any Trad songs about Time Travel ???

Subject: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: GUEST,erbert
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 08:44 PM

my mrs is well into all those time travel bollocks paradox
films and TV series..

We just had to sit through some dismal Hallmark Channel movie

"Before You Say 'I Do'"

..so now shes's gone to bed with a big daft satisfied girlie smile
on her face...

are there any Trad songs re: visitors from the future influencing
historic events..

and if not yet ?????

..like what if Matty Groves had been slipped a word of warning and went to bed
in a police issue anti stab jacket from the 21st Century
then tazered that angry posh aristo cuckold husband..
and ran off out the window into a time vortex
and penned a folk song about his misadventures
whilst sat in a pub in mid 20th cent Tin Pan Alley...

funny bugger time travel and its unexpected consequences...

Subject: RE: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: artbrooks
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 09:20 PM

Well, the Defenders of Trad should arrive shortly, but there are a lot of such things out there. Do a web search for "filk" + time travel. Make sure that you ""-"" filk, otherwise the search engine will 'correct' your misspelling of folk. Filk, generally speaking, is science-fiction-related folk music. {Duck...here come the Definers of Folk!}

Subject: RE: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: mousethief
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 11:51 PM

It's not trad, but Queen did a song about FTL travel which resulted in a 99 year gap between time back on the home planet and time as experienced by the travelers, leading to a nasty surprise at the end. The song is "39".

Subject: RE: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 04 Aug 10 - 12:45 AM

Any songs about Rip Van Winkle - of course, he only time traveled one way - like all the rest of us.....

Subject: RE: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Aug 10 - 12:54 AM

Would songs about Rip van Winkle be 'traditional'? ~~ he was not, after all, a 'traditional' character, but the invention of Washington Irving. Not that the sleeper-archetype isn't a well-known piece of folklore; but not under the Rip v W name.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Aug 10 - 01:18 AM

Whether they're purely traditional or not, I'd sure like to see any songs you might have on Rip Van Winkle, Michael.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: mousethief
Date: 04 Aug 10 - 01:21 AM

Part of the problem is that the idea of time travel is, with a couple of exceptions that aren't likely to have been influential on Trad music (e.g. a Japanese story of the 8th century), pretty modern.

• 1733, a novel by Samuel Madden (Memoirs of the Twentieth Century) but it was severely suppressed.
  
• 1771, a french novel L'An 2440, rêve s'il en fût jamais, which was translated into English within a dozen years of its publishing (if my rusty schoolboy French is any good).
  
• 1819 - Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle"

It's unlikely the concept of time travel would have shown up in a trad ballad, but not in literature, before 1733.

Subject: RE: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Aug 10 - 03:46 AM

Sorry, Joe. Didn't claim to have any Rip VW songs; simply queried as to what would be their traditional status if any did exist.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: beeliner
Date: 04 Aug 10 - 04:15 AM

I'm not sure that Zager and Evans are 'trad', but "In the Year 2525" is the first that comes to mind.

Subject: RE: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 04 Aug 10 - 09:49 AM

Thomas Yates, who wrote this in 1873, was an obvious time-traveller to come up with such uncannily accurate predictions.

Subject: RE: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 04 Aug 10 - 10:15 AM

Wonder if Nostradamus wrote any songs....

Subject: RE: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 04 Aug 10 - 10:28 AM

Peter Bellamy sang a song about Nostradamus, as written by Al Stewart.

As for Traditional, let's take a leaf out of the 1954 Definition shall we? The term can [...] be applied to music which has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community.

Once we've crossed out unwritten (which barely qualifies as a qualificiation in terms of actual folklore these days) I would think that just about covers just about everything.

Subject: RE: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 04 Aug 10 - 11:52 AM

Joe, in his early years in vaudeville Al Jolson sang a song called 'Who paid the rent for Mrs Rip Van Winkle, when Rip Van Winkle went away? He had a similiar one about Pocahontas though   I'd need to go digging through my record collection to remind me of the name. He also sang 'Where did Robinson Crusoe go with Friday on Saturday night'? Although he is most famous for his 'Mammy' songs, jolson was known as a singing comedian and had numerous comedy songs in his repertoire.

Subject: RE: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: radriano
Date: 04 Aug 10 - 12:19 PM

You are watching too much trashy TV.

There is reality and there is fantasy.

Subject: RE: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 04 Aug 10 - 12:55 PM

I'm sure in the writers of the old Supernatural Ballads could have conceived of time travel it would have been in there. Otherwise I'm sure if time travel were possible there'd be fewer folkies around...

Subject: RE: any Trad songs about Time Travel ???
From: GUEST,oaktree
Date: 04 Aug 10 - 01:09 PM

There are English folk stories of people who lose time like Rip van Winkle but because of visiting various fairylands (does Thomas the Rhymer do this?). I don't know if that would count as time travel by erbert's definition. I'd assume the same concept appears somewhere in the ballad tradition but I don't have any specific songs in mind.