1954 and All That - defining folk music

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Edthefolkie
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 08:09 PM

This is all completely impossible to resolve of course, maybe Miss Karpeles was winding us all up. Anyway, it hasn't stopped "folk" arguing the toss in thousands of threads in web forums for years, and before that magazines, books, chapbooks, pamphlets, and probably little wooden notepads on Hadrian's Wall in the 2nd century AD. See traditional legionary folk song collected by R Sutcliff in "The Eagle of the Ninth" (I jest).

Is Flossie Malavialle supposed to sing Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel in a folk club? Was Bob Copper right to like the blues? Why did Jim Copper write old songs AND music hall songs in his song book (admittedly separated)? Is "You'll Never Walk Alone" a folk song if it's sung by the Kop at Anfield? These are all of course rhetorical questions but hide a point. ALL the music which people have picked up over the millennia goes into their very own melting pot which may then be added to other people's pots via memory, writing songs down, recording them on an Edison cylinder, or onto a hard disk in a home studio. Some of it will become Folk Music. Nothing WE say will stop it.

Christ, I'm sounding like Karl Dallas or Bob Pegg. It's nearly midnight GMT, I'm going to bed - I'll probably dream of the Folk Police riding me down now!

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Nick
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 09:18 PM

Howard - >>If I go to a jazz club, I expect to hear jazz. If I go to a Mozart concert, I expect to hear Mozart. Is it unreasonable to expect to hear folk music at a folk club?

If you go to to a jazz club you would expect to hear some kind of jazz. But if you are a big Kenny Ball fan you might find that Pharaoh Sanders or Ornette Coleman are not your cup of tea. You would probably ask the secondary question - what sort of jazz? Jazz has evolved and fragmented over the last century.

'Classical music' is a big diverse beast as well. Mozart wrote a lot of things and they don't all sound the same. A lot of people who 'like Beethoven' find the late string quartets are not to their liking as Beethoven evolved over his life as well.

Apparently folk music hasn't or can't. Or isn't allowed to or something. It just is that specific thing and doesn't belong to anything else and anything that came after it and refers back to it isn't it.

Which makes it unique. And stuck. And non evolving. And old. And probably dying. Always exist somewhere and no doubt be revived every now and again.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Nick
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 09:53 PM

Jim - here's a tip. If you "drive across the county to visit a 'folk club' I've just read about" etc and keep getting disappointed take advantage of two wonderful inventions. First one is the telephone. Pick it up and ask. Second one is the internet - email and ask. Or listen at a myspace or similar thing that people normally have. Use brain before getting in the car.

There was a thread recently where someone was coming to North Yorkshire and asking about singarounds, folk clubs etc so I sent him the usual link I send people (here) which gives him a simple representation of what an evening with us is about. Not a mention of folk anywhere but he - as a shanty singer, I believe - felt it was the right sort of place to come. And if someone sings a Nirvana song such is life. Personally I believe that we contribute to the continuation of a long tradition of people sharing songs and music together and will do for the foreseeable future. Couldn't give a kipper's wizzer what it's called but we set the rough parameters of what is accepted by the sorts of things that are played each week.

It still baffles me how you purists let such a popular art form practically disappear (by your continuing own admission) and seem totally unable or unwilling to resuscitate it. Your argument is always that there is a huge pent up demand waiting for folk in its proper pure form to be presented. I don't believe that is true. I believe most people would find Walter Pardon, who you always cite as the epitome of folk singing, as a rather sweet old gentleman with a curious voice singing songs in an archaic way which had little relevance to their everyday existence. Sure he sings in tune. And he's authentic and has the force of history etc but an evening of that is a very specialist taste. I have tried (I listened to 15 tracks this afternoon on Napster - because he is probably more accessible to the mass of people now than at any point in history) but find my attention wanders and I find it rather tedious and samey after a few songs. My failing perhaps or perhaps I am used to something else.

And the argument that the redefinition of the word folk is what killed its popularity I find bizarre in the extreme.

If you are ever in North Yorkshire though you'd be enormously welcome and you'd definitely hear ballads and shanties on any evening you came. You could sit in the carpark or perhaps wear earplugs when the more diverse items came on! As I said on another thread I find a wide range of music round this part of the world (I got invited to a Front Room folk club today) and it just seems to be growing. Within that I hear lots of different sorts of music from folk (in your sense) to more modern stuff and constantly find my musical boundaries being expanded and constantly find great songs being sung. Whether they are old or new or folk or not matters little to me - if they communicate (politically - emotionally - narratively etc) and/or move me that's good enough for me.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 09:55 PM

So if you go to a folk club and expect to hear folk music - exactly what kind of folk music are you expecting to hear? Blues? Appalachian? Native American? There are so many styles, how would you expect to know what you are getting? Going back to Don's Supermarket, would you just order candy and expect to get something you like?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 04:14 AM

Ron (shouting removed) - The reason we clump certain types of singer-songwriter and certain contemporary acoustic music into the term "folk music" is simply because it is folk music.

Yes, but what's your reason for saying that it's folk music? To put it another way, what's your answer when someone says it isn't?

There are so many styles, how would you expect to know what you are getting?

That's a very good argument for restricting the folk label. Yes, there's a huge variety of traditional music out there; all the more reason to give traditional music room to breathe.

Nick:

Your argument is always that there is a huge pent up demand waiting for folk in its proper pure form to be presented. I don't believe that is true.

I think there's substantial demand for contemporary acoustic music and for traditional music. Some people started a weekly FC here in Chorlton six years ago; these days it's almost entirely singer-songwriter (the Myspace page doesn't even mention traditional music), and most nights it's packed out. A year and a bit ago, a monthly singaround started up (on a "mostly but not entirely traditional" basis); it's just gone fortnightly, and it's packing them in too.

When I started going to the singaround I'd been going to the FC for five years on a pretty regular basis (sometimes weekly). In all that time I'd never heard Ranzo or Jones's Ale or Thousands or more. When I heard that stuff I liked it, but I didn't get to hear much of it at the local folk club. That just seems a bit odd to me.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: TheSnail
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 04:49 AM

Pip Radish

That's a very good argument for restricting the folk label.

And how are you going to do that? Strangle offenders with their banjo strings?

You can't legislate language.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 04:54 AM

Sorry Bryan and others who object to the length of my postings; I think this is going to be a long one.
Perhaps it's time to put this discussion into its actual context and get it out of the greenhouse atmosphere of the folk scene.
The 1954 definition arose directly, not out of armchair musings of the 'acaedmics' SS and his cronies pour so much of their contempt on, but directly from the 'folkface'.
Sharp, the main architect of the definition drew his information, not from books, god knows, there were little of those on the subject when he was reaching his 'Conclusions', but from the rural poor of the south of England and from the mountain people of the Southern Appalachians in the US. Hammond and Gardiner got theirs from similar sources, from rural labourers,and particularly from the workhouses of Hampshire and Dorset, Vaughan Williams, again from the farm labourers and from the fishing people of East Anglia. Grainger's magnificent collection came mainly from farmworkers on the east coast in Lincolnshire. The work of Gavin Greig and John Ord was carried out in the farms and in particular, in the bothies of the north east of Scotland. All the rest of the originators and supporters of the definition, without exception, were taking their inspiration and information from similar sources.
Later on the validity of the definition was supported by the work of Hamish Henderson among the Travelling people of Aberdeenshire and other working people of Scotland. Hugh Shields was working with the farm labourers and fishermen of North Donegal. The BBC collectors, Kennedy, Ennis, Bob Copper, Sean O'Boyle and others were all getting their information and their material from miners, mill-workers, fishermen, farm labourers, Travellers...... the working people of Britain and Ireland. It is these people - 'the folk' - who put the folk in folk, that's what the term refers to.
MacColl, Seeger and Parker took their folk songs and the inspiriation for their self-penned songs directly from fishermen like Sam Larner and Ronnie Balls, from Ben Bright, a seaman who worked under sail, road navvies like Jack Hamilton, and from English and Scots Travellers, from miners such as the Elliot family and from manual workers like George Dunne, Beckett Whitehead and Mark Anderson.   
Up to date, one of the most prolific collectors ever, Tom Munnelly (an ex factory worker), with 22,000 songs to his credit, was getting his material and his information from identical sources in the Republic of Ireland.
Our (electrician and office worker) own information came mainly from Travellers, from small farmers and rural labourers in the west of Ireland and from manual workers and fishermen in East Anglia.
It is this work and these sources that gave rise to and validated (and continues to validate as far as I'm concerned) the 1954 definition. Academics my arse!!!
And you would substitute it with what - the arbitrary whims of a tiny handful organisers and revival singers who, in most cases, have never ventured outside the protective bubbles of a folk club for their songs and music. It is these, as far as I can see, who are the real armchair academics.
No Betsy - you give it a break!
For me, the terms 'folk' and 'traditional' are joined at the hip, the former referring to the people who made and transmitted the songs, the latter to the filtering process that shaped them and knocked the sharp edges off.
As far as I'm concerned, our folk process is now finished. The people who produced the songs, stories and music have now become passive recipients rather than participants and creators, largely thanks to the intrusive influence of television. We saw it happen virtually overnight when the Travellers went out and bought portable television sets.
In my direct experience as a life-long manual worker, SS's "people coming in after a hard day's work in the fields or on the cabs, the Job Centre, the hospital, the school, the building site, the ministry, or computer terminal" don't make music, songs or stories any more; we have it made for us and the only say we have in the matter lies in the on-off switch and the television hand control.
The folk song revival once drew its inspiration and its material from the efforts of the people I've described above and in doing so, I believe they took on the responsibility for the survival of, or, at the very least, the accurate documentation of that material and all the information that goes with it.
Of course there's nothing wrong with drawing inspiration from the material to create new songs - it would be as irrelevant to modern life as 'The Sealed Knot' or historic 'war game' recreation if this didn't happen - an exercise in romantic nostalgia. But let's not mix up the two; we're observers, beneficiaries and documentors of a folk tradition, not a part of the process.
If anybody can come up with a new formula which fully combines the process and the people I have described above with the creations of the 'singer, songwriters', by all means let's consider it, but until somebody does, the old definition stands.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 05:47 AM

If anybody can come up with a new formula which fully combines the process and the people I have described above with the creations of the 'singer, songwriters', by all means let's consider it, but until somebody does, the old definition stands.

All very worthy, Jim, but there's still nothing in the 1954 definition that can't be applied to any other music. Like Christianity, it only stands because of unquestioning belief of the faithful in a remote theology. Thus, it creates that theology to account for a music that can only understand itself in terms of category, political agenda, and fantasy of folk-character. In short, the 1954 Definition is the opiate of the Folk Intelligentsia and can only account for a musical tradition which is, as far as it ever existed at all, (and in your own words, Jim) DEAD. Back in 1980 I was renting a house from some taxidermists who'd left a stuffed bittern hanging on the wall; folk process as taxidermy perhaps? The taxidermy of the extinct simply because the 1954 definition does not allow for its transformation and continuance in any form other than that which isn't on the agenda.

Ah degrading vile was the way ye died, o my bittern beauteous of glowing sheen
Was at dawn of day that your pipe ye'd play as content ye lay on your hillock green
O my great fatigue and my sorrow sore that your tail is higher than heart or head
And the tipplers say as they pass your way: had he drunk his fill he would not be dead

Still, at least you've got your books, Jim - cut & dried, dead on the page, and the more I think about it, the more it leaves me cold; cold as the fecking grave.

Folk is dead. Long live Folk.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Will Fly, on the hoof
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 05:55 AM

As far as I'm concerned, our folk process is now finished...Of course there's nothing wrong with drawing inspiration from the material to create new songs - it would be as irrelevant to modern life as 'The Sealed Knot' or historic 'war game' recreation if this didn't happen - an exercise in romantic nostalgia. But let's not mix up the two; we're observers, beneficiaries and documentors of a folk tradition, not a part of the process.

I'm not clear what your message is here, Jim. The folk process is "finished", but we can still draw inspiration from the material to create new songs - as MacColl did, presumably?If those songs are then transmitted, sung differently, adapted perhaps, changed over time, then the "process" continues. Difficult, perhaps, in an age where everything is documented, recorded, filmed and set in stone.

If the folk process is finished and the body of songs that we have is complete, unchangeable, and signed, sealed and delivered - then why sing them at all? We don't have the background or the personal experience or authority to deliver them with honesty and conviction, presumably? So why don't we accept that modern songwriters who bring their work to clubs and singarounds are offering something modern, and just get on with it?

I personally like a wide variety of music - including much from the tradition as you describe it, and lots besides. You give the impression that, as far as you're concerned, the book has been written, the subject is closed - and that's that, folks. So what are you telling us to do? We're not part of the "process" any more - television and the media has seen to that - and we don't have the background or the involvement, being office workers and not horny-handed sons of the soil, to deliver the stuff honestly. I get the impression - and correct me if I'm wrong - that nothing we can do, as performers will now ever be right.

I was singing "High Germany" last Saturday night - in my own way and as best as I could. What have I to do with the tradition that passed that song on? What have I to do with the circumstances in which it was transmitted? Perhaps I should stop singing it - it's pointless, isn't it? - and just concentrate on Fats Waller stuff instead. I know where that came from...

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 06:04 AM

Nick is correct,if I rang a club and saw the name Andy Caven,I know I would be getting Buddy Holly songs,and veery little trad material,if I saw the name Dick Miles,Iwould be getting thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K4-2laAOkI&feature=channel_page ,and no Buddy Holly.
most folk clubs,have a contact,if they dont have an e mail.
so what is the problem,if it someone you know nothing about contact the organiser.
the great thing about folk clubs is that they encourage people to make their own music,instead of being passive,mind you the computer allows that too.
long live folk clubs,and long live you tube,the two can work together,you tube is a great way of improving technique and also learning new songs.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: TheSnail
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 06:25 AM

All very well, Jim, but it doesn't get away from the fact that a lot of people use the term "folk music" in ways that do not fit the 1954 definition, probably because they have never heard of it. It is not easily accessible. A search on Google produces this - Definition of Folk Music. You have to pay $12 to find out the rules you must obey.

To abandon the music and go off in a fit of pique over a couple of words is ridiculous and harms the very music you claim to champion.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 06:33 AM

Bryan
Why should a definition be a rule - and why load discussions like this with such loaded terminology - speaking of which:
"To abandon the music and go off in a fit of pique"
Why the **** do you insist on doing this; it's nasty and it's counterproductive.
I set out what I believe to be a reasonalble case for my opinions - I did not "go off in a fit of pique". While I may have lost my rag at other times, I certainly did not do so here.
More later.
Jim Carrol

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 06:48 AM

PS Bryan
To suggest that the only access to 'A Definition of Folk Music' is via a €12 donation is being economical with the truth in the extreme.
A copy of the article is available to any EFDSS member - and, knowing the excellent librarian at the VWML as I do, to non-members also on request, as I am sure you are fully aware.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: TheSnail
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 07:14 AM

Jim Carroll

Bryan
Why should a definition be a rule - and why load discussions like this with such loaded terminology

A bit of mild hyperbole. You do give the impression that you think that the 1954 definition is, rather than a useful tool, something which everyone is obliged to follow.

"To abandon the music and go off in a fit of pique"
Why the **** do you insist on doing this; it's nasty and it's counterproductive.

Stop being so virtuous. You're pretty good at handing out yourself. I was talking about the general thrust of your posts not just this one. One that I found particularly disturbing was this thread.cfm?threadid=119179#2584434. For the record, I last heard a Beatles song in a folk club about 15 years ago. I last heard a song from the singing of Walter Pardon 2 days ago.

You have, as usual, failed to address my major point that a lot of people use the term "folk music" in a way that does not fit the 1954 definition and there is nothing you can do about it. Stop fretting over two small words and concentrate on promoting the music you claim to love. Did the people who trusted you with their heritage want you to "leave it on the shelf"?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 07:20 AM

I have a suspicion that those who claim the folk process to be dead want it so. They've got their little collections in their little museums and heaven forbid if any new stuff comes along to 'contaminate' or 'dilute' the gene pool.

That's why they like the 1954 definition - it preserves in stone a process which, in today's electronic age, is difficult to replicate.

But fear not, folks, other processes will spring up to replace those which have outlived their usefulness. The would-be King Canutes will be left high and dry. Ignore them.

Adapt. Change. But above all - SING!

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 07:25 AM

That's a very good argument for restricting the folk label.

Folk can only be an observable phenomenon defined by what it is, rather than what people thought it might have once been back in 1954 (and even then were several light-years wide of the mark). In my lifetime Folk has been everything from the Traditional Northumbrian Pipe Music of Billy Pigg to the Free-Form South African Jazz of Johnny Mbizo Dyani who frequently spoke of his music as being Folk. I think of everything I do as being Folk - be it This or This. No good can ever come out restricting anything, on the contrary, the wider our appreciations of Folk the better it will be.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 07:33 AM

"leave it on the shelf"?"
Have you knot read my postings on the availability of our collection or do you deliberately choose to ignore tham
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 07:46 AM

Like it or lump it, the overwhelming majority of people out there using the English language, who have even the slightest musical awareness, wouldn't have a clue what the 1954 definition is all about.

I found traditional song, completely *independently* of 'folk music'.
I was never a 'folk music' fan, if I thought 'folk' - just like everyone else (bar a tiny minority of specialists) - I thought 'Dylan' or 'Steeleye Span'. I didn't like folk music, so I never bothered with it, and as a consequence Trad Song completely passed under my radar for terribly long time.

The term has been utterly lost to whatever it initially meant, and as Leadfingers put it, has become an 'Umbrella Term' for a very broad and eclectic musical genre.

If you want to communicate to the real folk in the world, you need to speak their language, otherwise they will neither know nor care to know what you're attempting to say. And especially if you have to refer them to some academic definition for disambiguation of a term, which is completely inconsistant with the everyday language that they use and do understand.

In fact I'd prefer to see 'Traditional Song' move out from underneath this weight of miscellany, and stand on it's own as 'Traditional Song' because, if my (and that of some of my peers) own experience is anything to go by, 'Traditional Song' is vastly overshadowed by the volume of material out there proliferating beneath the folk music umbrella.

Traditional song, has become completely lost beneath such an expansive term. No-one in the real world has ever heard of the 1954 definition, but they *do* understand 'Traditional [insert culture and art or craft as applicable]' as a term that is used in a variety of contexts in a fashion that is overall pretty consistant and stable, and not requiring any form of disambiguation.

Trying to retrieve the term 'folk song' is IMO doomed to failure, and a complete waste of energy which could be far better spent, promoting broader awareness of 'Traditional Song.' Fair enough if you are speaking to those who share your sympathies and specialist understanding, but IMO it's alienating, confusing, tiresome, and can in no way further the cause of increasing greater public interest in and knowledge of Trad Song.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: TheSnail
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 07:48 AM

Yes Jim but nobody is better qualified to bring those collections to a wider audience than you, the person who collected them. Unfortunately, you can't see why you should bother because some people use the term "folk music" in a way that doesn't fit the 1954 definition.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Working Radish
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 08:03 AM

If those songs are then transmitted, sung differently, adapted perhaps, changed over time, then the "process" continues. Difficult, perhaps, in an age where everything is documented, recorded, filmed and set in stone.

More or less impossible, I think. I do Mr Tambourine Man from time to time; it's Dylan's words and tune (mostly) but not his style, not least because I do it without a guitar. But there are never going to be multiple Tambourine Mans (Men?) - except to the extent that the Byrds' version is an established variant - because anyone hearing the song performed can go straight back to the source. The folk process has been killed off by recorded and broadcast music, just like steam locomotives were killed off by diesel. Stuff happens.

If the folk process is finished and the body of songs that we have is complete, unchangeable, and signed, sealed and delivered - then why sing them at all?

Speaking for myself and not for Jim, because they're bloody good songs, and they're good in ways that most contemporary songs aren't. And enough people still* know them to make them fun to sing in company.

*This long after the Revival.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 08:10 AM

No Bryan, I no longer know that there is a large enough interest in the material we have recorded to warrant the time necessary in getting it into shape.
I have been aware of this since the days when Pat was organising bookings for Walter Pardon and constantly being told by club orgaisers "Oh, we don't book singers like that; we only cater for the modern stuff". Arguments like this only serve to reinforce those impressions.
I am now past my mid-sixties and have to decide the best use I can make of my remaining years. I have no hestitation in taking our Irish material to an audience I know to be able to make good use of it. Our English material is a totally different matter.
Those few who are interested in this are, and have been for over 20 years, perfectly free to access this in the various public archives it is deposited in.
It has nothing whatever to do with the '1954 definition' as you, once again so misleadingly - well - mislead.
"the overwhelming majority of people out there using the English language"
No Rosie, the majority of the people out there don't give a toss one way or another - we and folk don't impinge on their lives in any way.
The use and misuse of the language is confined to the folk world.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 08:58 AM

no no ,unfair to King Cnut,King Cnut was trying to show his courtiers,that he was not infallible.
you are acnutist

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Working Radish
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 09:08 AM

'Traditional Song' is vastly overshadowed by the volume of material out there proliferating beneath the folk music umbrella

True, but this too shall pass. 'Folk' as a style - usually meaning 'sounding a bit like Pentangle' - was ridiculously unfashionable 10 years ago, and it'll probably be ridiculously unfashionable again in 10 years' time. But traditional music was there, is there and will still be there. If more people believed that 'folk' ought to have something to do with traditional material, there'd be more chance that some of the thousands of people currently going through a 'folk' phase will get some exposure to traditional music along the way.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 09:18 AM

In fact I'd prefer to see 'Traditional Song' move out from underneath this weight of miscellany, and stand on it's own as 'Traditional Song' because, if my (and that of some of my peers) own experience is anything to go by, 'Traditional Song' is vastly overshadowed by the volume of material out there proliferating beneath the folk music umbrella.

My feelings entirely, at least in theory because at the end of our street there stands a public house by the Fleetwood-Larne ferry terminal where on a Thursday night meets The Fleetwood Folk Club which plays host to an assorted gathering of diverse human personalities and folk-characters all of whom have their own take on such matters and somehow manage to create a unity of experience and whole-hearted jubilation however so disparate the individual contributions. In a phrase - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and I'm sure that could be said for any UK club or festival - and long may that be the case.

*

Here on the Fylde there is a strong tradition of fine songwriting - Alan Bell needs no instruction, and neither should Ron Baxter, whose instinctive genius is such that I regard him as a medium through which the tradition flows. At this years Fylde Festival, for example, you might hear our new show Demdyke - a celebration of Fylde Folklore, Witchcraft and suchlike Wierdness in which all of the songs have been written by Ron in on a miraculous roll of creativity that leaves me quite beathless, especially given the quality of the material that flows from his pen. Genius for sure; and Folk most certainly, and never less than totally inspiring.

Their Jesus died, nailed to a tree
Why in His temple should I be?
Yet there my image you will see
Carved in wood or stone.

Though He arose, as doth the Spring,
New life unto this world to bring
He's not me, and I'm not Him
For Him I do not know.

For I dwell with the greenwood trees
And when they rustle in the breeze
Tis then that folk think they see me,
And some, perhaps, they do.

Through Summer sun, through Winter cold
I'm there with oak, and ash, and thorn.
I'll never die, 'cause I've never been born,
Forever I've been here.

Yet in May some still are found
As the pipe and tabor sounds
Bedecked in leaves they dance around
Doing homage unto me.

But of their homage I've no need
Of their worship I'll take no heed
Let them believe what they believe,
It matters not to me.

For I am... just what I am
Though that you'll never understand
Jack in the Green, or the Green Man
You may call me what you will.

I've been singing this to tune of Band of Shearers, with a stronger emphasis on the even & final verses. If anyone can think of a better melody, don't hesitate to chip in!

*

It is the creativity engendered by Traditional Music that I find the most captivating. I was honoured to a part of John Barleycorn Reborn and similar projects all of which are rooted in an appreciation of Traditional Song and yet take a very different view of this thing we call Folk. But I've heard Traditional Song set in all sorts of contexts - classical, jazz, free-jazz, rock, experimental and even folk - and so it endures very much as Traditional Song.

The music remains potent, and very much alive; it continues to inspire and invigorate and suggest new possibilities. I for one, on the available evidence, can no longer think of it as being Dead. The 1954 definition is engraved on the tombstone of an empty grave for the Tradition has been Reborn afresh.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,a passing academic
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 09:21 AM

A search on Google produces this - Definition of Folk Music. You have to pay $12 to find out the rules you must obey.

Not if you've got access - and not if the text has been liberated by a passing academic.

DEFINITION OF FOLK MUSIC by MAUD KARPELES (London)

This communication is mainly a recapitulation of opinions that have previously been expressed and is offered as a basis for discussion.

At the Annual Conference of the International Folk Music Council held in London two years ago we attempted to define folk music, but were unable to devise a definition which completely satisfied all the members. The provisional definition adopted by the Council was: "Folk music is music that has been submitted to the process of oral transmission. It is the product of evolution and is dependent on the circumstances of continuity, variation and selection."

This definition implies that folk music is the product of an unwritten tradition and that the elements that have shaped, or are shaping, the tradition are: (1) continuity, which links the present with the past; (2) variation, which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or the group; and (3) selection by the community which determines the form in which folk music survives.

The definition rightly leaves out of account the origin of folk music. The term can therefore be applied to music that has been evolved from rudimentary beginnings by a community uninfluenced by art music; and it can also be applied to music which has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten, living tradition of a community. But the term does not cover a song, dance or tune that has been taken over ready-made and remains unchanged. It is the fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that gives it its folk character.

When a tune passes into oral tradition, it becomes subject to the forces of evolution and conforms in the following way to the demands of continuity, variation and selection. Firstly, the tune is to some extent translated into the accepted idiom, so that the continuity of tradition is maintained; secondly, it ceases to be static and stereotyped, but becomes multiform through the individual variations made by its performers; and thirdly, the forms in which the tune ultimately survives are determined by the community: for the variations which meet with approval persist, and the others die out. In this sense, a folk song, even when it has an individual origin, may be said to be of communal authorship.

The time factor must play a part in evolution. A song that is learned orally, say from the radio, does not immediately and automatically become a folk song, no matter how great is its popularity. Tipperary [i.e. It's a Long Way To...], one of the most popular songs in the first World War, never became a folk song because it was never re-created by the folk.

How long does it take for a composed song to become a folk song? That is a question that is often asked and one to which it is impossible to give an answer. In communities in which there is a strong folk music tradition a composed song which hits the popular imagination will very quickly be absorbed into the tradition, but where the existing tradition is declining the process of transformation will take longer, if indeed it happens at all.

The weakness of the definition adopted by the Council is that it leaves out the time element. The definition originally placed before the Council was: "Music that has been submitted throughout many generations to the moulding process of oral transmission." But the words "throughout many generations" were omitted, because it was felt by some that the time factor does not operate to the same extent in a new country as it does in one with an older civilisation. The objection may have arisen owing to an erroneous identification of the term folk music with autochthonous music. Many of the songs that are traditionally sung on the American Continent are of European origin, but their transportation from Europe to America does not invalidate their claim to be considered folk songs.

In any country in which art music and folk music exist side by side there is bound to be inter-action between the two types of music and there will always be a certain number of songs that are on the border-line; but this should not prevent us from recognising that the two types are distinctive. It must, however, be borne in mind that in the transition from folk music to art music or vice versa there must always be a re-creation. In the same way that folk music may constitute the raw material of art music, so may art music constitute the raw material of folk music.
[ends]

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Will Fly
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 09:38 AM

Pip (Working) Radish - my comments were made ironically and I agree with you entirely. We song the songs because they're bloody good songs - not because they fit the 1954 definition or because we have some mystical metaphysical connection with them...

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 10:00 AM

"Yes, but what's your reason for saying that it's folk music? To put it another way, what's your answer when someone says it isn't?"

I answer that they are wrong. They are not considering the fact that folk music is a living tradition. Cecil Sharp took a snapshot of a community and their traditions at a certain point in time. Whatever rudimentary methods were used for transmission of the song was reflected in the source.

During the last 100 years, our sense of "community" has changed. You can sit and cry in your beer about the loss of tradition, or you can realize that tradition evolves with these changes.

The singer-songwriters are creating songs for a specific community. It is not "pop" music as it does not incorporate the qualities that would insure commercial acceptance to a wide audience. The songs are created for the same need that the songs that we consider "traditional" were created.   I was interviewing Eric Andersen and he explained it very clearly. They started writing songs because they could not find traditional songs that spoke directly to the issues and lifestyle that they were leading. They needed songs that would serve their own community.

The folk community spawned Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan and many others - and it continues to do so with emerging writers like Danny Schmidt, Joe Jencks, Lindsay Mac, Antje Duvekot and others.

Trust me - I am not knocking the study and enjoyment of traditional music. It is extremely important to preserve and learn from these songs and traditions. I feel that is also important to recognize that these traditions evolve.   There is a strong community, at least in this country, that accepts certain contemporary singer-songwriters under the "folk" umbrella.   They do not get confused about what they are listening to.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 10:23 AM

Cecil Sharp took a snapshot of a community and their traditions at a certain point in time. Whatever rudimentary methods were used for transmission of the song was reflected in the source. During the last 100 years, our sense of "community" has changed. You can sit and cry in your beer about the loss of tradition, or you can realize that tradition evolves with these changes.

Ron, your points would be a lot more persuasive without the sneering at people who disagree with you. We're not idle, maudlin, self-pitying drunks on this side of the argument - just rational adults who hold different views from you.

Apart from that, I'm slightly stunned by the second sentence I quote here - the "rudimentary methods used for transmission of the song" are precisely what makes traditional music different from composed music (which hasn't entered a tradition). The replacement of those methods by broadcast and recorded music stopped the folk process happening - those traditions aren't evolving, because there's nowhere for them to do so.

The singer-songwriters are creating songs for a specific community.

We could argue about the meaning of 'community', but I'm more interested in the bit about creating songs. Do you believe that a song that's just been written can be a folk song?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 10:34 AM

"your points would be a lot more persuasive without the sneering at people who disagree with you. We're not idle, maudlin, self-pitying drunks on this side of the argument - just rational adults who hold different views from you."

No, but you are a bit over-sensitive!!!    Jeesh - you consider "crying in your beer" to be sneering? Have you read any of the posts that you made in this thread? Get a grip!!

Replacement of "oral" traditions by recorded music altered the evolution of traditions - but you are grasping at a theory created many moons ago that also needs to evolve. Traditions DO evolve, and they utilize the means of the time and place. You cannot expect and old theory to remain "gospel". There are some people who can convince you that the world is flat.

Can a song that has just been written be a folk song? It cannot be a traditional song, that is certain. Is it a folk song - it would depend on the song and setting.   Someone can write a song for Britany Spears, that would NOT be a folk song.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: TheSnail
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 10:34 AM

Jim Carroll

I no longer know that there is a large enough interest in the material we have recorded to warrant the time necessary in getting it into shape.

What can I do to persuade you that there is?

Those few who are interested in this are, and have been for over 20 years, perfectly free to access this in the various public archives it is deposited in.

Not good enough, Jim. From this article http://www.folkmusic.net/htmfiles/inart558.htm -

"Jim and Pat were both listening to jazz and blues at the time but, when they heard Ewan MacColl singing industrial ballads about British working people's lives and emotions they were completely bowled over."

MacColl didn't just sit back and say "It's there in the museums if anyone wants it." You didn't seek it out until someone showed it to you. Surely you have a duty to pass on the flame.

What are you going to do with your declining years apart from go on internet threads and rant about the deckline of UK folk clubs because someone said that someone once sang The Great Pretender in something that chose to call itself a folk club in defiance of the 1954 definition? You know it's true; you read it on Mudcat.

It has nothing whatever to do with the '1954 definition' as you, once again so misleadingly - well - mislead.

Then what is it to do with? What is stopping you passing on the heritage that has been left in your trust?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 10:37 AM

"Jim and Pat were both listening to jazz and blues at the time but, when they heard Ewan MacColl singing industrial ballads about British working people's lives and emotions they were completely bowled over."

If someone writes a song in 2009 about the lives of British working people, should we ignore it because it is not a folk song?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: TheSnail
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 10:41 AM

Thank you, passing academic. Despite searching diligently for that, I had not been able to find it. The point is that some seem to think that the definition applies to everyone and must not be abused but very few do have access or the convenience of a passing academic.

It makes interesting reading. I think the last paragraph is particularly telling.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: RTim
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 10:42 AM

To add to the debate - I was listening to the following last night and today. I find it interesting particulaly because it was BEFORE the 1954 definition, etc..
---------------------------------------
East Anglia Sings.
BBC 3rd Programme - broadcast 27th Nov. 1947.
With Collector/Composer E.J.Moeran and BBC colleague Maurice Brown.

Female Announcer:
Mr. Moeran, can you define a Folk Song?

Moeran:
Well, I would say a Folk Song is that which has evolved itself in the course of time, among races or communities. As opposed to that deliberately composed by individuals and written out on staves of music.
But there is no reason why a Folk Song should not spring up today. As a matter of fact, we are playing one tonight about a living event which happened in Barton Broad.
And again, there is that ballad that I noted down in Oxfordshire about Mrs. Dyer, the wretched Baby Farmer and she was hanged at the end of the last century.

Brown:
Yes, and that was the type of song we wished to record, and we wanted them sung in the traditional, almost orchestral style, that the real folk song singer uses.

Moeran:
No accompaniment!

Brown:
No, certainly not. Think of some of those singers we heard elsewhere in Suffolk, some of the old ones knew folk songs, but they had sung them too long with a vamping piano, all the character had been ironed out of them.

Moeran:
Yes, Yes, and there is another thing, the words. We agreed that it was our duty to record the words as they were actually sung. Unfortunately much of the verbal texts of collections published so far have had about the same relation as the genuine article as does Thomas BowdlerÕs version to the authentic Shakespeare.

Brown:
Yes (and laughs..both)

Moeran:
This may or may not have been expedient with regard to collections intended for public purchase; but with regard to texts privately circulated by learned societies, can only be described to a kind of coyness and squeamishness.

Brown:
Well, those were our requirements and between us we were lucky enough to know where to go to find enough material for several broadcasts: Suffolk, and above all, North East Norfolk.

For more on the programme - see:
East Anglia Sings.
BBC 3rd Programme - broadcast 27th Nov. 1947.
With Collector/Composer E.J.Moeran and BBC colleague Maurice Brown.

Female Announcer:
Mr. Moeran, can you define a Folk Song?

Moeran:
Well, I would say a Folk Song is that which has evolved itself in the course of time, among races or communities. As opposed to that deliberately composed by individuals and written out on staves of music.
But there is no reason why a Folk Song should not spring up today. As a matter of fact, we are playing one tonight about a living event which happened in Barton Broad.
And again, there is that ballad that I noted down in Oxfordshire about Mrs. Dyer, the wretched Baby Farmer and she was hanged at the end of the last century.

Brown:
Yes, and that was the type of song we wished to record, and we wanted them sung in the traditional, almost orchestral style, that the real folk song singer uses.

Moeran:
No accompaniment!

Brown:
No, certainly not. Think of some of those singers we heard elsewhere in Suffolk, some of the old ones knew folk songs, but they had sung them too long with a vamping piano, all the character had been ironed out of them.

Moeran:
Yes, Yes, and there is another thing, the words. We agreed that it was our duty to record the words as they were actually sung. Unfortunately much of the verbal texts of collections published so far have had about the same relation as the genuine article as does Thomas BowdlerÕs version to the authentic Shakespeare.

Brown:
Yes (and laughs..both)

Moeran:
This may or may not have been expedient with regard to collections intended for public purchase; but with regard to texts privately circulated by learned societies, can only be described to a kind of coyness and squeamishness.

Brown:
Well, those were our requirements and between us we were lucky enough to know where to go to find enough material for several broadcasts: Suffolk, and above all, North East Norfolk.

For more on the programme - see:http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/moeran.htm

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: TheSnail
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 10:43 AM

Not quite sure what your point is there Ron.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 10:47 AM

The replacement of those methods by broadcast and recorded music stopped the folk process happening - those traditions aren't evolving, because there's nowhere for them to do so.

The folk-process is a conditional fantasy on the part of the people who believe in the integrity of what is, after all, merely a concept. It is an article of a faith that has no objective currency outside of those who hold it to be a self-evident truth which is, self-evidently, not the case at all. Traditions are evolving with the musicians who are out there singing and playing the stuff whatever their sources might be. Every time you sing a song you are, in fact, evolving it if only to suit your requirements; in so doing you are no different from any other Traditional Singer at any other point in time. Now, this is an observable phenomenon; I see it all the time, we all do. It's in the organic nature of the universe that nothing stays the same, and nothing can ever happen the same way twice. If traditions aren't evolving its because our concept of The Tradition is out of keeping with the reality of the tradition, which isn't something that's going to roll over and die just because its easier for the 1954 Faithful to deal with a corpse.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: RTim
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 10:53 AM

Oops - sorry I seem to have copied the text of programme twice -

apologies - Tim R

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 11:10 AM

If someone writes a song in 2009 about the lives of British working people, should we ignore it because it is not a folk song?

That's an easy one. No, but we shouldn't say that it is a folk song.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 11:18 AM

Every time you sing a song you are, in fact, evolving it if only to suit your requirements; in so doing you are no different from any other Traditional Singer at any other point in time.

That's true enough at the point of performance. What's different is what happens next - what happens to that song because of what the singer does to it. These days, not a lot - as I said above, there are never going to be multiple Tambourine Mans (Men?) - except to the extent that the Byrds' version is an established variant - because anyone hearing the song performed can go straight back to the source.

If traditions aren't evolving its because our concept of The Tradition is out of keeping with the reality of the tradition

To me, that's a bit like defining electric trains as a form of steam train, then saying that if people think steam trains aren't running any more it's because their concept is out of keeping with the reality of steam trains. Things change. People used to make music much, much more than they do now - mainly because the option of listening to it without making it was much less widely available - and when they did, things happened to music that don't get a chance to happen now. Other stuff happens instead.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Banjiman
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 11:21 AM

"People used to make music much, much more than they do now"

Is there any evidence for this?

Be interesting to know.

Ta

Paul

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 11:27 AM

"That's an easy one. No, but we shouldn't say that it is a folk song. "

So your only gripe is the label.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 11:45 AM

Ron - it's not a 'gripe'! My disagreement is with the use of the word 'folk' to refer to music which I don't think can be defined as 'folk'.

Banjiman - the thing is, in some ways I don't think people have changed
all that much. People like music while they work - and when there weren't any radios, they couldn't listen to the radio. People like music to relax with - and when there weren't any CDs, they couldn't put a CD on. People like to hear new songs - and when the only way to buy a brand new song was on a sheet of paper, they couldn't hear a new song without singing it. It all adds up to music being performed a lot more often, in a lot more places, by a lot more people.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 11:49 AM

Gripe=disagreement.

You do not have to call contemporary songs "folk" if you do not wish to.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Banjiman
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 11:55 AM

Pip,

With all due respect, that's not evidence, it's an assumption!

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 11:57 AM

I am off to play some folk music,and it wont be tie a yellow ribbon

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 11:59 AM

What's different is what happens next - what happens to that song because of what the singer does to it.

Why does anything have to happen next? We live in the here and now, and all that matters is the moment we're in and the provenance of that moment. Does a traditional song die the moment it's collected? So who killed the folk process? No - I think we need to widen the somewhat precious parameters of the 1954 definition and factor in the other ways songs might be transmitted and, therefore, transformed, and, as I've shown, the folk process can be shown to be alive and well. However, that means extending the parameters of what is Folk Music, and there is a reactionary element who don't want that. Funny how all these old radicals were so pitifully conservative when it came to culture. Patronising old bastards the lot of them! Fact is, they don't want Folk Music to be of The Folks, they want to keep it to their Intellectual Elite.

WLD - if you're reading this, you can expect at least one pint from me if our paths cross at Fylde this year; if you then choose to pour that pint over my head, I'll accept that as a baptism.   

To me, that's a bit like defining electric trains as a form of steam train, then saying that if people think steam trains aren't running any more it's because their concept is out of keeping with the reality of steam trains. Things change.

A train is still a train, I think, regardless of the location of the combustion - internal, external, or remote. I think the function is the important thing; the fact of it being a train rather than a skateboard; it still runs on tracks, and through the same cuttings, tunnels and embankments built by navvies long dead; a journey on any train is a journey into the past, like the journey from Poulton-le-Fylde to Manchester Oxford Road, where we might look out and see a replica of The Planet in full steam. Hmmmm. Is that what it's all about? Nostalgic replication? If people want to define Folk Song as being something out of necessity archaic, then that's a cosy idealism which I confess I find as appealing as I do repellent, however - we travel through the same landscapes, transformed on a daily basis & it's like this every time you sing a song, any song, not just a traditional song.   

People used to make music much, much more than they do now - mainly because the option of listening to it without making it was much less widely available - and when they did, things happened to music that don't get a chance to happen now. Other stuff happens instead.

I'm not sure if that's true; maybe the reverse is true. But whatever people used to do in the past, it wasn't necessarily Folk Music as we understand it. I've spoken to old musicians from mining communities who, whilst being fully conversant with the brass band tradition, have never heard any of the mining songs supposedly traditional to those communities. And then we hear tales of Bert Lloyd and Ewan McColl giving concerts at the Tow Law WMC to give the miners back their lost folk songs. I find this very telling as to the nature of Trad. Folk Song and the extent to which it existed at all, compared to the extent people wish to believe it existed. In my family we had fragments of such songs, but always alongside other songs, never in isolation. Whatever the numbers, there are a lot of people making music and singing for pleasure these days - and might I suggest there a lot more people singing Traditional Songs these days than has ever been the case hitherto?

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 12:14 PM

"The use and misuse of the language is confined to the folk world"

errr...no it's not

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 12:18 PM

PS -

That's an easy one. No, but we shouldn't say that it is a folk song.

I know lots of songwriters who have written some bloody fine folk songs - Ivan McKeon, Alan Bell, Ron Baxter, Ted Edwards, Johnny Handle, Graham Miles to name but a few - all of whose work have found its way into various oral traditions and might be heard sung as though it was, indeed, traditional. At what point does a song become a folk song? At what point did Peter Bellamy's settings of Kipling become folk songs, or else his self-penned songs from The Transports? Would anyone dispute calling these songs Folk Songs? Bellamy, as I recall, used the term Folk Idiom, to mean a particular approach to such matters, but it remains, after all, still Folk.

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: GUEST,Jim Knowledge
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 12:26 PM

I `ad that Minister of Culture in my cab the other day. `e looked well pleased with `imself and `ad a wapping great pile of papers under `is arm.
`e said, "`ouse of Commons, please Jim."
I said, "You look like a cat that`s `ad all the cream. What`s going on , then?"
`e said, "Well, you know all this `owjadoo about our culture dying out.? I`m going to introduce a bill to redress the balance."
I said, " What. You gonna make music and singing in schools part of the old curriculum again, like we `ad years ago?"
`e said, " Nah. We`re gonna fast track it. It`s gonna be illegal for the working man to `ave a telly or computer games. That`ll get `em singing again!!"

Whaddam I Like??

But, seriously though. I`m just looking through a book called Victorian Street Ballads. It `as loads of songs and doggerel they found printed on `andbills and broadsheets from the early 1800`s. Well, you could`ve knocked me down with a feather. `undreds of `em are what we sing in our band and we`ve always reckoned they`re folk songs. After `aving read all the stuff above I don`t know whether I`m on me `ead or me `eels. Cop an eyeful of this list below for starters.

Riggs of the Times
We`re All Jolly Felows That Follows The Plough.
Hop Picking In Kent
My Father Kept A Horse
Miles Weatherill ( I got Nick Jones doing that one)
Female Transport
Tarpaulin Jacket ( `e asks to be wrapped up in it when `e dies)
Polly Perkins
I Likes A Drop Of Good Beer
Free And Easy
Old Horse (this is the one with `edges , ditches, etc.)
Massa`s In The Cold Cold Ground

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 12:36 PM

The above, me thinks, will open up Ye Newe Canne of ye Wormes

Subject: RE: 1954 and All That - defining folk music
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 12:55 PM

At what point does a song become a folk song?

Ms Karpeles wondered about that one too. Ye Olde Dead Hande of 1954 Dogma with regard to this one is:

a) It happens.
b) Except when it doesn't.
c) When it happens, it usually takes quite a long time.
d) But it can be quite quick.

Rifleman - I'm sure that everyone who thinks that a song ceases to be a folksong the moment it's written down will be up in arms. Or they will when they get back from picketing the Bodleian Web site.