Do purists really exist?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jul 11 - 05:16 AM

"common usage" a dangerous concept. Accuracy matters more than commonness [in any sense]. Do not try to turn back the tide of accuracy, or who knows what Pandora's Box will be opened, can of worms stirred up?!...

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 13 Jul 11 - 05:12 AM

In common usage the KC Metaphor is simply to do with the futility of turning back tides; he is cast as Graves' Caligula in this respect, waging war with Neptune. Maybe the historical Caligula was like that too. I confess, many mistaken Common Usages do irk me - Green Men for one / Ring a Roses for another - but both of these I fear are the consequence of Folkloric Wonkiness finding its way into the mainstream rather than any feral-thang in and of itself. The Common KC Metaphor (however so mistaken) is totally feral; the others are just bad folkloric-factoids gone awry.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jul 11 - 05:03 AM

the KC Metaphor is just as I've used it here, regardless of the historical facts of the case····
,,,,
Exactly ~~ just what Valerie meant by the wrong footnote! Not like you to denounce getting something right instead of wrong as 'nit-picking purism' ~~ surprised at you!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 13 Jul 11 - 04:58 AM

You know, I took out the sentence in my last post which read even as I write this I sense some nit-picking purist will be along presently to tell us all what KC was really up to in his tide-stunt though little did I realise it would be you... Anyway, in terms of Typical Usage and genuine Folklore the KC Metaphor is just as I've used it here, regardless of the historical facts of the case. I like nothing better (whilst wandering the beach at low tide anyway) than drawing KC in the sand and watching the tide wash him away just to remind myself of that very important, though in all events apocryphal, demo.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Jul 11 - 04:49 AM

King Canute [don't be precieux about the spelling, Sean dear] was not trying to turn back the tide ~~ he was demonstrating that it couldn't be done, in order to deflate his flattering courtiers' fulsome assessments of his powers. My late wife Valerie summed it up in her novel Culture Shock [1988]: "History has given Canute the wrong footnote".

~M~

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 13 Jul 11 - 04:31 AM

I am tempted to ask, then how did you know it was deliberate rather than poor judgement and thoughtlessness, but please don't bother.

The Folk Song & Ballad Club in Newcastle was never so casual, much less spontaneous. When I used to go it was held in a featureless basement room (rather than the characterful upstairs clubroom it was held in originally & in which a Bridge Folk Club still meets, but it's nothing like the old one) which was laid out with very specific intention as detailed above. This is not some malicious rewriting of history for some dark nefarious ends; I have no agenda here, other than to report on the most ghastly folk club set up I have ever encountered, and one that was hardly formative of my love of communal music-making based around a shared loved of the Old Songs and Shanties. Despite the stellar calibre of the residents, the set-up was hardly conducive to either fostering an interest in their various idioms (which, to be honest, I doubt was on the agenda back then anyway) or reflecting the egalirarian political ends which were always a prominent aspect of the New Testament Folk Revival. I heard some very good singing there, and grat music, which is why I used to go, but remain eternally baffled by the set up. As to why they did it, I've no idea. I'm not even sure if anyone else felt intimidated by it; as I say, it was an accepted aspect of the club.

That surely, is your own choice

Indeed so, one born of long years of bitter experience. The more openly egalitarian & essentially rule-free a club is, so more encouraging it will be on any number of levels and the more potential there is for reaching Trad Nirvana (in my experience, certainly I've never reached it in any other sort of club). In my current club there is no Trad Only policy as such, but that tends to be the way things happen. Not even sure if you would call it an Unwritten Rule - rather it's just the consequence of what happens when you get a few like-minded souls gathered together who just want a good old blow. It effects the rest of the pub too, and kicks off in rare old style on a regular basis.

Back on thread.

These days the Folk Remit is very wide, even on Mudcat, and I've tried to be accepting of this but (in the words of one old storyteller I one had the privilege of getting drunk with) it's rather like shoving your own shit back up your arse: as unpleasant as it is, ultimately, impossible. Does that mark me out as a Purist? Thing is, I often get called a Purist myself on account (I suppose) of being fond of Old Songs & Old Singers. I once even said to one young singer-songwriter (thus paraprasing Peter Pan) for every new song you sing, and old one dies. Granted I was very drunk at the time, and her repertoir of Old Songs was impressive (and she couldn't have been that offended because she would later become my wife) but in my heart I still carry this notion that Folk is all about the Old Songs, and that the new ones are somehow missing a very essential point. I own, however, that this is very much My Problem, and that to dictate to others is rather like King Cnut (careful with that spelling there) trying to turn back the tide.

Tides are a good thing.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Jul 11 - 03:38 AM

Ah yes Jim, but no one expects....... The Spanish Inquisition!

You've got to admit there's some odd coves and wild cards in the pack. Seems our friend got dealt one in his first game. Scarred for life!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Jul 11 - 03:25 AM

"How the hell should I know?"
I am tempted to ask, then how did you know it was deliberate rather than poor judgement and thoughtlessness, but please don't bother.
Excuse my scepticism, but your description of the club sounds like many of the folk/jazz/C&W venues I visited at one time or another, and your Nineteen-Eighty-Four analysis sounds.... well.... odd, to say the least.
Most organisers I knew, me included, after a days work and a bolted meal, found ourselves with barely enough time to rush down to the pub, set the chairs out, organise the float for the door, pin up the record sleeves and the ads for albums for sale... not to mention the in-between work of knocking our songs into shape, sorting out accompaniments, planning our lists - especially when we did feature evenings, publicity, booking guests and arranging accommodation for them...
The idea that we should give any time or thought to laying out our club-room like the 23rd Congress of the CPSU in order to intimidate our audiences, just in case they harboured any notions of coming back the following week...... wellllll...... seems as fanciful as the other claims of "purism" dotted all over this thread.
"I hate the idea of resident groups opening the night with a surfiet of songs and singarounds"
That surely, is your own choice, just as a reasonably organised club with a set policy, a selection of residents of varying abilities, experience and repertoires, feature evenings, facilities to encourage and develop inexperienced singers, archives and libraries to enable the building of repertoires..... has been, and occasionally still is the choice of many of the clubs I have visited and enjoyed.
Personally I detested the policyless, anything-goes goes singaround clubs that didn't have a pool of competent residents to keep things moving and guarantee - or at least, aim that the proceedings never fell below a certain level, but instead based themselves on whoever turned up on the night - I avoided them like the plague and still do.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: glueman
Date: 12 Jul 11 - 05:27 PM

Re. Jon Boden's quote, I reckon the internet as a whole is a very mixed blessing.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 12 Jul 11 - 04:39 PM

Then perhaps you'd like to explain why it was done?

How the hell should I know? It was never explained or accounted for, least of all to me, and they certainly never asked me about it - and neither did I ask them - it was Just The Way it Was, and no doubt always had been since the club's inception back in the Folk New Testament Dawn. Even as late as 1989 (or was it 1990?) I remember feeling the eyes of The Bridge Folk Club Residents burning into my back from on high as I droned my way through Binnorie and Wee Wee Man on my hurdy-gurdy. Weird - the experience that is, not the music, though come to think of it...

My ideal folk club is egalitarian and leader / resident free; my current club has its resident regulars (myself & my wife included) but it's small enough to function on the Crack alone,and all hierarchies are born of total and mutual respect and a love of great music. I hate the idea of resident groups opening the night with a surfiet of songs and singarounds where someone is 'in charge' - just kick it off, watch it run; talk about a piss-up in a brewery.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 12 Jul 11 - 03:26 PM

"unfortunately some folk do lack an imagination"

In point of fact, as a proper mad person (not the official clinical term) I don't lack any amount of imagination! But what I do lack is the desire to bullshit real human people out of their real human histories in order to indulge some cosy little modern middle-class romance about the olden days and "the tradition". All props to the assiduous work of the debunkers and the disabusers of such fanciful indulgences I say, they do the songmakers and indeed their communities (which are not ours), a service in righting certain errors of the revival. That is not to say that I am not in emotional sympathy with the poetry of Bodens take (or what has been presented here of it at least) just not dishonest enough to buy it, at least without knowing much more...

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: BTNG
Date: 12 Jul 11 - 03:06 PM

"(Jon) Boden appears to be pleading the case for 'suspension of disbelief' about real world history'

it does require a bit of an imagination, but it can be done, unfortunately some folk do lack an imagination

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Jul 11 - 03:01 PM

"Oh, it was very deliberate, Jim - make no mistake about that. "
Then perhaps you'd like to explain why it was done?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 12 Jul 11 - 11:27 AM

but I see no reason to equate them purists

I only speak of those who actually used the term Purist themselves, usually when confronting me over some aspect of my work or another. One asked me if my 3-string Black Sea Fiddle was a Bowed Psaltery (an entirely modern invention BTW) and when I told him it wasn't, and told him what it was, he said that as a Purist he was offended by my use of a non-Traditional Instrument to accompany Traditional Song. He himself played the guitar. I pointed out the fallacy of his argument, but didn't take too much pleasure over it because I could feel his world crumbling away as I spoke. No bad thing, eh? But is it really their fault? Like the Folkier members of the BNP, Folk Purists have fallen for the Folk Myth hook line and sinker. These are the people who will tell you that the Black Leg Miner is a true folk song with a thousand variants...

My Steamfolk Thread is but one attempt at embracing what Jon Boden refers to as Folk Romanicism, which I feel is a Very Good Thing and has given us much to be cheerful for over the decades and it continues to do so. My aim is keep cheerful, and keep loving it and enjoying it even though there are times I might slip into serious crisis. Take a deep breath, take time out, then enjoy it all afresh..

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 12 Jul 11 - 11:26 AM

I hear what you're saying, livelylass. Maybe I should have posted this on the Steamfolk thread ;)

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 12 Jul 11 - 11:09 AM

Fascinating stuff Leveller.
As for Folk Romanticism, Boden appears to be pleading the case for 'suspension of disbelief' about real world history? The intersection of fantasy and reality, however romantically desirable, is one we simply are not able to sustain in the contemporary world (which means there will be no more "histories" like Homer for example) it is an intersection which is for the arts to explore independently of the sciences and vice versa I would say - until such time as we all realise we are living a superreal dream (as Bill Hicks down below might argue) perhaps.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 12 Jul 11 - 10:55 AM

Whilst looking at another thread a Soundpost Singing Weekend in Sheffield in October was mentioned and I noticed one of the talks is this:

Derailing the tradition: The cost of 'de-bunking'
John Boden
The advent of internet discussion groups has made it infinitely easier for people to track down the lyrics of songs and discuss their origins in a public forum. Whilst this is in many ways a great development, it has also led to the rise of the professional de-bunker, dedicated to dissecting the assumptions and romantic fallacies of other users. Generally they are in the right - but that does not necessarily mean they are right to do so. Folk songs are more than a set of lyrics with a 16 bar tune, they are the evolving common-imaginative possessions of the people. The reductionist instincts of the debunkers are in danger of stifling the imaginative legacy of traditional song and curtailing its future evolution by nailing specimens of song to the immovable tree of fact. Jon Boden speaks up for folk romanticism. (And fully expects to be shouted at.)

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: John P
Date: 12 Jul 11 - 10:21 AM

I agree about the self-styled jerks, but I see no reason to equate them purists. False purism is just the jerk's avenue to jerkiness. I imagine they are equally jerky in non-musical aspects of their lives as well.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 12 Jul 11 - 09:25 AM

Oh, it was very deliberate, Jim - make no mistake about that. And no, Shimrod, to my eternal shame I didn't challenge it, but had a notion that one day I might stand with my back to the audience and face the residents instead - but, sadly, I never did. Instead I sloped off in search of a more human club instead wgich I eventually found at the Wylam Ship and latterly The Colpitts in Durham which provided the blue-prints for my perfect club. Even these days I generally just slope off if I find a club too entrenched in its attitudes and residencies and other such redundant and counter-productive hierachies.

In my experience the more openly human the set up, the better the music, to the extent where our current club (at which we're named residents!) is a jump-in come-all-ye where no-one is favoured above any other and the music is second to none.   Not that we weren't in stellar company at The Bridge back then of course, but I hated it so much that one night I passed on what would have been my debut encounter with Peter Bellamy in favour of staying upstairs and drinking with my BTCV mates. I met PB that night though - when he came up to the bar to seek me out looking for a doss. Imagine that - the great Peter Bellamy, circa 1983, reduced to scrounging a doss from a complete stranger - albeit one recommended from on high, no doubt on account of my liberal approach to dope at the time. One often heard tales back then of staid folkie hosts being horrified on saying yes to PB's request 'Do you mind if I smoke?' In the event he stayed with someone else closer to Newcastle, but well I recall feeling deeply embarassed for the man that no-one 'down below' was prepared to put him up or find him someone who was, just make random suggestions and expect him to make the arrangements himself. Some booking! Read that how you will, but taken with all the other attitudes to PB I've come across over the years I'd say it was pretty unambiguous myself.

Getting back on track...

It seems to me this thread is made up of such presumptions, the only evidence of there ever having been "purists" being based on an animosity towards those not prepared to 'go with the flow' backed up by apocryphal tales of a far-distant, ill-remembered past.

In which case, I'd say you've missed the whole point of the thread, much less the sheer joy of it. The emergent feeling here (one that I abide by myself) is that as far as they exist at all, the Purist is self-styled pedantic jerk who knows SFA about anything. The ones I've met have been misanthropic nerds hung up on notions of correctness so rigid that you knew to them Folk was less a music than it was an OCD. Let's hope they got the help they obviously and so desperately needed. Those who do know and love Folk realise pretty quick that Purism is a complete anathema to the nature of The Beast.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Jul 11 - 05:19 AM

"I often pondered the mindset that lay behind such an inhuman arrangement"
Which, presumably, you have decided was deliberate, rather than a thoughtless or unavoidable making do with the space to hand.
The first jazz club I ever attended (The Liverpool Cavern, in those halcyon pre-Beatle days) was laid out so "the performers would face the audience (as is the norm) but in doing so would be standing with their backs to" - record sleeves of past performers.
It seems to me this thread is made up of such presumptions, the only evidence of there ever having been "purists" being based on an animosity towards those not prepared to 'go with the flow' backed up by apocryphal tales of a far-distant, ill-remembered past.
The validity (or otherwise) of these claims is underlined for me by the tendency of those making such claims to ignore challenges and to scurry off to other threads when asked to put their money where their mouth is.
"Do purists really exist?"
Based on the 'evidence' presented here, no - and they probably never did to any significant extent, other than in the minds of those who feel it necesary to create straw men in order to give vent to their own likes and dislikes at the expense of other peoples' choices.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 12 Jul 11 - 05:10 AM

"I often pondered the mindset that lay behind such an inhuman arrangement ..."

Did you try challenging it, Suibhne, or just brood darkly about: "holy writs, sacred cows, holy families, gangs of fours, volkish fantasies, cringing deferences, immovable feasts, entrenched hierarchies, absolute correctness and summary excommunications ..."?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 12 Jul 11 - 04:38 AM

Since it's not, it just sounds like an over-active imagination.

Overly facetious maybe.

At one of the first Folk Clubs I used to regularly sing at, floor singers would face the audience (as is the norm) but in doing so would be standing with their backs to a panel of exalted residents. If that wasn't bad enough, the residents would on a raised stage, whereas the floor-singers would be (as you'd expect) on the floor. I often pondered the mindset that lay behind such an inhuman arrangement and hope we will never see it's like again. That was The Bridge Folksong & Ballad, back in the early 1980s, when it was in the basement, and was accepted as perfectly normal.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: John P
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 05:26 PM

. . . our beloved Folk Music with its holy writs, sacred cows, holy families, gangs of fours, volkish fantasies, cringing deferences, immovable feasts, entrenched hierarchies, absolute correctness and summary excommunications . . .

Wow, this would be worrisome if it was a description of the folk music and dance communities that I'm a part of. Since it's not, it just sounds like an over-active imagination.

To sum up me and almost every traditional folk musician I know:
- Not a purist.
- Not trying to revive anything.
- Don't care what other people play or listen to.
- History and folklore are interesting, but don't have much to do with playing music.
- The only important thing about a performance is that it sound good.
- The 1954 definition is good for discussions, not for music-making.
- Admire skill, but not much into the "stars" of the folk scene.
- We pretty much all like each other.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 05:00 PM

I think the premesis joke was one of Flann O' Brien's

It's in At Swim-Two-Birds. The main character spends a lot of time having arguments in bars, and comes up with what he thinks is a killer witticism/put-down - "Your argument is unsound, as it is based on licensed premises". He tries to use it two or three different times, but keeps getting cut off or ignored.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 04:29 PM

I assume "jouaissance" is used as in the French original. Gosh how exciting.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 03:39 PM

I'm presently in the process of persuading our local council to start a Folklore Collection service. So far so good; we've agreed on the broad concepts, and even begasn head-hunting the basic workforce. All we need to now is decide on the colour of the bins. In Tyneside you get Folklore Collection 'igloos' in most car-parks, but we feel being more proactive in the collection process and actually going out into the community will result in both a higher yield and a higher quality of Pure Grade Lore collected. The basic idea is once we've collected enough high grade Pure Folklore, then we'll enter into negotiations with less Lore-rich areas of England to arrange redistribution on a barter basis. Expect to see our lorries on the motorways soon.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 03:24 PM

Dunno
Haven't found one yet
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Banjiman
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 02:25 PM

Now..... where were those purists again?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: glueman
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 01:54 PM

But adherents of anarchism are deeply conservative, show me a Crass T-shirt and I'll show you a well brought up public servant in mufti. Anarchy wants to impose its views like all the rest, I say believe what the hell you like, gods, pixies, purism, neo-purism, each to his own in the true sense of individualism before the word was sold off by the pound in Mrs Thatcher's market economy.

Anarchy is just another ideology with a capital letter and a big idea. Gimme small ideas every time.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 01:38 PM

Exactly so, GSS - both Anarchy and Atheism remain the high ideals of an eventual utopia; no Gods, no Laws, just mutual respect across the board according to prophesies of Bakunin. Now, I wonder where such an idyll of tolerance and inclusity would leave our beloved Folk Music with its holy writs, sacred cows, holy families, gangs of fours, volkish fantasies, cringing deferences, immovable feasts, entrenched hierarchies, absolute correctness and summary excommunications?

Ever heard the Dick Gaughan / Ken Hyder piece News From Nowhere? No that's so political it trascends my usual objections - for one thing it's an instrumental free improvisation, and the underlying ideology of both perps is quite faultless. In this context it's worth having a look at what Dick Gaughan had to say about Peter Bellamy. Read it HERE. Folk Lefties take note....

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 01:14 PM

but you dont understand that anarchism was the final goal of communism, the ideal was that the state would eventually whither away, when people were well educated enough to undertstand that the state was no longer needed, that all peoples actions interacted with others so if everyone thought about other people and the consequences of their actions the state was no longer needed.
in fact anarchy is not just mayhem, as capitalists and thatcherites would leave us to believe, it is the understanding of everyones position in a community, in relation to everyone else it is about consideration for others

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: glueman
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 11:10 AM

Anarchy is a form of conservatism of course.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 11:09 AM

Oh bugger - mow you've gone and brought religion into it as well. Time to reach for the tin hat :)

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 10:01 AM

Okay then - all human interaction is political be default. As a kid I was brought to believe Christ was the first Communist, then had to cope with the parable of the shekels as being the essence of Capitalism. In the end it's all a matter scale and individual freedom, which is why the older I get I return more and more to my Anarchist roots.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 08:39 AM

I really can't see how you can dissociate folk music and politics any more that you could history and politics. Politics, in its widest sense, is an integral part of life. For instance, in 'Liberty Against the Law', Christopher Hill devotes an entire chapter to why the Robin Hood ballads gained such popularity amongst the disenfranchised, and often dispossessed in the mid-1700s, during the time of The Enclosures.

By "widest sense" BTW, I mean wider than the narrow and polarised boundaries of party poltics. And yes, Glueman, there are as many bad political songs as there are good ones and the allusions must be readily understandable now and, hopefully, in the future. A good tune doesn't go amiss, either!

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: glueman
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 08:26 AM

I was thinking particularly about lyrical polemics Leveller. I'm not suggesting overtly political songs can't be great art, just that they so rarely are. Religious songs can fall prey to the same impulse of wanting to hammer home a message but using lyrics as a way of sugaring the pill, which is why I prefer, say, 397 from the Denson Book "There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins: And sinners plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains" to "Lord of the Dance".

If there's to be a pill I prefer it bitter than hidden in sugary analogies. Modern political songs tend to be too keen on allusion for my simple tastes.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 07:58 AM

So are you saying that your political opinions overide your critical faculties?

Speaking for myself, I see music as being polically humanist by default; if it is co-opted in a right-wing or left-wing cause it loses all meaning. I go into Folk Clubs where I hear as many Anti-War and Poor Working Man songs as I do opinions railing against Political Correctness; even songs that are yet more subtle in their racism (A Mon Like Thee) or Homophobia. It's an uneasy curdling mix for sure, and I would counsel strongly against going there, which is why I seldom do. Kipling is always a minefield in this respect; for example I have two dear friends who see no harm in singing The Ladies, which is something would I never do. Likewise - I know many who sing The Land as a left-wing song, which most obviously it isn't, but that just goes to show how twisted these things can get by way of interpretation or glib assertion. I might argue that racism knows no politics, homophobia likewise, or warn of the nationalistic dangers of Folk in any case, or just remember poor Peter Bellamy, who dared be outspoken in such matters and suffered the consequences.

And can Guernica really be said to be political in that sense? As a monument to those killed under the barbarity of a far greater evil, I think, perhaps not.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 07:37 AM

So are you saying that your political opinions overide your critical faculties?

"the cause of art and polemics generally means quality takes a nosedive"

I think Picasso's Guernica might give the lie to that. Or are you saying that your statement only applies to songs?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 07:34 AM

I think the premesis joke was one of Flann O' Brien's; if it occurs to me I'll post a reference, but as I recall it's in The Best of Myles.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that political songs are the corner stone of contemporary folk music.

I think you're right there, theleveller - which is maybe why I don't get along with it, much less the conservative left-wing religiosity it implies. Folk religiosity is one thing; political reliosity is another. Even an innocuous song about a Certain Pigeon (also in the Tabor Songbook) becomes a vehicle for leaden political sentiment. I can't think of many Contemporary Folk Songs that don't do this, apart from the Funny Ones which maybe I despise even more, although I admit Ron Baxter's parody of TBPWM is a thing of true genius. That said, I also admit that, as far as Folk Parodies go, it is, alas, the exception that proves a very prevalent rule.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: glueman
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 06:40 AM

"I was constantly reminded of the story told about that lovable wit Rev. Sydney Smith, who was strolling along a narrow street around 1800 with a colleague when they heard two women leaning out of their opposite windows and screaming insults at each other.

'These two ladies will never agree,' Smith commented, as the debate raged over his head, 'for they are arguing from different premises'."
Stolen from the excellent site in the link:


Skeptical Investigations

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: theleveller
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 06:39 AM

I'd totally disagree with you there, Glueman. The Oysterband's performance at Moonbeams Festival on Friday had some excellent political songs that were greatly appreciated. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that political songs are the corner stone of contemporary folk music.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: glueman
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 06:21 AM

Re. political songs, I've never been a fan either. A good song can rarely serve two masters and the cause of art and polemics generally means quality takes a nosedive.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 05:28 AM

PS - There are lots of poignant War songs that aren't Traditional as such: Bellamy's setting of My Boy Jack is potent; as is Hamish Henderson's Fairwell to Sicily. Both of which I sing.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 05:21 AM

This is hardly suggesting the narrators view was the prevailing view of his comrades - even years after the event.

The song is not aimed at comrades, rather the captive folk audience who find such sentiments deeply moving. Personally I find manipulative, and cynical. A cheap trick if ever there was one. Same with the other one about Willie McBride. Whenever such songs are sung, I head for the bar and hope there's no one in earshot of the singer who's ever lost any one in wars old and new. It happened once in my experience, during the Falklands, when a solfier's wife out with her roudy mates took exception to the anti-war righteousness of the folkies - and rightly so. Was life ever so simple?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 05:05 AM

Like No Man's Land, TBPWM is a brilliantly written song in the style of the tradition.

It's written in some style anyway, but if you mean The Tradition as used by FolkTrad types to designate those Collected Canonical Songs we call Folk Song, then I might question that on any number of structural points. But the rest of your post does that perfectly so I'm not going to do it. As well as putting words in mouths, it puts thoughts in heads or else preaches to the converted. I only brought it into the discussion as I first it sung by June Tabor in the filthy back-room of a pub somewhere in the Northumbrian coal-field when there was still a working colliery (with steam trains) nearby. She sang it alongside The Plains of Waterloo, if not in the same breath, then in the same set. It's certainly on the same album (I still have a copy of the record as bought from her that night). So - Plains of Waterloo on one hand - The Band Played Waltzing Matilda on the other. I was just a kid - 14/15 or so - but my dislike of the latter song was instant and enduring; 35 years on I detest it still, whereas even the John Renbourn Group version of Plains of Waterloo (with its OTT programmatic arrangement of fifes, drums &c.) still manages to move me. Better still, Shirley Collins; better still, June Tabor herself; but best of all was the nameless (to me) (male) floor-singer who wasted me with it at The Bay Hotel Folk Club in Cullercoats around 1985 or so.

Thing is, I know my dislike of TBPWM marks me as a Purist; even in the first instance my reaction was one of what's the fecking point? Much less - so what?. Especially as POW was so strong regarding the subjective human aspect of war, without turning that into some unweildy political point about its wrongness. War is never a matter of absolute wrongness, it is always matter grim necessity and individual opinion of All Shades, even unto the Bullying righteous opinions of white-poppy wearing pacifists for whom TBPWM is gospel. Also when I was 14/15 I used to have a friend - an old man in a wheelchair who'd lost both his legs and half of his face at the Dunkirk Evacuation some 35 years earlier. We used to sit in the sun in a local graveyard and smoke and talk; me the slovenly hippy Gong-freak with a penchant for local history & folklore, and he the living hero who'd been blown to bits when he was 15 (having lied about his age in his eagerness to enlist) in a war against an entrenched evil that had ended a mere 16 years before I was born. I cannot begin to comprehend that sort of sacrifice, but I know that I could not have live the sort of life that I have done all these years without it. To him and millions of others, I owed my very freedom; and Dear God he was not bitter, but proud. Working it out now I realise that if he'd been 15 at Dunkirk, he was only 50 when I knew him - the same age (almost!) that I am now.

One thing I will not do is write a fecking song about it. Life is life. It goes on. My love of The Old Songs (a term used by many Traditional Singers I believe, Richard - one certainly used by Bob Copper in his poem of that name : see Here if for some reason that one has somehow passed you by. Imagine if using THE CORRECT term it was The Folk Songs - just would have the same punch, would it?) is largely one of poetic immediacy - no agendas, similies, wonky poetic metaphors unless by way of circumlocution (Seeds of Love is pure hard-core filth in this respect) and pure textual jouissance. Kipling caught this; & others have too. To me its high art, and in any case the first thing I want to do when told by a righteous idealogue like Billy Bragg not to buy The Sun, is to go out and buy The Sun. That's not why I listen to music, nor is it part of my political world view (best summed up in Kipling's poem A Pilgrim's Way) much less my musical one (which, right now, enjoys those three lost early Krafwerk albums on a par with Miles Davis early 70s electric period and the chamber music of Henry Purcell) in which Folk Music was only ever a small part, which is maybe the key here. What is the dominant music in your life? What proportion of your musical life is given over to Folk? I'd say it's never been more than 20%, and these days it's settled to around 10%, which is where I reckon it belongs. Even in its Innocence, folk was only ever a small part of a much bigger cultural reality without which I'd say it's pretty meaningless.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 05:02 AM

Not ignoring it Jon, but fair comment.

Did you ever hear a modern song of WW1 that did take "the prevailing view of his comrades" ?

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 04:50 AM

On the Bogle song drift. Keith also seems to opt to ignore this verse in TBPWM:

And now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reliving dreams of past glory
The forgotten heroes a forgotten war
And the young people ask , "What are they Marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question

This is hardly suggesting the narrators view was the prevailing view of his comrades - even years after the event.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 04:41 AM

I know this is further deviation from the thread, but... I'd always assumed EB was pretty conversant with the works of those WW1 poets who tried to capture the horrors of what they were experiencing when he wrote those songs - and that his perspective was influenced by theirs. So they could be seen as a reframing of one particular set of contemporary accounts with the added dimension of 50 years or so worth of hindsight (including Australia's involvement in Vietnam).

I guess they'd pass muster as contemporary songs that nod in the direction of old folk songs of the English speaking world or whatever you want to call 'em. And I've always thought that Aussies were particularly good at a certain type of mawkishness.

Meanwhile, I doubt purists exist, partly because virtually anyone can find someone else to apply the label to in order to distance themselves from it. From the perspective of the outside world, I'd hazard a guess that even the most 'impure' folkie would seem pretty, um, quaint. And I reckon that even the most rigorous folkie also enjoys some other stuff too - the differences are purely about cataloguing rather than about the music itself, and I would suggest that it is up to each individual what they catalogue where, and indeed even whether to bother to catalogue. After all, folk has been a disputed term - amongst those to whom disputing it matters - for over fifty years. Then again, I'm not a music academic and I catalogue pretty randomly.

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 04:41 AM

Not denying the tragedy of suffering and loss Al, and don't want to drift an important thread.
I do deny that there was a common sense of lack of purpose, apart from the intellectual elite of the war poets.
There are many collections of letters published.
I found this collection in seconds.
An Aussie Anzac in Gallipoli.

http://www.smythe.id.au/letters/15_33.htm

Subject: RE: Do purists really exist?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Jul 11 - 04:16 AM

I agree with Jim.(you may frame this Jim).

Ewan and peggy were all right. They were the first people to publish one of my songs. Although they were a bit surprised to find out that I wasn't black, because I'd written a calypso using the patois of the kids i used to teach in Brum.

If they were purists - I'd settle for being a purist. Doubtless they had limitations - but that goes with being human.

I can't really see where this thread is going, except as a vehicle for me writing silly poems - which i do anyway.

I'm not sure what the detractors of the Eric bogle song are saying - matilda was in the same edition of NCS as my song (Ithink) - either that or the Barrie Robberts/Bill caddick Songsmith magazine.

The only point of view it expresses is that people were shocked and saddened by young men being killed and maimed in great numbers in WW1. That point of view didn't exist at the time - we all just swelled with pride at the heroic sacrifice - i don't think so Keith.

The sense of waste and the misery of bereavement - I think they were around at the time. In fact i can testify from accounts of my own family members that they were.

Have you all nae heard of Archie Plum?
Who did muckle talking through his bum....

I had trouble finishing that one. I did think:-

Och! the voice had a wondrous Hieland lilt
an' was muckle strange, comin' frae his kilt...

(Ewan could do Scotch accents.)