Is this a folk song?

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 07:07 AM

The suggestion that a "fundamentalist folk-Nazi police force" is cruelly denying deserving singer-songwriters the exposure and esteem to which they are entitled seems slightly crazy to me. And yet … and yet… perhaps there is a crumb of logic in this apparently ridiculous grouch.

Here in Britain there's a shortage of venues where aspiring musicians of any kind – Classical, Jazz, Rock, Pop, Punk, Funk, Folk or whatever – can hone their skills in front of a live audience. For many musicians, singers and songwriters, the most accessible option (sometimes the only option) is their local folk club.   But – and here's the rub – to get in there, they have to define what they do as "folk".
   
Over the years, some clubs have embraced this definition so enthusiastically that the kind of songs some of us used to think of as "folk" are rarely heard there. Well, that's democracy. Meanwhile, other clubs have chosen to exclude songs which fall outside what their membership thinks of as "folk". That too is democracy. And there are also clubs where you can hear many different sorts of music and song, some of them "folk" in the old sense of the word, and some not. Democracy yet again.

If you are a contemporary singer-songwriter whose only local venue happens to be a "traditionalist" folk club, that's tough. But the answer, IMHO, is the provision of more venues for new music, rather than a redefinition of the word "folk".

Wassail!

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,Bardan
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 06:18 AM

Well, maybe some of my comments were out of line, but shimrod has certainly allayed any worries about that by responding in kind. No I don't necessarily "prefer rock music". I'm not ageist. I'm not prolier than thou-(which is a bit of a cliche btw) or snobbish. I'm certainly not anti-intellectual. I'm just very aware that in the last twenty years or so folk musicians have suddenly lost the right to compose songs and tunes and call them folk. In many cases this is the case even when the songs have been around for quite a long time and people are learning them and passing them on. At the same time, songs like some of the Child ballads have been 'rediscovered' and hailed as wonderful folk songs. If the child ballads haven't been passed on orally for some time then (by your own definitions)they're certainly not folk. Some people on the folk scene seem to have a strange sort of "my song is older and longer than yours" complex. They sneer at perfectly good songs because they're not old or contain references to things the audience has experienced. Now, I don't mind Child ballads. In fact I quite enjoy a few of them. That really shouldn't mean I can't enjoy singing crazy man michael or some Christy Moore song at a sing around or session or whatever and it doesn't mean they aren't folk. The repeated comment about zebras and giraffes is totally irrelevant. We're talking about one process starting with one set of songs and continuing with more. If you want to argue that 'modern folk' or whatever has evolved into a different species I'll at least listen to your point. If you want to claim they are completely different and were never really connected you need to go back and look at the situation again. My take is they are continuing the tradition. Alot of them may fall by the wayside just as a lot did in the 1890s or whenever else you choose to look at. A few songs however will survive cos people like them and keep singing them to each other. A natural process that's been going on since time immemorial. Surely something you 'traditionalists' should be protecting?

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 26 Mar 07 - 05:10 AM

"The "Folk's" tradition goes on and yet you can't rejoice in that fact."

Yes I can - but with reservations. Because I'm not an anti-intellectual, "prolier-than-thou", Rock music obsessed, ageist snob - as several posters to this thread seem to be - I'm a sceptic. Just because the above mentioned snobs scream in my ear that "A is B" and "zebras are giraffes" (thanks, Greg) doesn't mean that I'm going to automatically endorse their vacuous, uninformed notions.


"The sieve songs go through is still the people. Respect their choices!"

No problem there! What's your problem?


"Are all recently composed songs now to be labelled "folksongs", or only some of them? And if only some, which fundamentalist folk-nazi police are going to sort the sheep from the goats?"

This is a good point, Greg. As a fully paid up 'fundamentalist folk-nazi policeman' I don't think I've got the stamina! The other night I sat through a session in which several dozen 'contemporary' dire ditties were warbled and were interspersed with a handful of traditional songs. I don't want to hear any of the dire ditties again, let alone have to sort them!

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 07:19 PM

How many fans of traditional song do you think there are in this country (a couple of thousand? (quote from above)
Exactly. Meanwhile the folk are singing back in 1945 "Tipperary", "Roll out the barrel" etc with no idea who wrote those songs. Therefore they qualify as folk songs far better than those researched songs sung in folk clubs by 2000 people nationwide.
The "Folk's" tradition goes on and yet you can't rejoice in that fact.
The sieve songs go through is still the people. Respect their choices!

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST, Mikefule
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 06:58 PM

Well, suddenly, the tone of the discussion has changed. It has moved on a bit from the starting point, but it's introduced some interesting thoughts - which is all I intended to provoke.

One misunderstanding from a few posts back: that punk bands would not want to see themselves labelled "folk". In fact here are few people reading this who would not find the Skids' solo unaccompanied rendition of And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda to be a good, respectful and sincere rendition of this great song.

Apart from the misguided introduction of some melancholy keyboard "choir" in the last verse or so (it was a new "toy" back then) it would pass muster in any folk club I've ever visited, even on the nearest meeting to Armistice Day. But the Skids would have called themselves punk.

The best answer to my initial question is the one referring to Terry Pratchet's answer to the literature question. Regardless of the subject material, and the origins of the singer, and his close association with the audience, and the audience's familiarity with the working environment described in the song, it is unlikely to be remembered in 50 years' time. That is why it is not a folk song.

I think a song becomes a folk song when the singer and the audience have no idea who wrote it, and no reason to care, and they just sing it because they enjoy singing it. Anything else is, at best, no more than "in the folk style" or "sharing some of the characteristics of a folk song".

I have written a few tunes over the years. Any one of them is broadly within the generic traditional style. Plenty of people have asked me where I learned them. They will only be starting to be folk tunes the day I walk into a pub I've never been into before and a complete stranger is playing one of them. I do not expect this to happen, but it would be hugely satisfying if it did.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: greg stephens
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 05:53 PM

Are all recently composed songs now to be labelled "folksongs", or only some of them? And if only some, which fundamentalist folk-nazi police are going to sort the sheep from the goats?

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: Stewart
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 05:36 PM

I don't know. I belong to a local folklore society where the "concert committee produces many folk music concerts each year." Since most of these concerts are by singer songwriters singing their recently composed songs, and the society calls them "folk music concerts," I guess this song might qualify. On the other hand...

Oh hell, I only know "good music" and "bad music" (my opinion), and I've given up trying to understand (or even care) what "folk music" is.

So there!

Cheers, S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 05:22 PM

"No academician can decide what is a folk song, and no definition helps".

That is one of the biggest piles of tow hitch adornments I have ever heard.

It is the academic who does define meaning, and when the various schools of thought (or hay) realise that those who have bothered to find out what "folk" means are interested in the meaning, and do not use the meaning as a barrier to finding merit, this discussion may move on.

Incidentally, George, I looked up "tralatitious" in the complete Oxford on Saturday. The primary (English, not American) meaning is "characterised by transmission", and other meanings add the sense of transmission over generations, which fits perfectly with the definition of folk music. Not only is folk transmitted over generations, but the events of transmission have characterised it.

The problem is that for a bunch of self-serving or self-aggrandising reasons, (or possibly out of misguided attempts at wit, in which case I would point out, as Heinlein does, the geometric progression of: - once: wit - twice: half-wit - thrice:quarter-wit - and so on) there are people who wish to assert that that which is not folk is in some sense folk. There is only so much idiocy I can stand, and as respects intentional idiocy it is rather less.

Those who invent their own meanings for words are simply wrong. Even vulgar (another, but obsolete, meaning of tralatitious) adoptions of meaning do not affect the academic meaning.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: BB
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 05:03 PM

Mike of Northumbria said:

"At festivals, the sessions are crammed with frighteningly talented young instrumentalists, but in the singarounds, young vocalists are rarely noticable. Does anyone out there have any ideas on why this happens, and what we can do about it?"

I think that to sing, particularly solo, makes them feel very exposed in a way that playing an instrument doesn't. As you say, the sessions are crammed with young instrumentalists - they're playing with lots of other people, rather than on their own. When I started singing on my own, I felt the need to use a guitar to accompany myself, which made me feel slightly less exposed - I could sort of hide behind it. It took listening to Roy Harris to realise that I didn't need that - and nor necessarily did the songs. There are young singers around, but most of them, it seems to me, hide behind microphones, and perform with other people. In singarounds, this is not so easy to do.

I'm not sure that there is much *we* can do about it. I'd like to see more of the likes of Jim Causley in more informal situations, and it might encourage other youngsters to give it a go, just as seeing Roy helped me all those years ago.

Sorry, this is all probably a bit off thread, but to get back to it, I agree that, whatever ones own definition of 'folk song', giving anyone the opportunity to sing whatever they like in an acoustic situation gives songs the chance to be taken up, spread and, in time, perhaps be considered 'folk songs'. Although that would probably be long after our time on this earth.

Barbara

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 03:31 PM

no, the material this band plays, is described by the band themselves as punk,they would probably be horrified to be described as folk.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,John from Elsie`s Band
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 03:26 PM

Correct me if I am wrong but did I not hear on "Folk Hibernia" that Woody Guthrie, when asked the question "What is a folk song?" he replied "Three chords and the truth".
Anyway I would love to know who were the people who composed, and no doubt ensured they were not lost, all the ancient songs we sing today.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 12:32 PM

"Who should define folk but folk themselves?!"

Snap!

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: chrispin
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 12:27 PM

A fascinating debate to come across just as I find this site...

I am absolutely no expert on folk music and do not claim to be so but I love what I think of as folk music - which tends to be traditional songs - and the more I hear, the more I enjoy them a cappella or with minimal musical accompaniment.

But surely "folk" has to be a living thing - if we define it too narrowly then it cannot change or develop - each generation will inevitably come to the tradition from its own perspective and reinterpret the material according to its needs. If a singer sings "Rounding the Horn" with respect and honesty then I as a listener feel moved or transported. The music has to be performed and shared with truth, but that doesn't mean it can't be sung honourably by someone who has never rounded the horn! The relevance of the music is in the universality of its appeal - the closest I've been to Rounding the Horn was a fairly rough channel crossing when I was thirteen... but I can absolutely empathise with the hardship of the sailors of earlier times precisely through the music that has been handed down and the effect it has on my imagination.

To say that a particular song is "not folk" is similar to attempting to define what "English" is an age that is so radically reinventing it through the use of modern technology. We may despise the use of "TXT" style language or of internet speak (LOL) etc - but we can't deny their place in the language.

As has been offered earlier in this thread a song can become folk only by its "acceptance" - its "use" by singers and audience alike...

Who should define folk but folk themselves?!

Chris Baldwin

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: greg stephens
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 12:14 PM

When I was a kid, the black and white stripy animals were zebras. The ones with the really long necks, and brown and pale patterns, were called giraffes. Those definitions suited us well, and they suit me now. If that makes me a fundamentalist, fine. I can live with that. And people can come along and tell me the long necked ones are zebras till they are blue in the face, I will still call them giraffes. There is nothing wrong with giraffes, or zebras. They just happen to be have been defined as different kind of animals for a while. And that's good. They are also both mammals, but they are not the same species.
    But if it really makes you feel good to call giraffes zebras, carry on. It's a free world. Just don't apply for a job writing the labels in a zoo.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 12:00 PM

Bardan,

God, this is so tedious - and I should really make you do the work yourself (but you're not really interested in anything but Rock music, are you?).

Here's a fuller list:

'Scarborough Fair' ('The Elfin Knight' - Child 2.)

and

'Seven Knights Drunk' ('Our Goodman' - Child 274.)

were both pop hits in the second half of the 20th Century as was 'Strawberry Fair'.

Songs like 'The Flash Lad', 'The False Bride', 'Barabara Allen', 'The Princess Royal', 'The Grey Cock' etc., etc. all lingered on into the second half of the Twentieth Century and, of course, are still sung in folk clubs by people like me!

As for the question of why you should want music you like labelled as 'Folk' - this continues to baffle me! When I first attended folk clubs in the late 60s I encountered these old songs which were so much more exciting and meaningful to me than commercial pop music. They were called (at that time uncontroversially) 'Folk' or 'Traditional' songs and they made a refreshing change from pop and rock-n-roll (which I had disliked since childhood). Now there seems to be a vociferous group who seem to be desperate to replace the old songs with rock-inspired ones. You keep moaning on as though you were the victims of some monstrous conspiracy to stop you singing or listening to the stuff that you like - but that is ridiculous - as a moment's thought should tell you. You are perfectly at liberty to sing, play or listen to anything you like - I CAN'T stop you - but if you call it 'folk music' I will disagree with you. What's the matter, can't cope with someone disagreeing with your precious opinions? People disagree with me all the time - I either ignore them or, if I think that they have a point, I alter my opinion - it's as simple as that!

The image you present at the moment is of some sleazy salesman who turns up a someone's door and tries to persuade them to replace their cabinet of priceless ceramics with a load of plastic tupperware. When the owner of the ceramics refuses you start insulting them (telling them that they "should be sitting in caves banging rocks on deerskulls" etc.). Naturally, the ceramics owner tells you what you can do with your tupperware! It's no way to win an an argument.

As for "...killing the whole genre of music" - I'm sorry but that really is a dumb remark! How many fans of traditional song do you think there are in this country (a couple of thousand? Or is that an overestimate?). How on earth are we going to put an end to all music (if that's what you mean), even if we wanted to? If 'music' is really being killed it is more likely to be as a result of the policies of the big commercial recording companies - save your wrath for them!

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 10:19 AM

Iwas only able to hear ten seconds of this,the sound kept freezing.
what I heard I didnt care for,this band describe themselves as punk,so presumably they dont think they are folk.
so it must be a punk song,not to my taste and I dont think the lyrics are very good ,if this geezers got a headful of insanity why doesnt he tell it to a shrink,instead of inflicting it on other people under the misnomer of music.
In my opinion its a load of old sQuit.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,Bardan
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 09:28 AM

Brilliant! We have ONE song! Isn't that great! And you *could* come up with a massive list but you just don't want to waste your time. hmmm. You still haven't told me about still older songs either. All you're doing with examples of Eighteenth Century songs is making the dying off period longer- not refuting my point.

A song has to be really different, (or maybe just lucky) so stick in people's minds for two or three hundred years. I will gladly have a dig at people who will accept a really old song that died within decades but has since been rediscovered and who have a go at a new song that has been passed on and sung etc for longer than the old one. I am just as happy if I offend people who want to kill the whole genre of music. Who think that nothing can be added to the tradition. Who think everything is set in stone. You know, you real hard-core traditionalists should really be sitting in caves banging rocks on deer skulls. Anything else is really a bit too innovative. Wouldn't want to be destroying the precious 'tradition'.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 08:48 AM

"How many EIGHTEENTH century songs have an unbroken line of performances up to the present day?"

Let's dispose of this one, first. The ballad called 'The Outlandish Knight' could well be a lot older than the "EIGHTEENTH century" and I know several people who sing versions of it. The mother of a friend of mine used to sing a version of this song and had no idea that it was an old ballad. I could give you a long list, but can't be bothered because you would just ignore me and it's not what you want to hear.

You carry on dreaming up spurious theories if it makes you happy!

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,Bardan
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 07:56 AM

Thouht I'd just express my opinion on the matter. If a song has been around for a while and survived, if it is sung and passed on by people who aren't the original writers and if it has at least the chance to change it's a folk song. Obviously people are going to argue about how long it should survive for and I have no doubt people will disagree with me but I think thats a decent definition. I think a lot of the hard core folk purists on this site would be shocked to realise what fits into that category. Certainly a lot of sixties and seventees stuff has survived for a generation or two. It's quite a bit older than me. In a lot of cases I learned it from family and friends of the family. There have been enough changed and forgotten words for the song to have changed at least a bit. The obsessive folkies on here probably won't like it, but when I've been at impromptu sessions with folk (not the "folk elite" or whatever with their siege mentality and their half hour conversations about the seventeenth verse of some ballad no one has wanted to sing in a century and more)it's been old rock and pop, even the odd bit of reggae that most people knew and joined in with. Now, at any impromptu sing around style event, there's a high probability of there being folkies around as well so I have no doubt that older songs will get sung, but eventually they will probably be forgotten and replaced with newer ones. That's natural. How many folk songs from the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries get sung now? How many EIGHTEENTH century songs have an unbroken line of performances up to the present day? There's no reason why desperado can't be a folk song if I sing it to my kids one day and they pick it up. If we lose all the traditional songs in twenty years that's terrible. If thirty year old ongs join the tradition and in seventy years time only the really great songs from the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries are being sung, I won't object.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 07:42 AM

And here we have the folk process in action - an expression taken up by the people, changed to suit or as well as memory serves and the originator forgotten; it's a traditional saying!

Just a little tease, guitar...:-)

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: guitar
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 07:31 AM

we can arguing about this till the end of time and still wa=on't know the answer, as a famous blues once said, when asked what he thought Folk music is he said well he hasn't heard a horse sing, so until we hear horses sing what is it.

tom

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: guitar
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 06:57 AM

you never win do you

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 06:34 AM

George,

I share your concerns about the decline of singing (any kind of singing) as a social activity. As to what we can do about this - well, I wish I knew the answer. As an illustration of the difficulties involved, here's a piece of family history.

My two sons were exposed to records, radio, and live music from the cradle, and carted off to weekend folk festivals as soon as they were tent-trained. Both played instruments reasonably competently by the age of five or six, performed in the family band before they were ten, and were running bands of their own by their mid-teens. After graduating from university and starting out in "sensible" careers, both were getting so many gigs that they decided to quit their day jobs and become full-time musicians... but neither of them sing!

When they were kids, they refused - very emphatically - to sing, despite massive encouragement from parents, teachers and (adult)family friends). They always seemed unable or unwilling to explain why - but as far as I could tell, they found the idea of singing themselves deeply embarrassing. Moreover, they seemed to feel uncomfortable in the presence of anybody else who was singing live and unamplified - regardless of the genre of the song, or the quality of the singer.

This seems to be a fairly common phenomenon. At festivals, the sessions are crammed with frighteningly talented young instrumentalists, but in the singarounds, young vocalists are rarely noticable. Does anyone out there have any ideas on why this happens, and what we can do about it?

Wassail!

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 06:20 AM

'Please define difine'
How about a misplaced finger!
It's always been my experience that people who are obsessed with typos usually have nothing else to offer,
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 05:44 AM

I am with Mike of Northumbria. No academician can decide what is a folk song, and no definition helps. Only the people can turn a song into a folk song by taking it up and singing it themselves. And there's the rub: In a society that is more and more geared towards passive entertainment and listening rather than singing and participating, fewer and fewer songs written today will ever have the chance to become folk songs.

For me the issue is not what is a folk song and what isn't, and so what one should "allow" in the context of a folk club or not. No, the real issue is how do we get people singing again, whether in a club or at a wedding party, a wake or a birthday do. And I don't mean shows like X Factor or American Idol; the people going there are driven by their thirst for celebrity status, not the need to express themselves.

If only we could get people singing again, I honestly wouldn't give a toss whether they sing pop, grunge, garage, ballads, folk or whatever. Which is why at our club we encourage people to sing whatever they want; yes, even at Herga, which is still thought by many as the bastion of traditional song. And you know what - you should see that stalwart Johnny Collins nod appreciatively and encouragingly towards the next young lad with a guitar that sings us a page from his diary. Now, that's what I call "folk ETHOS".

But England has largely forgotten how to sing, and I cannot help feeling that this is somehow worse than losing part of one's language. Even at that seminal moment of recent years, Princess Diana's death, when clearly there was so much pent up emotion in the crowds, no song was heard. I can't help feeling that in Ireland or Greece or Spain or Italy it would have been different. Or in England of 50 or 100 years ago.

Today's England is a singing-impaired society. And therefore partially dumb. That's what we should be fixing, not the definition of folk.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: guitar
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 05:38 AM

you just can't define it, because what isn't folk muisc now in years to come it will be.

tom

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,William the Conqueror
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 05:13 AM

Please define difine.

Nope,
Folk is traditional - otherwise, difine folk
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 05:06 AM

"In the end, when I listen to something, it is up to me if I call it folk or otherwise. it is my right to have that opinion, and that opinion is shaped by 25 years+ on the folk scene. Again what I dont call folk, someone else may do. It's their right,...."

Yes, it is up to you what you call it (it's your responsibility). In practice you have a "right" to an uninformed opinion (there's not much evidence in your post that those 25 years have taught you very much) - but the informed have an even greater "right" to disagree with your opinion. As far as I am concerned insisting on your "rights", in these circumsatnces, just emphasises the weakness of your position.

Uninformed, 'off-the-top-of-my-head' theorising brings absolutely nothing to the debate. Although, of course, everyone has a "right" to invent such spurious theories.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 25 Mar 07 - 02:53 AM

...and I agree with what 'Wordy' says!

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,teachers pest
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 08:48 PM

All i can say is that when i heard the great folk hero Richard Thompson do songs by Bowling for Soup and Britney Spears.I then ask myself what do all the trad folkies think of that.Then again like Richard,i don't give a toss.How far removed from folk is country music or blues,all tell stories of a similar kind.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,Steve_Cooperator
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 06:57 PM

Adding my ten-pennerthworth (howoever it is spelt).


It is hard to say just on lyrics alone if a song could be accepted as folk, their is also the melody, phrasing, meter etc. which all have an effect on how the listener catergorises a song. In a way it is easy. You hear a song and you day to yourself - that goes with: folk, jazz, pop, rock, classical, music hall etc etc etc. In the end, it is in the ear of the beholder.

But....

If anyone has strong views on what folk is and isn't then it is up to them to bring this, through performance, educaton, exchange of opinion, and bring attention to exemplary works.

In the end, when I listen to something, it is up to me if I call it folk or otherwise. it is my right to have that opinion, and that opinion is shaped by 25 years+ on the folk scene. Again what I dont call folk, someone else may do. It's their right,....

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 06:33 PM

Oh shit.

When will people learn, and when will they learn that they need to know something of a subject before becoming experts on it.

When will they ever learn? (Which is not a folk song).

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 06:26 PM

Well, what the Hell. I'll throw me hat into the ring.
Is The Poozies version of "Love On A Farmboy's Wages" Folk and XTC's original version Pop ?

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 05:24 PM

Hi Scoville,

Thank you for your insights.

I don't think its about a decision to allow a song to be a folk song. It just is.

I think there is a qualitative difference in the genuine human emotion that you get from a folk song and a Victorian or 50's pop song in that the latter is more contrived to reach a specific audience and will tailor the emotion to serve that end.

I think that the folk songs that prevailed did so for a reason. Many did not have to be rediscovered because of their essential durability. I doubt whether you could rediscover a Victorian song and claim it to be a folk song without its undergoing adaptation in almost a Darwinian sense. Hence "I Will Twine Midst The Ringlets" by Maude Irving becomes simplified and has a wider appeal through A.P. Carter because the song speaks to a sub-culture of the rural South and at one time although it wasn't greatly played on the radio, you could travel through the Southern US in the Fifties and everyone would know it and request it if you could play it. I called it the unofficial national anthem of the South.

When we get into the discussion of content, then we are in murky waters. Style is apparent but content is open for interpretation. There are many songs that claim a "content" which others might find empty or devoid of it.

Although there are many jazz-oriented or Broadway show songs that don't find their way to the radio, these would not be folk. They may not be in today's market but their exemption from this doesn't mean they are folk songs.

The human condition as a characteristic of folk music is not to say that it doesn't exist in other forms of song expression. I don't agree that the new stuff has the same quality that the folk music has, but it can be good and often addresses the human condition. The difference is that it doesn't have the distilling process of time to make it accessible as does folk music.

Many people are writing songs that they believe are important as social commentary or emotional insights. I don't think many audiences think or care about what is folk because it doesn't seem to concern them. The songs that some write to day have a legitimacy about them because a minority of them are well-written and do convey genuine human emotion. Legitimacy, however, is not necessarilly a province of folk music. A song can be legitimate without being a folk song. Writing stuff that needs to be said doesn't make it a folk song.

Folk-rock, country and most "whatevers" are record company terms used to market music to specific groups of people. I agree that you don't have to be dead fifty years to be legitimate but I do believe that time must elapse before we determine that a song becomes a folk song. The durability of the song is part of the definition of the survival of a folk song. Thus, Stephen Foster's "Angelina Baker" becomes "Angeline the Baker" and a prominent fiddle tune. It goes through the necessary permutations (variants) and distilling process that keeps it alive.

I believe that this is important because the folk song tells us a great deal about the society from which it emanates. There is an anthropological, sociological or ethno-musicological aspect to all of this and if you have listened to folk music for a long time as well as other forms of music, the difference makes itself extremely clear. It just plain sounds different. It is a stylistic and cultural difference and sometimes has little to do with content.

There is a prevalent myth that folk songs must contain social topcial commentary. I don't think that is true. Some do, some don't. Also, it must be stated that those who claim that they know what folk music is are new to the field and have not studied it long or carefully enough.

The big problem I have with folk song academicians is that they are only versed in the folk music and are not aware of the other forms of musical expression such as pop or art or even the craft of songwriting. Their view is limited. They don't have the musical perspective.

Outside of this you have the new singer-songwriter who must defend their position as an artist because it's one of the hardest ways to become accepted. Writing your own songs requires a certain sophistication (even if the song is simple) that comes from experience and a certain kind of education (not necessarilly schooled).

The quality of songwriting as an art in my opinion has degenerated. This is a subjective appraisal but when you look at the output of the writers from the era of the musical theater such as Rodgers, Hart, Berlin, Porter, Gershwin et. al. or from the Eliabethan art songs of Dowland and Campion, the standards for the quality of songwriting today are lower. One reason for this is that not enough time has gone by to determine which songs of all of them written today will stand the test of time and will be shown to have the artistry of the past "masters"

The folk song though prevails. I don't agree that a Barbara Allen is comparable to a 50's pop song because they are "oranges and apples". Barbara Allen is a folk song. The 50's marketable song is not (not to denegrate the 50's pop song, I love lots of them).

The distinction is important because it's not just about the performer who decides what he/she wants the audience to hear. It's about preserving the best elements of a historical and sociological culture and appreciating them in that context.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,Scoville
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 02:14 PM

Good input, Frank. Thanks.

I don't necessarily agree that it's a "poor decision" to allow a contemporary song to be a folk song. The relevance argument fails sometimes even in the old standbys: "Barbara Allan" is a lovely song but doesn't have much more to do with "human condition" than most Victorian or even 1950's pop music (boy meets girl, girl snubs boy, boy dies of broken heart, girl dies of remorse, true love is cruel, boo hoo hoo), which is not really surprising since that kind of thing was pop music when it originated. Furthermore, there must have been many songs from the same era that did not survive in common "folk" reperatoires that would be hailed as rediscovered "folk" if they resurfaced today.

Second, while I think that content ought to supersede style, I think there is at least something of a stylistic element to "folk". I don't know about the UK music scene, but there's a heck of a lot of stuff in the U.S. that many people in this thread would swear up and down is not folk, but stylistically, it would not be at all marketable as rock, country, etc., and it doesn't really belong in any of those categories.

Lastly, there is a lot of new stuff that has at least as much to do with "human condition" and a lot less in common with commercial pop/rock/country music than some other things people would generally consider "folk". Most of the musicians I have in mind are living what they sing and are writing songs because they see stuff that needs to be said. So it's folk-rock or folk-country or whatever. Maybe this is an American perspective, but I don't think you should have to be dead fifty years to "count" if what you've got to say is legitimate.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 01:32 PM

Sea Chanteys do tell a story. They have a progression. The sailors know the stories and that's why they sang them to accompany their work.

Beatles and Elton John Songs are not being sung by masses of people. They are being listened to but not perpetuated to any great degree because they rely on musical production values to carry them. Perhaps in the future some exceptions might include "Give Peace A Chance" or "Imagine".

Why? Because they might be re-written or changed to reflect new times but it could take a hundred years or more for this to happen.

Folk songs do make a difference and are not show, art, or pop tunes. The reason they are important as a distinction has to do with history and cultural background. The Beatles as great as they were (McCartney and Lennon were fantastic songwriters) are still a manufactured pop group put together with expertise by those in the music biz such as the remarkable George Martin. Elton John is an obviously gifted pop artist and entertainer.
But he is a stage personality and you are not apt to hear his songs sung that often in non-show biz environments. You will however hear many folk songs "off the stage" and in living rooms across the country, maybe not easilly discernable unless you happen to be in those living rooms, but they are there and alive.

The reason I became interested in folk music in the first place is because I recognized the distinction between a song created for show purposes and one that survives because it reflects history and culture. I never heard Barbara Allen or Streets of Laredo on the popular radio with exception of perhaps Burl Ives. When I first heard traditional folk singers I knew that they were never going to acheive the same kind of commercial success that a trained pop singer or performer geared to the business would have. The songs, themselves, were different because they informed about the human condition on a sociological, historical and cultural level that a pop song couldn't do. They talked about agrarian cultures, working-class people in their misery, historical events that were embraced by the public that were not instantly manufactured and the music sounded different. It wasn't slick or canned relying on a band to play it. It just was without trimmings and trappings and had its own vitality. Example: The Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music on Folkways. Son House, Texas Gladden, Hobart Smith, Vera Hall........... There will be those who say these songs are not important to distinguish but I am not one of them.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 01:14 PM

guitar, the oxymoron "contemporary folk songs" is what the disagreement is all about.

I think what Mike of Northumbria says just above is right on the button.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: Jeri
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 09:11 AM

"Fair enough, but if that community chooses an Elton John or a Beatles song rather than something sung in a club session are you happy to accept the people's judgement?"

What's the alternative? We can argue forever, but our opinions have little or no effect on anyone but us, and it's mainly our blood pressure they affect. Telling the 'folk' what they should and shoudn't sing is futile. They won't listen and likely don't care what anyone else thinks.

My mother used to drive a school bus. The little kids sat in the back and sang "We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow..." every day. Sometimes several times every day. Now, we know it was a huge Beatles hit with a copyright and everything. We know that song is not a folk song. Those kids woudn't have cared. They just had fun singing it.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: guitar
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 08:49 AM

what about contempary folk songs?

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 08:47 AM

If you succeed, and if that song gets sung so often that it becomes part of the shared culture of your community.

Fair enough, but if that community chooses an Elton John or a Beatles song rather than something sung in a club session are you happy to accept the people's judgement? Because that's what has taken place in the last 50 years.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 08:44 AM

When a radio interviewer asked Terry Pratchet if he thought his books were "literature", Terry replied something like this.

"Whether you count as literature or not is decided by a vote taken about fifty years after you're dead. I just try to write books that people will enjoy reading."

With folk songs, the process is somewhat similar, although the status of any particular song is established by the people, rather than by the critics. And the vote may sometimes take place while the author is still alive.

Of course, anyone can attempt to write a song "in the folk style".   If they then choose to call the result a "folk song" - well, there's no law that says they can't. But for myself, I think that's a poor decision.

A better approach, in my view, is just trying to write a song that other people will really enjoy singing. If you succeed, and if that song gets sung so often that it becomes part of the shared culture of your community, then it will be a "folk song", by my reckoning. (Though I maintain that it won't be "traditional" until nobody living remembers who wrote it.)

Wassail!

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: Jeri
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 08:11 AM

There's a difference between the process and the product. A song has to get into the tradition somehow. At it's start, it's a 'song'. Could be a pop hit, could be a show tune, could be one about your mind being a dustbin full of insanity, or any shape of song.

Folk songs - we can probably all agree on this at least - are ones the 'folk' sing. If you're the only person singing it, it's not really the People's song, is it? If you refuse to allow changes while you're alive, it's not the People's song.

There are enough songs out there, and enough good songwriters, that I just won't bother to sing a song if I have to live in fear of a songwriter's disapproval. Being somewhat of a songwriter, no matter how unknown, I know how it feels to let the song go play in the neighbor's yard. It's inevitably changed: sometimes it comes home covered in mud or the neighbor's kid taught it a dirty word, but you have to let it go unless you want it to never leave home. "If you'd love something, set it free..." and if it really WAS yours, you better have registered a copyright. Even if you do, some 'folks' are still going to claim it. The process starts with 'folks' getting their grubby little hands on a song, working their will upon it (complete with mondegreens and other bizarre changes) and passing it on.

The most fun singing times I've had are ones where people don't worry about categories. We sang old songs AND new. I suspect that's closer to how folks in the past did things than choosing committee-approved, certified folk songs.

Let somebody with less joy and self confidence worry about approval. Just sing the damned song.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 08:08 AM

Actually, none of this matters really. The people don't listen to folk music, they've not listened for a century or more.
I was reading a diary yesterday about VE day 1945, London. Swarms of people were out in the streets celebrating and the diarist says;
"we sang all the old songs, "Roll out the Barrel", "Tipperary" and "Bless 'em all".
For everyone of us in our music ghetto there are thousands who aren't and it's only the "Folk" world that doesn't see that the people have already decided what their songs are and they are not Trad but they are written by people we know. There is some crossover ie The Corries Scottish anthem and Eric Bogle, but generally our people don't want to know the folk world. If they did there'd be huge hit folk musicals,audiences of thousands prepared to pay through the nose to see the great stars, magazines in Smiths with Vin Garbutt on the front cover selling like hot cakes...But it isn't happening and it never will.
It's been the same for three generations or more now and basically renders these discussions meaningless.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: jacqui.c
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 08:07 AM

IMHO a lot of folk music is a telling of the social history of ordinary people, tied in with the great events that touched them. Those songs were sung and handed down. The successful ones survived but I am sure that there were a lot that didn't.

In the past century there have been songwriters who have blended into the folk tradition, mostly writing songs about events, ancient and modern. I'm particularly thinking of Tom Paxton, Gordon Lightfoot, Gordon Bok and one of my favourites, Utah Phillips. Some of their songs have caught the ear of 'folkies' who then take the songs up and spread them around. Those songs actually say something about life as it is lived and are generally more than just a complaint about how hard it can be or how unfair it is.

If a song is contagious in folk circles it becomes part of the legend, whether it be 200 years old or 2 years old. The critical fact is that it must be a song that people WANT to sing. I think that is the difference, maybe, between folk and other types of music. How well does any song translate when sung without benefit of mikes and recording equipment? Does it need full on musical backing or does it stand alone, sung accapella, or in harmony?

I've sat in sessions where the 'singer songwriter' regales the audience with his latest gem. Unfortunately, all too often these 'gems' are unsingable and do not sit well upon the ears of those listening. They ain't going to end up in the tradition any day soon.

Anyway, that's just my personal opinion

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: kendall
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 07:43 AM

If I like a song, I learn it and I don't care if it's a folk or a trad song.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: stallion
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 07:06 AM

all the bickering really brasses me off it is really pointless and divisive, however tight the "spec." of the genre, and even then there are fuzzy edges, what really matters is the community involved in making music and singing. I know what I like and I know what i don't like, I hate dried fruit and positively baulk at a scone full of them but where the hell can you get them without, only a few places. Music is the same, and like scones it is economies of scale and its "who's bums on what seats". What labelling might do is point people in a direction that they would not normally go and there are gems out there and fair play to people who flag them up but part of that process also involves people not sharing their enthusiasm for that body of work that doesn't give a licence for those people to denigrate it because it is not to their taste, it might be the best scone in the world but if it has currents in it I will not eat it but I won't say it is a pile of crap. Oh rambled a bit, maybe their ought to be a thread assessing work and, with all the knowledge of the mudcatters experience, positive feedback on what venues might be open or appreciate the type of music flagged up.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 06:16 AM

"We aren't supposed to carry on the tradition of singing about our lives by either of them. Both would deny us a platform."

No-one is denying you anything (expect, possibly commercial interests)! Just don't expect everyone to fall into line on your say so!

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 04:34 AM

You obviously differentiate between 'folk' and 'tradition' - please explain your definitions.
As far as I'm concerned we came into 'folk music', then retreated from the term when people began to use it as a dustbin to dump anything they couldn't be bothered to categorise. To me, the music I started to listen to is, was and always will be 'folk' until somebody gets up off their backside and produce a satisfactory new definition (rather than wandering round with a blank expression claiming they don't understand!). We even had some clown (apparently for commercial reasons) suggessting that we now abandon the term 'traditition' - sheeeeesh.....
I have never heard a horse sing either; nor have I come across one who has produced a half-decent alternative to the term 'folk'.
If we rely on dumb animals for our information we really must be in a bad way.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST,teachers pest
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 04:23 AM

It reads like a blues song to me.Don't know what it means to be folk coz if it reads like folk or sounds like folk,then to me it is folk.A song does'nt take 200 years to become a folk song,either it is or it ain't.Then again,like you,i am just in the hands of the know alls.

Subject: RE: Is this a folk song?
From: GUEST, Mikefule
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 04:18 AM

I never said it was my song. It isn't. Someone earlier in the thread pointed out the identity of the band that released it.

I never said it was a particularly good song, or indeed a bad one. It chorus, and on the live version I have on CD, the audience joins in with some gusto.

I never said it was a folk song. I just wondered how the fundamentalists would justify it not being one.

I don't think it's a folk song - but it is something with some similarities to a folk song, at least lyrically, if not stylistically.

I do think it has more authenticity or relevance (whatever that is) than an East Midlands office worker singing about sailing round Cape Horn. (Speaking as an East Midlands office worker.) I have met and socialised with many bored factory workers; I have only ever met one person who has sailed around Cape Horn, and he was a "folkie".

It is interesting that the reasons given for it not being a folk song include:

"It's too obvious". There are some very "obvious" folk lyrics; some are dreadful. "She wore a bonnet, with ribbons on it."

It is fascinating that someone should "correct" the lyrics of the folk song I quoted - I learned it by ear from hearing it performed over many years, but it appears I should have checked the correct words in a book. How traditional an approach is that?

It doesn't tell a story. That excludes a hell of a lot of songs I thought were folk: most shanties, for a start.

The truth is, "folk" as we know it is of little direct relevance to most of the "folk" who make up mainstream society, and I find it amusing that so many people who claim some allegiance to "folk" like to distance themselves from the sort of music that is generated by modern society.

The song is by Anti Nowhere League, a punk band that has been touring for 30 odd years now. One of their distinctive attributes is that you can hear the words (fairly) clearly on (nearly) all of their tracks.   The words matter to them and they sell mainly to people who feel that they can relate to the subject material of the lyrics.

Anyway, I'm sorry that an attempt to stimulate an interesting conversation by approaching an old chestnut from a different angle did little but provoke irritation and reinforce some existing prejudices.

I'll get back to dancing, playing, writing the odd tune and the occasional song, enjoying the music on its merits, and leave you to it.