Folklore: Is folk song really political?

Subject: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 06:52 AM

Let me say, right from the start, that I suspect that I am opening a REALLY, REALLY BIG can of worms here - and perhaps playing Devil's Advocate a bit. But is (Anglo/American) folk song really as political as we have been told it is for the last half century or so? Is it really (almost exclusively) about the lives of traditional/source singers and their communities? And is it really almost exclusively rooted in and almost exclusively about the occupations of those singers and communities?

In an on-going thread ("how important is the label traditional singer") we have reached a stage where various contributors are arguing about whether or not various 'recently' written songs have entered the repertoires of various mining and fishing communities (Why do we obsess so much about miners and fishermen? Just asking. I have nothing against either type of worker, by the way!) and whether or not such songs can be classified as 'traditional'. This argument has revealed an hypothesis which states that if a particular type of worker, living in a particular type of community, regards a particular song as being 'relevant' to his/her life (and occupation), and sings it, then that makes the song 'traditional'; is this true?

I've just been re-reading David Buchan's thought-provoking book, 'The Ballad and the Folk' (Pb. Ed., Tuckwell Press, 1997) and came across the following passage about ballads (p. 76):

"The ballads are distanced; they have settings which distance them from the everyday work of the plough and the byre [wish I could underline that sentence!]. Their ambience is aristocratic and their characters noble; the queens and ladies, kings, knights and squires enact their roles in castles, halls and bowers shadowily peopled by the maries and porters and page-boys of the noble household."

So, this passage suggests that a big chunk of the repertoire wasn't particularly relevant to the lives and occupations of the people who sang it. Although there is no doubt that the ballads were/are full of images and archetypes which were/are relevant to the lives of everybody, irrespective of social class or standing. Interesting to note that the greatest ballad singers of the Twentieth century tended to be Travellers - people who, for much of that century, were at the opposite end of the social scale from the Lords and Ladies they sang about.

My own view is that folk song is as much about escapism as it is about class politics. Surely, people who are in arduous and soul-destroying occupations need to escape from such occupations now and again - not to be constantly reminded of them!

My own motivation for singing folk songs is strongly escapist. No doubt some people will despise me for that, but remember, "the only people who have anything to fear from escapism are jailers" (now who said that?).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 06:56 AM

Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. Like most things in life.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 07:17 AM

Our current culture, in a general sense, seems to celebrate wealth and fame how ever it is gained. The tabloid press are good sources of what that means.

In this climate to celebrate or even simply to enjoy songs and music that have been kept alive by the rural working class seems like a political action, at least for some of us.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 07:36 AM

When I had a studio, the late Tufty Swift came in with Jim Eldon and John Gill one day and recorded an album for Topic called You'll Never Die for Love.

Tufty had found a collection of tunes that a local militia had played in the early 1800's and this formed the basis of the album.

We got to talking and soon we were wondering if this militia had been the one that sorted out The Pentridge Rioters. I said, well they were the forces of repression then...

Tufty said, you could say that about the British Grenadiers as well - doesn't mean to say its not folk.

Just cos great popularisers of folk music like MacColl and Pete Seeger were lefties, it doesn't mean every piece of folk music will be coming from that angle.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: BB
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 07:39 AM

Recently, we were looking for traditional songs about fishing - there appear to be very few, although plenty of more recently written ones.

As to what makes a song traditional, it seems to me that if it is 'traditionally sung' within a certain community on a regular basis over a long (but how long?) period of time, that fact has a lot going for it when defining it. (Do we really want to go here again though? :-))

Barbara

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: the button
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 08:09 AM

Depends what you think it means to be political, I reckon.

The number of folk songs that are overtly political (Rigs of the time, & that) is quite small. However, as Les said earlier, keeping a tradition alive is a political act in itself.

We live in an age of multi-million pound industries (advertising, telly & that) which are devoted to conditioning our responses, and trying to make us pin our hopes & desires on a certain set of products & aspirations. Now, I'm not going to pretend that folk music is somehow entirely outside that system of control (the pile of CDs next to my stereo look suspiciously like commodities to me).

However, to participate in the creation of an alternate world of meaning (which is what I think happens in a good folk gig or session) is in some sense saying, "You know what? There's more life that a new car." And I reckon that counts as political.

Of course, there are other subcultures (or taste cultures, if you like) that can do the same thing.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 08:20 AM

A very interesting question, and I'm right with Les and button in their responses. As a singer who cut his teeth in Manchester-area folk clubs, I'd grown up with the idea that industrial broadsides of the kind that my hero Harry Boardman used to perform were the very stuff of local folk culture, but over the years I've had to ask the question how many of them were ever sung popularly or "entered the tradition". I'm still hoping....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 08:42 AM

"Yankee Doodle" started out as a song mocking the colonists. They adopted it as their own, making it a political statement. It certainly is part of the folk idiom in the US.

Children's rhymes, such as "Four and Twenty Blackbirds" and "Little Jack Horner" are also relevant here, as they can have political protest meanings (and these two do).

I suspect that ofttimes it depends upon the context. "Wait for the Wagon" is a perfectly good song from the 19th C. US -- but when changed to "...the dissolution wagon" it back a political song of the South during the US Civil War.

Burns' "Bonnie Dundee" was overtly political; during the US Civil War it became "Riding A Raid" and continued as such. It could be argued that in its incarnation as "Lords of the Cam" (Girton College, Cambridge, ca. 1870) it was again political, although not warmongering, as it was used to support the awarding the BA to women.

So...I suppose it depends. "Lillibulero" was just a song before 1689 and all that.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 09:30 AM

Shimrod,folksong is not political,when someone sings Im a little teapot,and asks poor old Shimrod to do the actions[dear o dear what are folk clubs coming to,it will be naked performers next].but when someone sings Go Down You Murderers, it is.
I agree with MCGRATH.Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 11:42 AM

Wow! To be quite honest I was bracing myself for a torrent of abuse. What I got was lots of deep thought. And I agree with almost everyone - except the Cap'n, of course (that goes without saying!).Sorry Cap'n! Only joking - couldn't resist a little riposte to your dig at me and my teapot.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 12:34 PM

Songs that people make up which describe their lives: work, a bystander at a historical event, a retelling of a tale heard from someone else or else their own story, whether sad and desperate or triumphant and self-fulfilling; these are all political because the personal is political, without a doubt.

However, songs made up to make money are just commodities; the singer rarely knows or cares what it's about. It's a commercial sound, not part of the soundtrack of their own life, This is not political.

If what you mean is trad or roots-based, just say so. The problem lies in the utter bankruptcy into which the word 'f*lk' has been allowed to tumble. It has become completely meaningless, way past its sell-by, confusing and devoid of any meaning.

Good grief (nicked from another site):

"There's this quasi-renaissance of British folk music going on in London right now, with singer-songwriters and folk collectives thriving artistically and commercially everywhere you look. Just as 2006 and early 2007 were dominated by electro, folk seems to be the genre du jour in the eyes of the majors and the scene is flourishing. At the forefront of the movement are singer-songwriters like Kid Harpoon, Lightspeed Champion and Kate Nash, but there are plenty more acts to get excited about in the new folk scene. However, there may be none more promising than Noah & The Whale and Laura Marling."

and later

"Nowhere is this more apparent than on debut single "Five Years Time", perhaps the most carefree, relentlessly breezy single of the year. With a jovial effervescence that can brighten even the darkest day, the track is all ukuleles, xylophones and whimsically nostalgic lyrics about fun, sun and love (these words come up A LOT), yet manages not to be overly-cute or cloying in spite of itself."

If anyone actually knows what this is about, do feel free to translate. Though I'm no sure that I need or even want to know.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Ernest
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 12:55 PM

Diane,

your quote is about business. "Folk" has been so "out" for the musical industry`s customers that is weird enough to... well, name a newly fabricated trend.

The musical industry`s definition of folk: anything with an acoustic guitar.

Back to the original topic: I think a song is political if it is/was intended to be political by the writer/singer. So the songs labelled with the f-word ;0) can be poltical or not. Business hasn`t that much to do with it: even a political song has a commercial aspect if the writer/singer makes a living (even if part-time) with his music. The market for political songs is smaller than the market in general, but nevertheless...

Best
Ernest

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 02:11 PM

well, it varies as to the topic and time, but certainly 'some' songs are quite political....for example Pete Seeger's "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy".

And some of Eric Bogle's moving, but intense portraits of war.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 02:22 PM

"songs made up to make money are not political."

Can't see why that should be true - it depends on the songs, and how applicable they are to a political issue.

How about:
"Buddy can you spare a dime"

Or:
We don't want to fight,
But by Jingo if we do,
We've got the ships,
We've got the men,
And got the money too.
We've fought the Bear before,
And while we're Britons true,
The Russians shall not have Constantinople.

And it'd be easy to come up with more contemporary examples. (And I don't think it's too relevant or useful to go back over "what is folk?" yet again.)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 02:26 PM

The musical industry`s definition of folk: anything with an acoustic guitar

Is it? I thought it was anyone who once lived next door to someone who had a second cousin who once played one.

Or a band that got a hurdy-gurdy, a nyckelharpa, a crwth, a kantele or a djembe off eBay cos they're oh so kewl.

Nothing to do with any involvement in the relevant tradition, obviously.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 02:57 PM

Buddy can you spare a dime?

Yip Harburg wrote this to make money?
Well, I hope he got some for Somewhere Over The Rainbow . . .

As Dick Gaughan later wrote:

I raise up my glass and drink deep of its flame
To those who have gone who were links in the chain
And I give my soul's promise I give my heart's pledge
To outlaws and dreamers and life at the edge.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 05:17 PM

Songs about war are, I think by definition, political -- even those lamenting "Johnny has gone for a soldier" have political overtones.

What becomes more intriguing are those songs that are NOT overtly political, but are or become so.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 05:23 PM

Mrs. McGrath

"By God, I'll make them rue the time
That they stole the legs from a son of mine."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 05:54 PM

Folk music is by folk.    They vote for their faves. Leader folkers lead folkies.
What song or folker do you vote for? Who is your favorite folker leader?

Are kings and princes pols? Knights? Fair maidens? Coal miners? Cowboys? Who do you vote for?

What about the Tyranny of Folk? (Barry Manilow enslaved by trad rads)

Are political songs folk songs? (Jefferson and Liberty) (Lincoln and Liberty) Or " in
1814 we took a little trip." Is Driftwood a folksinger?

Can we elect a folksinger to public office?

Are folkies banned from making money and getting next to those who hire them?
Is that political?

Is folk a sub-versified plot to mind-alter poor susceptible victims?

Next topic: is folk music non-political?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 07:15 PM

????

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 07:27 PM

"Can we elect a folksinger to public office?"

well, Oklahoma made one governor.....unfortunately.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: M.Ted
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 07:43 PM

We're going to have a thread explaining this all soon, because a lot of people have either forgotten it, or never knew it-- but bottom line is that folksongs and folksingers are in fact political, and leftist (not infrequently communist), progressive, civil rights, anti-war, pro-labor, environmental groups have used folksongs and singing to build a sense of community --

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 08:19 PM

What! Are you calling "The International" communist??

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Peace
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 08:29 PM

Good one, M Ted.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Effsee
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 09:47 PM

Would "We didn't start the fire" by Billy Joel qualify as Folk?
"Down by the river" by Albert Hammond" ?
"The grave" by Don Maclean?

Political in my book.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Effsee
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 09:58 PM

And now that I think about it, was John Denver's repertoire not largely political folk, or was it too commecrcially successful to be accepted into the canon?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,punkfokrocker
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 11:34 PM

yes.. sometimes.. perhaps not many, or very often, these days..

but yes.. 'folk' songs could still be 'political'.


btw.. 30 years ago.. long exhausting student/media debates

if punk songs were really political..!!???


arguements still raging today in student common rooms & Uni bars..??????????


ps.. my generation of agit pop funk punk folk 'subversives'

are now the middle aged farts

holding high office in local councils and higher education..



hah.. race you for the delete button old man clone..

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 12:20 AM

oh.. and ta very much for the reminder..

i just rediscovered this on a shelf at the dark end
of a room downstairs i dont go into much anymore..

"The Best of Broadside 1962-1988"

SFW CD 40130

5 discs.. 89 songs.. 5 hours 22 minutes 32 seconds..


http://www.amazon.com/Best-Broadside-1962-1988-Various-Artists/dp/B00004VWX0/ref=sr_1_3/002-8471012-3362450?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=

that musta bin one of my 42nd birthday pressies off one of my good old lefty mates
back when i still had the energy to give a monkeys..

smells a bit damp and musty..



that'll be a barrell of laughs then..

hmm.. maybe should dry it out in the airing cupboard

under the wifes frillies

and have a fresh listen..!!???

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 01:57 AM

This discussion might benefit from some of the debates about meaning that linguists, literary scholars, and (yes) folklorists have long engaged in.

To wit: to say that a song is only political if the writer intended it to be so is what in lit-crit is called "the intentional fallacy." The problem with the intentional fallacy is twofold--one, we cannot usually know what the writer intended. This is particularly true of folksong, when we don't even know who the writer is. Two, some of the most important impacts works of art have had in the world have been through interpretations the writers didn't intend. Therefore, it is almost universally accepted among today's scholarly community that a statement or work of art can have important meanings that were not intended by the speaker. Those meanings might be political, in which case the artwork would "be" political, if the verb "to be" can be used in this way.

The impact of this on the question is: all art is political, or can be read for political meaning. This is because part of the meaning comes from the hearer or interpreter, and that part of meaning is different for every hearer. I may think "This land is your land" is anti-capitalist in declaring that the land belongs to everyone, not just landowners. This was probably part of Woody's intention (especially taking into account the "private property" verse that he rarely recorded). But many think it merely rejoices in the natural beauty of the United States. Because of this, it is taught, quite uncontroversially, in many government-funded public schools where other communist songs would not be tolerated. Similarly, Amazing Grace has lyrics that are not political, but nevertheless it carries political meanings for many hearers.

Songs which may not have been intended politically nevertheless tell us a lot about the politics of the time and place when they were written. They document political realities of their times, can be read for political meanings, and in that sense are political.

Diane's statement that "songs intended to make money are not political" is itself a political judgment. It starts by drawing a distinction that rarely exists--most songwriters write songs hoping to express themselves AND ALSO to make money, though most are more successful in one direction than the other. It then uses that false distinction to suggest that capitalism on the one hand, and honest self-expression on the other, are antagonistic, which is a politically-charged, anti-capitalist idea. A believer in capitalism would say, "What is true self-expression but emotional communication with other people? And what better proves that a song is communicating its message than good sales? Writing to make money and writing to express yourself are therefore the same thing." I don't really buy either side of this argument, but I do think the introduction of the profit motive muddies the waters--whether a song is political is independent of whether it is intended to make money.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 05:26 AM

What I wrote was:

songs made up to make money are just commodities; the singer rarely knows or cares what it's about. It's a commercial sound, not part of the soundtrack of their own life. This is not political.

Which might be expressed as: Treating music (or any art) as a commodity renders it non-political because such an attitude is dehumanising and degrading.

While the manufacturing of music for profit might be construed as 'political' in that it is an act of aesthetic vandalism, the content (or lack thereof) is not thereby enhanced to a political level. Rather the opposite.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: alanabit
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 06:11 AM

"We Didn't Start The Fire" is about as genuine a folk song/political song as "Eve Of Destruction". In fact it is down there with the dregs of what Diane ís referring to as "commodities". I personally dislike it more than "Sugar Sugar" - which happens to give me toothache, because at least the Archies were not guilty of the fundamenal dishonesty of Barry McGuire and Billy Joel.
In fact folk song is exactly as McGrath says - sometimes political and sometimes not. That goes for any art form.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 06:12 AM

I'm not sure there any absolute truths here. i keep thinking of possible exceptions to these rules you are laying down.

You could argue that any song is political - even a love song borne of one's experiences of love and relationships in a certain period of time, in a specific political landscape.

Everything that has an objective reality can be interpreted as an expression of the climate of opinions and and current popular beliefs. Songs are no different.

I am currently trying to write a song about fruit machine addiction - which is a massive problem, which you probably won't know about - until it whacks you in the face and affects someone you love. But just google the words 'fruit machine addiction' and you will find pages of the most terrible stories of human degradation.

I think there is a difference between someone like me who uses songs occasionally as agitprop - and say Cole Porter who's love songs were cynical because he lived in an age where myths were exploding all round him. his songs were a reaction to the times.

Its a criticism that some people have levelled at Jane Austen - she lived through the Napoleonic Wars, and yet its not a theme in her novels in the same way that the rise of Nazism is in Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin. And yet Pride and Predjudice has less than gallant soldiery as a theme.

Even if you set out not to be political - you probably will be.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 06:24 AM

WLD said:

even a love song borne of one's experiences of love and relationships . . .

Even?

Oh dear.

I see have to rewind and repeat the first paragraph of my initial post:

Songs that people make up which describe their lives: work, a bystander at a historical event, a retelling of a tale heard from someone else or else their own story, whether sad and desperate or triumphant and self-fulfilling; these are all political because the personal is political, without a doubt.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 06:48 AM

You seem to be saying that just the act of 'being' is political.

I can't argue with this. If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in Your Hair - seemed very soppy and hippy-ish to us in England. But to a crew cut, aggressively heterosexual, believer in USA policy in Vietnam in the 1960's - it must have seemed loaded with political significance and very confrontational.

Surely the correlate of your position is that as we are embroiled in the political reality ourselves - its very hard for us to judge accurately what is being achieved.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: greg stephens
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 06:48 AM

Most contributors seem to equate "political" with "vaguely left wing".Son't forget the warmongering racism that fuels loads of folksong in many(most?) cultures.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 09:08 AM

"Would "We didn't start the fire" by Billy Joel qualify as Folk?
"Down by the river" by Albert Hammond" ?
"The grave" by Don Maclean?"

No, no and no.

This is because these songs have not been through the PROCESS involving (i) continuity which links the present with the past; (ii) variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or the group; and (iii) selection by the community, which determines the form or forms in which [they have] survive[d].

This does not mean (deep sigh!) that these are 'good' or 'bad' songs - it just means that they are not folk songs, that's all, and, hence, not relevant to this discussion.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 10:11 AM

Are folk songs political? – depends what you mean by 'political' surely.
In Ireland, the third most popular subject for song-making over the last two centuries, (love and emigration being the first two) has been the fight for national independence. Not only have you the national repertoire of political songs, (1798, 1867, 1916 etc) but many town and villages have their locally created ones, dealing with happening in the immediate areas. We have found at least 2 dozen from Miltown Malbay and the surrounding areas. Literally hundreds upon hundreds of political songs form the national repertoire here.
In Scotland, the Jacobite wars, and later the clearances were the subjects of many songs.
It seems to me that the term 'political' when applied to folk song has a number of levels.
You have the overtly political repertoire as above, certainly present in the English and Scots repertoire, less in England, but not entirely absent.
Then you have those which indirectly deal with the political/social situation. Typical of these were the poaching songs.
A few years ago I gave a talk to our local history society on song and history and came up with this (at the risk of making this another epic posting):

'The songs I have mentioned so far deal with specific events in history. An example of how songs and poetry generally comment on the prevailing situation rather than identifiable events is to be found in a rhyme which was popular in England at the time of the Peasant's Revolt of 1381. This uprising came about as a protest to the imposition of a Poll Tax, a tax levied on every individual, regardless of income or property. It started in Kent and was led by a priest named John Ball together with Jack Straw and Wat Tyler. John Ball preached an early form of Communism and his egalitarian philosophy is summed up in the little rhyme traditionally said to have been taken by him as the text of his revolutionary sermon on the outbreak of the revolt. It is claimed that he was the author:
"When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?"
Land ownership in England was one of the great causes of contention and has influenced the making of many songs and rhymes.
The seizure of what was originally common land began in England in the 14th century and became widespread in the 15th and 16th centuries. Wealthy and powerful landowners annexed huge tracts of commonage as part of their own estates, planted hedgerows and built fences around them to prevent access by members of the public.
Common land was used by working people as an essential source of food to sustain their families. It was the practice, for instance, of factory workers, landless labourers or tradesmen and artisans involved in cottage industries to use common land to graze a cow or a sheep or raise poultry, even to have a small market garden. Commons were also places where a rabbit, a pheasant or even a small deer could be got to supplement the family diet. With the closing off of the land this vital source of sustenance disappeared overnight. The effect on rural life was devastating: it caused poverty, homelessness, and rural depopulation, and resulted in revolts in 1536, 1569, and 1607. A further wave of enclosures occurred between about 1760 and 1820.   Numerous government measures to prevent depopulation were introduced between 1489 and 1640, including the first Enclosure Act (1603), but these were sabotaged by local magistrates who were usually influential landowners.
A new wave of enclosures by Acts of Parliament from 1760 to 1820 reduced the small landowning farmers to the status agricultural labourers, or forced them to leave the land altogether. The Enclosure Acts applied to 4.5 million acres or a quarter of England. Some 17 million acres were enclosed without any parliamentary act.
It was probably the last bout of enclosures in the first half of the 19th century that inspired, not a song, but this anonymous rhyme which begins:
"The law locks up the man or woman, Who steals the goose from off the common, But leaves the greater villain loose Who steals the common from off the goose" - and ends: "If the law locks up the man and woman, Who steals the goose from off the common, The goose will still a common lack, Until we go and steal it back".
Apart from the songs produced directly by the enclosures in England, a side effect of the appropriation of common land provided one of the largest and most poignant bodies of songs in the British and Irish repertoires, the poaching songs.
Deprived of the right to legally catch game on the old commons, the poor resorted to taking it illegally. Many of them continued, as they had always done, to go out at night setting traps to snare rabbits and pheasants. The landowners retaliated by employing keepers to protect what they considered their inalienable right to their newly-acquired property. They also resorted to setting mantraps, large, viciously toothed, spring-loaded devices capable of breaking a man's leg and tearing off chunks of flesh. The response of the poachers was to go out armed and in larger numbers. This escalation led to a period of English rural history known as "The Poaching Wars".   It worked like this. Men who had previously gone out poaching singly resorted to teaming up with others to offer resistance to the gamekeepers employed by the landowner. The landowner would, in his turn, employ more keepers and so ad infinitum. One song from the eastern county of Lincolnshire, entitled "The Rufford Park Poachers" tells of a pitched battle between forty poachers and a similar number of keepers.
On being apprehended the poachers would be tried by magistrates, who were themselves local landowners, who would, as was to be expected, show little mercy. First offenders would usually be heavily fined, but the most common punishment for a repeating offender was transportation to the penal settlements in Australia, usually for long periods.
The songs created on this subject cover the whole gamut of attitudes and emotions: despair, anger, defiance, repentance even a boisterous humour.
Poaching songs were to be found in abundance throughout Britain and Ireland, but to my mind the best of them is the one popularly found in the Eastern part of England in East Anglia.   Entitled simply 'Van Dieman's Land', it deals with an event said to have taken place in Warwickshire on Squire Dunhill's (sometimes Donniell's or Daniel's) Estate. In my opinion it is a perfect example of a narrative English traditional song, and what makes it so good is its matter-of-fact presentation of the events. It tells how one of four young men who go poaching together, is taken by the keepers, tried at Warwick Assizes, and sentenced to be transported for fourteen years. He is placed on board ship, endures a three month voyage, lands in Australia, is taken ashore yoked together with other convicts, auctioned to the highest bidder like livestock, and finally settles down to his fate.
Whether the events described can be pinned down to one particular occurrence is debatable, but they are so typical of what was happening all over rural England that the song passed into numerous versions with different names and locations. This version was sung to us by the late Walter Pardon, a carpenter who came from a farming background in a small village in North Norfolk. He described it as "a long old song, but then", as he said, "it was a long old journey", which, for me, is an example of a singers relating perfectly to his song. I won't play all the song as it is over six minutes long, having nine verses and refrains, but to give you a flavour here are a couple of verses......."

The third 'political' implication of folk song is the very existence of large body of song, more or less anonymous, to be found in the possession of, and almost certainly created largely by a rural working class.
If I wanted to discover when, say, the Battle of Trafalgar was fought, what ships were involved, who were the officers, how many men, etc., I would go to the history books. If I wanted to know what it felt like for a weaver, or farm worker, or a miner to be pressed into service and thrown into the horrors of a sea battle, I would have to go to the folk-songs.
Our traditional songs not only entertained and diverted, but also recorded the history and the aspirations of generations of ordinary (whatever that means) people; is that political or what?
I believe Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun had it right in 1704 when he wrote "If a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation".
Sorry this has been so long – again.
Jim Carroll
PS Shimrod referred to David Buchan's comments on the ballads; he was dealing with 305 'Classic Ballads' which are distinct from the general repertoire, but equally relevant in their way.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 11:00 AM

the thing is though - peoples perceptions change

take that Sheep Crook and Black Dog song.

My sympathies are with the woman every time. She doesn't want to live in a hut on the moors; freezing cold, starving to death, never meeting anyone from one week to the next....

Conditions in service were shitty by all accounts, but they must have seemed like a career opportunity compared to life in the hut.

Yet I always think the songwriter expects us to say, the heartless bitch! why didn't she stick by this fine fellow. He's got a long walking stick and dog, what more could a woman want.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 11:18 AM

I'd be considerably more impressed if Flora had said:

One day to our wedding is one day too soon
I'll use your bag and your budget to organise the National Union of Shepherds
And then we can afford more than one room.

Or something else that rhymes and scans better.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Mikefule
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 11:26 AM

From the first post in this thread:

<< the greatest ballad singers of the Twentieth century tended to be Travellers - people who, for much of that century, were at the opposite end of the social scale from the Lords and Ladies they sang about.>>

Not at all. My work brings me into contact with travellers from the traditional travelling community. They do not consider themselves to be at the botom of the scale, any more than they assume lords and ladies are at the top. Like every community, they have their own social scale. If members of the travelling community ever think about it at all, I imagine they think of themselves as operating completely outside the mainstream, in a parallel society of their own. In some ways, they look down on "us".

Be that as it may, is folk song really political? If you want it to be.

Folk song just exists. People who want to find politics in it can; people who want to find social comment in it can; people who want to find separate strands or categories in it can. But folk song just is.

We are folk too, you know.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: SouthernCelt
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 11:29 AM

I agree with GUEST, Shimrod. A song has to go through a certain process in society, aging, changing, and otherwise maturing until it has reached a point that it's subject is historical not current. Many songs mentioned here up through the WWI era I think could now be considered folk songs IF they came into being in the era they describe. Recently penned lyrics about old events, historical or otherwise, are not folk though they may be folk-style songs (acoustic instrumentation generally). Songs after about WWI, whether written for $ or not, whether overtly political or not, in my view aren't really folk songs yet. And certainly the protest songs of the 60s forward, whether protesting militarism, political events, or social trends, have not yet become "folk".

SC

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: IanC
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 12:43 PM

Walnut Concertina (B)

Walnut Concertina (E)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: IanC
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 12:44 PM

Er ... sorry ... my mistake!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 03:11 PM

"But folk song just is."
Sort of like Topsy you mean; it just growed?
Folk songs were made to entertain, to reminisce, to record events, remember people and events, to revenge, to be remembered, to assist political campaigns, to protest, to right wrongs or to own up to them, to ridicule and debunk, to poke fun at, to change the world or to keep it the same.......
Travellers.... "In some ways, they look down on "us"."
Not the ones we met over the last thirty years
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 03:12 PM

Whoops sorry Charlie.

"But folk song just is."
Sort of like Topsy you mean; it just growed?
Folk songs were made to entertain, to reminisce, to record events, remember people and events, to revenge, to be remembered, to assist political campaigns, to protest, to right wrongs or to own up to them, to ridicule and debunk, to poke fun at, to change the world or to keep it the same.......
Travellers.... "In some ways, they look down on "us"."
Not the ones we met over the last thirty years
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 04:03 PM

two rooms....he'd probably keep his sheep in the other one. She's well out of it.

No, its a job with prospects. She could work her way to become the heroine of a Catherine Cookson novel. And thus in a few years; she becomes Cotton Lil, the feisty rough tongued lady (but really with a heart of gold) who runs an empire of Gin Palaces, married to Obadiah Hardknacker (a very hard man! who owns all the land in these parts), And all the time she was in love with Viscount Edwin Flossie who stole her maidenhead when she was below stairs....but theirs was a hopeless love.

Either way, Black Bob and Rin Tin Tin can bugger off.

but I'm telling you the plot....!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 05:21 PM

I've got something to say, and I'm going to say it now-

The folk music revival caught fire first in the US, and, like it or not, it was highly political. I will say this again, and again, if necessary. From Joe Hill to Woody and Pete, from Zilphia Horton to Joan Baez, a fading musical legacy was brought back to life in the service of the movement for radical political and economic change.

Most of us, at least the Americans, are here because of Pete and Woody--whether it was initially in the labor movement, or the civil rights movement, or the anti-war movement. And consider this--the bible of modern folkie-ism, is called, "Rise Up Singing" and is published by an anarchist collective.

Even Diane Easby's rather pointed thoughts about songs written for profit reflect Communist ideas concerning the culture of the working class.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 05:50 PM

What a load of bollocks!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 06:12 PM

I tend to agree with you about 'Black Dog and Sheepcrook', WLD. A young woman who went into service got a glimpse of a lifestyle that a poor farmworker could never provide. I suspect that the tensions, that such contrasts caused, may have been quite common.
My greatgranparents (on my mother's side) may have experienced such a conflict (although I can never prove it).

Mikefule,

I sincerely hope that Travellers take great pride in their culture - but it is quite obvious that some sections of society despise them and treat them accordingly. There is also no doubt that they have experienced severe discrimination through much of the Twentieth century. In Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger's book about the Scots Traveller family the Stewarts of Blairgowrie ('Till doomsday in the afternoon', pub. 1986) Alec Stewart is quoted as saying: "I was born and bred in Blairgowrie and I'm still not welcome in the town. In fact, not long ago two or three of the council said, "we want the town rid o' these people. We want them out!"" I bet Blairgowrie councillors didn't say that about any members of the aristocracy who happened to be living locally!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Is folk song really political?
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 06:35 PM

Deal with it, Bonzo--it's out there.