs are likely to owe a great deal to the sensibility of a single individual. Sometimes it's Scott or Burns or Lloyd. Other times it's Anonymous. But some mystical effect of the "folk" is pretty much out.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 27 Sep 05 - 04:02 PM

Guest: Lighter at Work
And the fact that so many trad songs were of broadside origin suggests the still more anti-romantic notion that a good many were undoubtedly written by the same few authors !

Or, contrarywise, it could just show that the publishers of Broadsides knew when they were on to a good thing. Publish songs which have no known author and it's nearly all profit, rather than paying the author.

I would hesitate to suggest that some publishers might even use that standard of schlock science fiction publishers, a 'House Name' used as a nom-de-plume for much unattributed writing.

Nigel

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 27 Sep 05 - 04:14 PM

Or a bit of both.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: GUEST,Lighter at work
Date: 27 Sep 05 - 04:20 PM

That must have happened as well.

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 28 Sep 05 - 12:56 PM

Apparantly the truth will set us free. What ever we have as a consequence of the first andd second folk revival is well worth having. Perhaps some of us will be a little bit less self rightous about the origin and value of old songs and traditions ( but look out for the wrath of Morris dancers)

Subject: RE: Dating songs (determining the age of a song)
From: Billy Weeks
Date: 29 Sep 05 - 08:00 AM

An example of a fairly easily tracked case of adoption, adaptation and recirculation of a song is the well-known 'Sam Hall' covered in God knows how many threads in this forum. The new, highly dramatised version created by the supper room singer Ross in 1848/9, became for a while a sort of 'authorised' edition, but it had traceable antecedents and it has continued to appear with many variations since then.

The most you can say about the version of 'Sam Hall' that you have just heard sung is that it was current on the day you heard it, it belongs to an identifiable family of songs and this or that verse or turn of phrase crops up in a previously collected or printed version. It can be dated to the late 1840s only in the sense that we know it was remade and enjoyed particular popularity at that time. And even so broad a statement needs to be hedged about. We know a fair bit about Ross's manner and style of delivery and the effect that he had on audiences, but no one – not even the authors of later literary reminiscences - actually had the courage to publish in complete and unexpurgated form the words that he sang