Worst Folk Song Ever?

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: Peace
Date: 29 Jun 07 - 05:37 PM

Here's the proof.

Convoy

By Bill Fries & Chip Davis

Uh, Breaker One-Nine, this here's the Rubber Duck
You got a copy on me Pig-Pen? C'mon

Uh, yeah 10-4 Pig Pen, fer sure, fer sure
By golly it's clean clear to Flag-Town, C'mon

Uh, yeah, that's a big 10-4 Pig-Pen,
Yeah, we definitely got us the front door good buddy,
Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a convoy

Was the dark of the moon, on the sixth of June
In a Kenworth, pullin' logs
Cabover Pete with a reefer on
And a Jimmy haulin' hogs
We 'as headin' fer bear on I-One-Oh
'Bout a mile outta Shaky-Town
I sez Pig-Pen, this here's the Rubber Duck
An' I'm about to put the hammer on down

Cause we gotta little ol' convoy, rockin' through the night
Yeah we gotta little ol' convoy, ain't she a beautiful sight?
Come on an' join our convoy, ain't nothin' gonna git in our way
We're gonna roll this truckin' convoy, cross the USA
Convoy... Convoy...

Uh, breaker Pig-Pen, this here's The Duck
Uh, you wanna back off them hogs
10-4, 'bout five mile or so, 10-roger
Them hogs is gittin' in-tense up here

By the time we got into Tulsa-Town
We had eighty-five trucks in all
But they's a road block up on the clover leaf
An' them bears 'as wall to wall
Yeah them smokies 'as thick as bugs on a bumper
They even had a bear-in-the-air
I sez callin' all trucks, this here's The Duck
We about to go a huntin' bear

Cause we gotta great big convoy, rockin' through the night
Yeah we gotta great big convoy, ain't she a beautiful sight?
Come on an' join our convoy, ain't nothin' gonna git in our way
We're gonna roll this truckin' convoy, cross the USA
Convoy... Convoy...

Uh, you wanna give me a 10-9 on that Pig-Pen?
Uh, negatory Pig-Pen, yer still too close
Yeah, them hogs is startin' close up my sinuses
Mercy sakes, you better back off another ten

Well we rolled up interstate fourty-four
Like a rocket sled on rails
We tore up all a our swindle sheets
An' left 'em settin' on the scales
By the time we hit that Chi-Town
Them bears was a gittin' smart
They'd brought up some reinforcements
From the Illinois National Guard
There 'as armored cars, and tanks, and Jeeps
An' rigs of every size
Yeah them chicken coops 'as full a bears
An' choppers filled the skies
Well we shot the line, an' we went for broke
With a thousand screamin' trucks
And eleven long-haired friends of Jesus
In a chartreusse microbus

Hey Sod Buster, listen
You wanna put that microbus in behind the suicide jockey?
Yeah, he's haulin dynamite
He needs all the help he can git

Well we laid a strip fer the Jersey Shore
An' prepared to cross the line
I could see the bridge 'as lined with bears
But I didn't have a doggone dime
I sez Pig-Pen, this here's the Rubber Duck
We just ain't a gonna pay no toll
So we crashed the gate doin' ninety-eight
I sez, let them truckers roll, 10-4

Cause we gotta mighty convoy, rockin' through the night
Yeah we gotta mighty convoy, ain't she a beautiful sight?
Come on an' join our convoy, ain't nothin' gonna git in our way
We're gonna roll this truckin' convoy, cross the USA
Convoy... Convoy...

Uh, 10-4 Pig-Pen, what's yer 20?
Omaha?!
Well they oughta know what to do with them hogs out there fer sure
Well mercy sakes alive good buddy
We gonna back on outta here
So keep the bugs off yer glass
An' the bears off yer... tail
We gonna catch ya on the flip-flop
This here's the Rubber Duck on the side
We gone
Bye, Bye...

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Jun 07 - 05:56 PM

sloop john b,benjamin bowmaneer,lord randall,cadgewith/cadgeforth] anthem.,polly wolly doodle.

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: GUEST,Downgirl
Date: 29 Jun 07 - 08:38 PM

Anything by Jim Moray!

Re Fields of Athenry. A good song and I loved it when I first heard it in the late '80s. Unfortunately now hijacked by Glasgow Celtic Football Club so unsingable in Scotland or N. Ireland now because of sectarian overtones.

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: GUEST,Wayne
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 06:22 AM

Coming Round the Mountain? Surely not. It's fantastic, and seems to get filthier every time Roger does it down the Abbey (fnar, fnar).

I'd second the Jim Moray coment though. Good songs, shite performance.

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: Gulliver
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 01:42 PM

Re Fields of Athenry. A good song and I loved it when I first heard it in the late '80s. Unfortunately now hijacked by Glasgow Celtic Football Club so unsingable in Scotland or N. Ireland now because of sectarian overtones.

Still, I've heard this being sung in the North and also by Ulster Rugby supporters in Dublin. I've gotten a bit tired of it, but it is wildly popular at singing sessions, singarounds, etc. (along Raglan Road, Black is the Colour, Peggy Gordon, etc.) here in the South so it's good to have it in the repertoire.

Don

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: Bert
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 02:15 PM

Bile Dem Cabbage Down exists because it's a hoedown tune. It's great for beginner callers because the unobtrusive melody doesn't distract the caller.

One song that I really don't like is "Turn, turn, turn" by Pete Seeger. That's just personal preference though (is there a word that means the opposite of preference?).

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: weerover
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 02:19 PM

opposite of preference = aversion?

wr.

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: Bert
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 03:26 PM

Thanks, my brain is asleep at the moment.

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: Peace
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 03:55 PM

Opposite of asleep = awake?

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 04:58 PM

I thought nobody else would know this one, but I seem to be wrong.

When she was about 9 years old, my little sister learned an interminable song with a dreary, dreary tune. It started, "There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza." About 18 verses later it clunked to a halt because the repair for the hole required a bucket of something, and of course, there was a hole in the bucket.

I just Googled "There's a hole in the bucket, dear..." and got 796 hits. Obviously some misguided souls are keeping that darn song alive.

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: EuGene
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 09:36 PM

Ohmygawd! Leeneia, that "Hole in the bucket" song sounds like it is from the same genre as "Hole in the bottom of the sea" which finally gets down to:

There's a hole in the wing on the fly on the wart on the leg on the frog on the bump on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea.

As school kids we would sometimes sing that one to see just how fast we could sing it . . . like a musical tongue twister.

Eu

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: Bill S from Adelaide
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 04:50 AM

Back in the 70's the Morris Side had a booking at the Mechelen Folklore Festival. We were billeted with a family, the son of which was the lead singer of a folk-rock band specialising in electric versins of long ballads in Flemish. His stage name, and the name of the band, was, and I kid you not, Joe Prik (I still have his card if you want a scan, apprently Prik was a brand of lemonade that he drank).
The band started up the backing and he arrived on a pushbike smoking a fag in a long holder. He launched into this interminable ballad with a pretentius air to an audience devoid of Flemish speakers in a manner which inspired much grumbling in the audience. The stage manageer said something presumably in Flemish and the two actually started fighting, with JP pushing the manager around as the PA was turned off and JP was dragged off. I was sitting next to his sister who asked "apart from that, what did you think of them?". I still haven't thought of an answer (Apart from that, Mrs Kennedy, how did you enjoy Dallas?)

Another nomination would be someone at a Manchester Club who advised that "on the way here, it started raining so I waited in a doorway, so while I was there I wrote this song". You know the ilk.

A lot of nominations are victims of their own success, good songs being sung to death. Here in Perth I can sing Farmer's Boy to a folk club full of people who don't know it.

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 03:54 PM

Songs like the "hole in the bucket" and "in the bottom of the sea" are a sort of format. "The House that Jack Built." Each new verse builds on the previous verse. A well-known example is "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

The first time around, they can be pretty funny, but they can get awfully tedious awfully quickly.

There is a group of guys who get together once a year to sing at a local Christmas pageant, and the highlight of their program is "The Twelve Days of Christmas," which they rewrite every year, changing "lords a-leaping" and "swans a-swimming" to topical stuff. New every year. And always hilarious!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 08:52 PM

What about when they're not even funny - or interesting - the first time? Like The Rattling Bog (which I don't think actually has a verb in it, which sort of sums up the situation): The leaf on the branch and the branch on the tree and the tree in the... oh, you get the idea...

Re Fields of Athenry as a club anthem, whatever about the sectarian overtones, it's the out-of-tune, turgid, multi-voiced roaring that has finally done me in (lowwwwwwwwwww LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE...) It's actually a fine song, but it has suffered the fate of other fine songs, i.e. that people like them so they become popular and end up getting sung to dismal death. And THEN comes the inevitable parody, which is OK - once or twice - if it's clever, but they're so often second rate.

Kilkelly Ireland has decent words but it's too long and suffers from a horribly repetitive melody with about a four-note range. Boring even when performed by a talented singer.

On the non-folk front, I totally agree with the person above who nominated MacArthur Park (way too long, tedious, silly & meaningless) and also Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now, which seems to consist of two whole notes. HOW did either of those ever get beyond the demo stage??

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: EuGene
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 10:32 PM

Then along comes Van Morrison (who seems to have done ok on his previous recordings) singing "Moon Dance" . . . don't know whether or not that is supposed to be a folk song, but he "sings" it with the most god awful bunch of caterwauling I have ever heard. Ya gotta give him credit for a big set of gonads, as he dared to release it to the unsuspecting public with HIS NAME ON IT!! That's BOLD!! Eu

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 10:37 PM

I've hesitated to post anything to this thread, because the song that immediately comes to mind is one that I know a lot of people love very much. But I've now seen enough songs _I_ love get denigrated that I feel it's okay, and all a matter of taste.

The song I can't stand is "Country Life"

I like to rise when the sun she rises,
early in the morning
And I like to hear them small birds singing,
Merrily upon their layland
And hurrah for the life of a country boy,
And to ramble in the new mowed hay.

Now part of it may be that I really don't like to rise when the sun she rises. I like to rise several hours after that. But that isn't it, really, because there are lots of other morning songs I like just fine. Part of it may be the tune, which is VERY repetitive melodically and even more so rhythmically.

But mostly it's the words. Surely there's a better way to express love for the singing of small birds then to say "I like to hear them small birds singing!" As my sixth grade teacher used to say, "Show, don't tell!" I love the Watersons, and have been singing English folksongs all my life - but this one just makes me want to run screaming every time I hear it. It amazes me that it survived the oral tradition - usually the folk process improves upon imagery like this.

But other people, including many I respect deeply, love it - so who can judge?

Dan Schatz

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: EuGene
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 11:00 PM

But, Dan, if folks had any sense of good taste, we would have no pop or folk culture at all! Then we would have no entertainment left except to play Chinese Checkers with "Fur Elise" (on an endless loop tape) as background music, interrupted every few minutes by a computer voice saying "We value your call - please stay on the line and wait for the next available representative". Hell, come on back, Van! Eu

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: GUEST,Eleanor Roosevelt's Knickers
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 07:22 AM

Dan, that's the Steve Knightley song I was trying to think of. MInd you, I don't like 'Roots' either. I know they're saying something important but I'm sick of them being rammed down my throat.

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: GUEST,Windmills of your mind
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 07:47 AM

Based soley on last night's experience, I'd like to nominate "The Concertina Man".

Subject: RE: Worst Folk Song Ever?
From: GUEST,Brain Peters
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 10:33 AM

"sloop john b,benjamin bowmaneer,lord randall,cadgewith/cadgeforth] anthem.,polly wolly doodle."

Dammit, Captain, I love all those - with the possible exception of the last one.

I once heard a floor singer do a number about the hallucinogenic effects of certain fungi, which boasted the chorus: "Walking in the rain, mushrooms in my brain". The 'tune' seemed to have been composed while under the influence of said substances, as well.