What makes a new song a folk song?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 07:46 AM

You wouldn't perchance be one of those annoying gits who when the doctor confirms you weigh x stone, you say "I mass x stone, I weigh y KN" ?? (Musket 02 Oct 14 - 02:16 PM)

Overlooking the probability that such a pedant would not work in stones but kilograms and also overlooking that they would be unlikely to convert to kilo Newtons (the symbol for which is kN not KN) rather than Newtons (N) - since 1 kN is approximately 16.0577816031 stones -: would that mean that the person who replied thus to the doctor was incorrect?

Just because the "man in the street" might confuse terms for mass and weight and use them in a slipshod manner doesn't make him right.

It seems inevitable that there are several definitions of "folk song" depending on whether they are the ones used by the "man in the street" or someone who has actually immersed themselves in the topic. It's also probably inevitable that the man in the street resents the perceived privilege of those who have worked harder to gain deeper knowledge and expertise.

I'm quite happy to use the term either way depending on who I'm talking with. I'm just surprised that there are people on Mudcat demanding that I only use the "man in the street" definition and ridiculing not only those who wish to be more precise but also the very value of the original concept.   Can anyone point me to a specialist folk song site?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Teribus
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 08:04 AM

"My basic argument with those I have respect for here is that I don't believe the tradition is alive, but I do believe that the old forms are important and viable enough to create new songs using them as a pattern.
Whether they become folk songs is immaterial really - nobody ever set out to write folk songs - the idea is ludicrous.
People wrote songs to capture what was happening around them - what made them laugh, or what made them angry, or sad..... loss, achievement, death, birth...whatever.
They became folk songs because they were memorable and because they were universal enough to take root wherever they landed - not the introspective, navel gazing, angst-filled singer-songwriter stuff that masquerades as folk-song now."

Totally agree with all of that, and if I am not mistaken that is what you contended from the outset.

The stuff you refer to in your last sentence quoted above are mostly written with high expectation that they become a commercial success - If they do they become "pop" songs - If they don't they are labelled and marketed by the music industry as "folk", when of course they ain't.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 08:21 AM

Gratified to learn my CD is still being so well played, Jack. Glad you still enjoy it.

I have a few left; so if anyone would like a copy, drop me a line (Michael Grosvenor Myer, 34 West End, Haddenham, Cambridge CB6 3TE), with your home address [& maybe what you think might be a reasonable sum just to cover p&p!], & I will send you one. {Hope this offer, which note is non-profit-making, will not fall foul of any Mudcat rules re advertising or promotion!}

Or, to save trouble, note for info that eight of its 14 songs are also on my YouTube channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/mgmyer

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 08:39 AM

Guest.

I used the mass / weight as a pisstake, but as you ask..

A manufacturer of vibration motors rates the force output in Kg of force (KgF) as it makes g calculations (feed at 4 g, screen at 5g etc) easier.

Another manufacturer insists on Newtons, rating their motors in KN. Being technically correct.

Having been involved with both, many years ago, I can be comfortable either way as neither sell their products other than on the earth, where there are 9.8N of force to a Kg of mass in potential. So I don't get wound up by such things.

Mrs Musket, a surgeon, was subjected to a pedantic answer by a patient a while ago when asking the patient how much they weighed.... When she related that odd comment, it reminded me of the "that isn't folk" bores who think folk clubs are a pedant society for librarians.

Terribulus. If they are marketed as folk and people buy them because they associate their tastes as folk, they are folk as far as they are concerned. If you see folk as something different, fine. They are both folk. Saying something isn't what it plainly is puts your credibility at the level of the old fool saying if it can be copyrighted it isn't folk...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 10:12 AM

"Mrs Musket, a surgeon, was subjected to a pedantic answer by a patient a while ago when asking the patient how much they weighed.... When she related that odd comment, it reminded me of the "that isn't folk" bores who think folk clubs are a pedant society for librarians."
.,,.
The fact that it "reminded you" doesn't make the comparison definitive, but simply records a an idiosyncratic personal association of your own, which scarcely warrants inflation to any sort of universal truth.
.........................

If they are marketed as folk and people buy them because they associate their tastes as folk, they are folk as far as they are concerned. If you see folk as something different, fine. They are both folk. Saying something isn't what it plainly is puts your credibility at the level of the old fool saying if it can be copyrighted it isn't folk...
,..,.

But "it plainly is", once again, is merely a question-begging assertion of your own; how "plain" do you think it necessarily is to everyone?.

The critic John Gross, in his excellent book The Rise and Fall of the English Man of Letters (1969), wrote of the once highly-regarded & influential critic F R Leavis, "There is something faintly comic about his frequent air of having triumphantly demonstrated what has merely been strenuously asserted."

"Strenuous assertion" summarises your technique of argument to a T, Ian. And there is likewise something "faintly comic" in the way you seem to regard everybody's hash as having been consummately settled thereby.

Regards azevva

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 10:41 AM

Bloody hell... Leavis.. haven't heard that name
since I turned my back on academia nearly quarter of a century ago...

Living and drinking with Scots and Irish brickies and hoddies
soon cured me of all that highfalutin miserable pretentiousness...


... the downside is... I have probably lost a few too many braincells through lack of exercise
since I stopped reading big books and agonising and losing sleep over deep dark unanswerable questions...


BTW.. MGM·Lion, I checked out some of your videos again..
you could have been a good punk rocker..

Did you ever review any Pentangle LPs when they were first released.
Can you remember if you had any opinion at that time
on John Renbourn's use of a fuzz box on the "Cruel Sister" LP ?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 10:49 AM

People wrote songs to capture what was happening around them - what made them laugh, or what made them angry, or sad..... loss, achievement, death, birth...whatever.

This also applies to many, many songwriters regardless of genre or style.

They became folk songs because they were memorable and because they were universal enough to take root wherever they landed

They became folk songs because they happened to be collected in the era of folk song collecting.

Not the introspective, navel gazing, angst-filled singer-songwriter stuff that masquerades as folk-song now."

Plenty of songwriters who are labelled as "folk" songwriters - alongside plenty more who aren't - share your antipathy to navel gazing. You're dealing in lazy stereotypes not reality. Would you like me to post a few randomly selected examples to make my point?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 10:50 AM

...and, Ian, with regard to your assertion that 'millions' think as you do: there are occasions when a counting of heads doesn't absolutely settle a question. I think all you are demonstrating is that a lot of other people are as mistaken in the matter as you are. You clearly won't agree -- your privilege; but the actual number either of us could claim in support of our view is neither here nor there.

Another little story I heard, & liked, some years ago, about a lesson on contemporary theatre back when S African apartheid was still just about going. One pupli said that the black SA playwright Athol Fugard had made a lot of difference with his somewhat tendentious plays. Yes, said another, but he isn't black, he's white. And a dispute on the matter broke out; at the end of which the not very experienced teacher said, "Well, let's vote on it".

But of course, that vote would have made no difference whatever to Mr Fugard's actual skin pigmentation. Any more than your 'millions' necessarily discount my side of the issue between us whatever.

≈M≈

Just as matter of interest, Mr Fugard is white. & I can be sure because I have met him...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 10:53 AM

This graveyard hides a million secrets,
And the trees know more than they can tell.
The ghosts of the saints and the scholars will haunt you,
In heaven and in hell.
Rattled by the glimmer man, the boogie man, the holy man,
And livin' in the shadows, in the shadows of a gunman.
Rattled like the coppers in your greasy till,
Rattled until time stood still.
Look over your shoulder, hear the school bell ring,
Another day of made-to-measure history.
I don't care if your heroes have wings,
Your terrible beauty has been torn.
Faithful departed, we fickle hearted,
As you are now so once were we.
Faithful departed, we the meek hearted,
With graces imparting bring flowers to thee.
The girls in the kips proclaim their love for you
When you stumbled in they knew you had a shilling or two.
They cursed you on Sundays and holy days of abstinence,
When you all stayed away.
When you slept there a naked bulb hid your shame,
Your shadows on the wall, they took all the blame.
The Sacred Heart's picture, compassion in his eyes,
Drowned out the river of sighs.
Let the grass grow green over the brewery tonight,
It'll never come between the darkness and the light.
There is no pain that can't be eased,
By the devil's holy water and the rosary beads.
You're a history book I never could write,
Poetry in paralysis, too deep to recite.
Dress yourself, bless yourself, you've won the fight,
We're gonna celebrate the night.
We'll even climb the pillar like you always meant to,
Watch the sun rise over the strand.
Close your eyes and we'll pretend,
It could somehow be the same again.
I'll bury you upright so the sun doesn't blind you.
You won't have to gaze at the rain and the stars.
Sleep and dream of chapels and bars,
And whiskey in the jar.
Faithful departed, look what you've started;
An underdog's wounds aren't so easy to mend.
Faithful departed, there's no broken hearted,
And no more tristesse in your world without end.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 10:59 AM

Sup up your beer and collect your fags,
There's a row going on down near slough,
Get out your mat and pray to the west,
I'll get out mine and pray for myself.
Thought you were smart when you took them on,
But you didn't take a peep in their artillery room,
All that rugby puts hairs on your chest,
What chance have you got against a tie and a crest.

Hello-hurrah, what a nice day, for the Eton rifles,
Hello-hurrah, I hope rain stops play, with the Eton rifles.

Thought you were clever when you lit the fuse,
Tore down the house of commons in your brand new shoes,
Compose a revolutionary symphony,
Then went to bed with a charming young thing.

Hello-hurrah, cheers then mate, its the Eton rifles,
Hello-hurrah, an extremist scrape, with the Eton rifles.

What a catalyst you turned out to be,
Loaded the guns then you run off home for your tea,
Left me standing, like a guilty (naughty) schoolboy.

We came out of it naturally the worst,
Beaten and bloody and I was sick down my shirt,
We were no match for their untamed wit,
Though some of the lads said they'll be back next week.

Hello-hurrah, there's a price to pay, to the Eton rifles,
Hello-hurrah, I'd prefer the plague, to the Eton rifles.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 11:00 AM

It began when they come took me from my home
And put me in Dead Row,
Of which I am nearly wholly innocent, you know.
And I'll say it again
I..am..not..afraid..to..die.

I began to warm and chill
To objects and their fields,
A ragged cup, a twisted mop
The face of Jesus in my soup
Those sinister dinner meals
The meal trolley's wicked wheels
A hooked bone rising from my food
All things either good or ungood.

And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.

Interpret signs and catalogue
A blackened tooth, a scarlet fog.
The walls are bad. Black. Bottom kind.
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath gathering at my hind

I hear stories from the chamber
How Christ was born into a manger
And like some ragged stranger
Died upon the cross
And might I say it seems so fitting in its way
He was a carpenter by trade
Or at least that's what I'm told

Like my good hand I
tatooed E.V.I.L. across it's brother's fist
That filthy five! They did nothing to challenge or resist.

In Heaven His throne is made of gold
The ark of his Testament is stowed
A throne from which I'm told
All history does unfold.
Down here it's made of wood and wire
And my body is on fire
And God is never far away.

Into the mercy seat I climb
My head is shaved, my head is wired
And like a moth that tries
To enter the bright eye
I go shuffling out of life
Just to hide in death awhile
And anyway I never lied.

My kill-hand is called E.V.I.L.
Wears a wedding band that's G.O.O.D.
`Tis a long-suffering shackle
Collaring all that rebel blood.

And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.

And the mercy seat is burning
And I think my head is glowing
And in a way I'm hoping
To be done with all this weighing up of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And I've got nothing left to lose
And I'm not afraid to die.

And the mercy seat is glowing
And I think my head is smoking
And in a way I'm hoping
To be done with all this looks of disbelief.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway there was no proof
Nor a motive why.

And the mercy seat is smoking
And I think my head is melting
And in a way I'm helping
To be done with all this twisted of the truth.
A lie for a lie
And a truth for a truth
And I've got nothing left to lose
And I'm not afraid to die.

And the mercy seat is melting
And I think my blood is boiling
And in a way I'm spoiling
All the fun with all this truth and consequence.
An eye for an eye
And a truth for a truth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.

And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
A life for a life
And a truth for a truth
And anyway there was no proof
But I'm not afraid to tell a lie.

And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a truth for a truth
And anyway I told the truth
But I'm afraid I told a lie.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 11:04 AM

Tick, tock, go the death watch beetles in él presidente's swill
Pop, pop, goes the Cliquot magnum at the reading of the will
Hiss, hiss, goes the snakeskin wallet stuffed with Cruziero bills

Here we come, the jet set junta
Here we come, the jet set junta

Broom, broom, goes the armoured Cadillac through Montevideo
Rat-a-tat goes the sub-machine gun to restore the status quo
Snip, snip, go the tailor's scissors on the suit in Saville Row

Here we come, the jet set junta
Here we come, the jet set junta

Thud, thud, goes the rubber truncheon on the Indian peon's heel
Buzz, buzz, go the brass electrodes as the flesh begins to peel
Rattle, rattle, goes the bullet round and round the roulette wheel

Here we come, the jet set junta
Here we come, the jet set junta

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 11:05 AM

Gee, thanks a bunch, pfr! But punk-rock, for all its virtues, just not my scene! Tho, if it had been, of course I should natch have graced it as you aver. ["Modesty" my middle name - didja know?]...

I used to go to Leavis's lectures in my student days, 1952-55; & I didn't go to many people's. But they haven't left much, apart from recollection of his somewhat laidback & throwaway mode of delivery. My first wife, who was a mature student at Cambridge after we were married [why I still live here!] used to go to his house in Bulstrode Gardens every week because she was supervised by his wife Queenie, who she always said was instrumental in her first; tho I could never stand the dreadful assertive not-to-be-argued-with woman myself. But I never really met FR more than to nod as we passed - if he happened to notice I [or anyone] was there...

Sorry for drift down Memory Lane.

I remember reviewing Steeleye's records, but can't remember doing any of Pentangle's. They never made that much of an impression on me one way or another IIRC If I can summon the energy I might go back to my cuttings file & check...

OTOH...

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 11:06 AM

And finally...

This is a message to persons unknown

Persons in hiding. Persons unknown

Survival in silence

Isn't good enough no more

Keeping your mouth shut head in the sand

Terrorists and saboteurs

Each and every one of us

Hiding in shadows persons unknown



Hey there Mr. Average

You don't exist you never did

Hiding in shadows persons unknown

Habits of hiding

Soon will be the death of us

Dying in secret from poisons unknown

This is a message to persons unknown

Strangers and passers-by

Persons unknown

Turning a blind eye

Hope to go unrecognized

Keeping your secrets persons unknown



Housewives and prostitutes

Plumbers in boiler suits

Truants in coffee bars

Who think you're alone

Big men on building sites

Sick men in dressing gowns

Agents in motor cars

Who never go home

Women in factories

One parent families

Women in purdah

Persons unknown

Wild girls and criminals

Rotting in prison cells

Patients in corridors

Persons unknown

Statistics on balance sheets

Numbered and rubberstamped

Blind and invisible

You're lost in your homes

Liggers and layabouts

Lovers on roundabouts

Wake up in the morning

Persons unknown



Accountants in nylon shirts

Feminists in floral skirts

Nurses for when it hurts

Persons unknown

Astronauts and celibates

Deejays and hypocrites

Liars and lunatics

Persons unknown

Hopefuls on football pools

Teachers in empty schools

Kids into heroin not yet full grown

Typists and usherettes

Black men who can't forget

The lonely who long for

Persons unknown



Closet idealists

Baldheaded realists

Rastas and bikers

The voice on the phone

Pimps and economists

Royalty and communists

Rioters and pacifists

Persons unknown



Visionaries with coloured hair

Leather boys who just don't care

Garter girls with time to spare

Persons unknown

Judges with prejudice

Dissidents and anarchists

Policemen deal dirty tricks

To persons unknown

Strikers and pickets

Collectors of tickets

Radical architects

The queen on her throne

Soldiers in uniform

Sailors and stevedores

Beggars and bankers

Perjurers and men of law

Persons unknown

Football crowd hooligans

Bunking off school again

Workers down tools again

United's at home

Smokers with heart disease

Cleaners of lavatories

The old with their memories

Persons unknown



Flesh and blood are who we are

Flesh and blood are what we are

Flesh and blood are who we are

Our cover is blown

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 11:09 AM

The mad kid walked left-side south-side towards me
He was about 7
His mother was a cleaning lady
She had a large black dog
And the mad kid said:
"Gimme the lead
Gimme the lead
Gimme the lead"
I'd just walked past the alcoholics' dry-out house
The lawn was littered with cans of Barbican
There was a feminist's Austin Maxi parked outside
With anti-nicotine anti-nuclear stickers on the side
...on the inside and they didn't even smoke...

Anyway two weeks before the mad kid had said to me
"I'll take both of you on,
I'll take both of you on"
Then he seemed the young one
He had a parka on and a black cardboard Archbishop's hat
With a green-fuzz skull and crossbones
He'd just got back from the backward kids' party
Anyway then he seemed the young one
But now he looked like the victim of a pogrom

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 11:11 AM

Now you've posted these 'few randomly selected' examples, Nigel, what precisely is your 'point' which they are meant to 'illustrate' and which we are supposed to extrapolate thence?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 11:12 AM

People wrote songs to capture what was happening around them - what made them laugh, or what made them angry, or sad..... loss, achievement, death, birth...whatever.


"New York City"

Did you ever see a woman
Coming out of New York City
With a frog in her hand

Did you ever see a woman
Coming out of New York City
With a frog in her hand

I did don`t you know (x3)
And don`t it show


"The Song Is About When Marc Bolan And Rod Stewart Were In New York
And A Woman With A Frog In Her Hand Walked Past Them.

bjamieblackon September 16, 2006

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 11:18 AM

Err. Michael.

In case you forgot or had a nap between posts me old love, we are talking a word.

The word is folk.

"Millions of people" is relevant as it is a clincher for dictionary definitions.

Let's see.. Jim "Tit Tousers" Carroll, assorted librarians and Michael are precious over the word, but millions of albums, millions of concerts and millions of people worldwide know the word in the English language called folk and associate it with a general loose genre of music amongst other things.

What shall we do?

Err...

Fuck 'em. It's all folk.

Even traditional songs from The UK, regardless of their provenance.

💤

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 11:24 AM

You're not my mother-in-law, Ian. You don't have to have the last word. Especially when it's nothing but repeating the same bollox that I have just comprehensively demolished...

☺〠☺~M~☺〠☺

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 11:30 AM

I mean you can call it folk if you like -- free country as I never tire of saying.

Just as I could stand at my front gate and shout at all the passers-by "My cat is a dog" if I wanted.

But my dear little Cleo would still go on saying 'miaouw' and not 'woof-woof'

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Spleen C ringe
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 11:39 AM

Just responding to Jim's baffling suggestion that only traditional and tradalike lyrics have any value, Michael.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 11:43 AM

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards - PM
Date: 02 Oct 14 - 05:43 PM

GSS - no indeed, but by being rocked up (or wombled up) & spliced with Farewell He, it did become a bloody poor source to learn the words or tune of "All around my hat".
no, it is aperfectly good source for a tune, but not for the words,but only because it was spliced with another song, however that does not mean that all folk songs that become popular are not good sources for words or tune, for example worried man blues [vipers], or on top of old smokey[hank williams]are still perfectly good sources for the song.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 12:17 PM

Folk Song....????

""God Knows I'm Good"

I was walking through the counters of a national concern
And a cash machine was spitting by my shoulder

And I saw the multitude of faces, honest, rich and clean
As the merchandise exchanged and money roared
And a woman hot with worry slyly slipped a tin of stewing steak
Into the paper bag at her side
And her face was white with fear in case her actions were observed
So she closed her eyes to keep her conscience blind

Crying
"God knows I'm good
God knows I'm good
God knows I'm good
God may look the other way today

God knows I'm good
God knows I'm good
God knows I'm good
God may look the other way today"

Then she moved toward the exit clutching tightly at her paper bag
Perspiration trickled down her forehead
And her heart it leapt inside her as the hand laid on her shoulder
She was led away bewildered and amazed
Through her deafened ears the cash machines were shrieking on the counter
As her escort asked her softly
for her name
And a crowd of honest people rushed to help a tired old lady
Who had fainted to the whirling
wooden floor

Crying
"God knows I'm good
God knows I'm good
God knows I'm good
Surely God won't look
the other way

God knows I'm good
God knows I'm good
God knows I'm good
Surely God won't look
the other way" "

Some of you will know who wrote and recorded this..
Some might be surprised..
One or two here may never have even heard of this British singer...???

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 01:40 PM

You couldn't demolish the skin off a rice pudding Michael.

Are you trying to say that writers of contempoary folk aren't folk artistes?

I remain amazed by the huge load of cow shite dumping on this thread by people wanting to change the meaning of a word. If you mean traditional song, say so. It is within the folk genre, but isn't the folk genre itself. If it were, what would you do with all the folk songs that don't fit that category?

Don't tell me, tell anybody searching folk on Amazon that they are doing it wrong..

😂


Oh, and music of the people? Yeah, I was in a few punk bands, sending a message to the established music industry. So Jim's vitriol for people earning a honest penny isn't new. It's just that my balls dropped.

🎸🎸🎸

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 02:47 PM

Nice one, pfr! Love the early stuff to bits... love it all actually. Thanks to the missus who's even got me hooked on Metronomy...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 03:03 PM

Just responding to Jim's baffling suggestion that only traditional and tradalike lyrics have any value,
I am baffled too

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 03:12 PM

"Just responding to Jim's baffling suggestion that only traditional and tradalike lyrics have any value, "
You appear to have joined the liars on this thread Spleen
I have never made any such statement, nor do I believe it.
I said that folk-song and songs based on folk song strles are what I expect to hear when I go to a folk club (no - not exactly true) - I said that is what I once expected to hear when I went to a folk club - those days are, sadly, long gone)
Oddly enough - if I go to a classical concert, I expect to hear classical music.
I always get a buzz of satisfaction when my opponents find it necessary to lie about what I'm saying - an indication that they have no honest answers to respond with.
Feel free to continue.
Really don't get what you are trying to prove with your long and somewhat inarticulate poetry unless you are showing how far it is from folk-song, in which case, you've made your point
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 03:19 PM

If you mean traditional song, say so. It is within the folk genre, but isn't the folk genre itself. If it were, what would you do with all the folk songs that don't fit that category?

I think everyone on this thread - including Jim - is well aware that the word folk is currently used to mean something much wider than traditional song. We know that's how things are. What some of us are saying is that it's a bad thing.

You just seem to be saying that the way things are is a good thing because it's the way things are. I know folkies are supposed to be conservative, but that's ridiculous.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 03:26 PM

Jim - Spleen's quotes were songs by Christy Moore, Paul Weller, Nick Cave and a couple of others, and I think he posted them to show that there's more going on outside folk forms than just "self-penned, navel-gazing introspection" in your words.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 04:10 PM

'You just seem to be saying that the way things are is a good thing because it's the way things are.'

Good or bad, makes not a jot of difference in this case. The people and the media have spoken. No use crying over spilt milk.

You don't like it? What you gonna do about it?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 04:25 PM

Thanks, Phil. Exactly my point. None of them are folk, but none of them are the other thing either.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 04:41 PM

"People wrote songs to capture what was happening around them - what made them laugh, or what made them angry, or sad..... loss, achievement, death, birth...whatever.
They became folk songs because they were memorable and because they were universal enough to take root wherever they landed - not the introspective, navel gazing, angst-filled singer-songwriter stuff that masquerades as folk-song now."

That's what I was riffing off, Jim. I can accept your perspective on what is folk song - on a good day I might even agree with you. It's the arrogant dismissal of anything outside trad folk and a handful of officially sanctioned trad-a-like newer songs as lacking in value because they're all "introspective, navel gazing, angst-filled" I object to. It shows a refusal to engage with reality as you see it.

Rory McLeod apparently thinks he's a folk singer. By your definition he isn't. Equally he isn't navel gazing and would probably share your dismissal of such stuff. For example.

http://youtu.be/8MzL4jmKIpA

http://youtu.be/om4rVKQ2mrM

http://youtu.be/HPx1urhmfD4

"Liar" is a bit strong - I'm disputing your position on this issue, not lying, Jim.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 05:01 PM

I read your post to pussicat Cleo, Ian; and told her you would appreciate it if she said "woof-woof".

But alas, she uncooperatively insisted on replying "miauow".

So I fed her on some rice·pudding off which I had demolished the skin.

POEM

Sorry, my old matey

But you're demolished

You think you're not

But you are


☺〠☺~M~☺〠☺

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 05:07 PM

You don't like it? What you gonna do about it?

Argue! If there are good reasons for using a word in one way & not in another, maybe some people will be persuaded by those reasons. Even if that's not going to happen, I think it's worth stating an unpopular position for the sake of anyone out there who holds it or is leaning that way. At the very least, it doesn't do anyone else any harm to read what I think (I try and keep it civil), and it gets it off my chest.

In any case, I'm not going to be persuaded by an argument that starts and ends with "that's not how most people use the word now". I know that - that's where we're all starting from.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 05:29 PM

"that's not how most people use the word now".

Of course, Phil, you personally won't be persuaded, but that's the main way in which dictionary entries are compiled.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 05:59 PM

So if on one level we can't have new folk songs, except for dreary stuff like grey october on the one hand (nice tune though) and i don't like mondays on the other, how about moving onto songs that ought to be folk songs?

Here's my vote. not a navel in sight.

portobello man

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Phil
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 07:10 PM

I don't think anyone's disputing the reality of current usage. If you put together the plain-speaking songwriting of Woody Guthrie, the participatory appeal of the skiffle boom, the WMCs' appetite for entertainers/raconteurs, the left populism of the Revival and the late-60s overlap with prog rock, you can even start to explain why and how 'folk' came to cover such a broad range of meanings - or rather, this particular broad range of meanings.

But, as the man said, es kömmt drauf an, sie zu verändern.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Phil
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 07:16 PM

...which is about as pretentious as I want to get at this time of night.

To put it more plainly, why is it that the people who insist on reminding us that the meaning of 'folk'has changed are so resistant to the idea that it can change again?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 07:34 PM

One last comment - yes, I'm stamping my foot and proclaiming that my definition of folk is the right one, whatever anyone else says. Which is to say, I'm doing exactly the same thing as Al is.

Al thinks the meaning of 'folk' has changed, and changed for the worst: it used to mean entertainers who could play a strange pub and win the crowd over, and now it means kids with Newcastle degrees who can play diddly tunes at 200 mph. And he thinks that, when we say 'folk', we should be referring to Capstick, Brimstone & co - that ought to be the standard we hold 'folk' artists up against.

But the days of Tony Capstick are gone - just as much as the days of Ewan MacColl or the days of Cecil Sharp. If that's what you want 'folk' to be, you're standing up for something that doesn't exist any more, in the face of a reality that's moved somewhere else.

Just like I am.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 03 Oct 14 - 09:20 PM

I appreciate the attempt to understand my point of view Phil.

However no, that's not quite it.

i had no status in in the folk world at any point. i ran folk clubs. i did gigs in working mens clubs. i wrote songs.

i became aware i was playing to biggeraudiences than many new wave and punk bands that were getting rave reviews in nme. when i played a country and western band, i played to more Irish people than you met on Irish folk nights in the folk clubs.

when i had a hit record, no dj would play the song, because it didn't fit their classification. Strangely enough, the record company i was working for were trying to promote one of Les Ward (who ran the Boggery/ Jasper Carrot) -one of his bands, The Maisonettes. Those guys got three times more airplay but only had a third of our record sales.

you see Phil, in this world there are the classifiers, and the rest of us - who give them something to classify.
And basically we are the folk, and they're the wankers.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 01:52 AM

I take it you classify the rooms in your house, Al -- like, you don't shit in the dining room and eat in the loo?

I take it you classify what you eat when -- like, not roast beef for breakfast and not cornflakes for dinner?

All things have their classificatory and taxonomic categories. Life would be hell without them.

So what harm does it do you if I choose to classify The Seeds Of Love as folk but not Madonna's Hanky Panky - nor your own doubtless·excellent·but·still·not·quite·the·same·thing songs?

Yet you get all wounded and offended if I do these little bits of classification -- declare me a wanker, yet.

Go on as if my so classifying had somehow done you some positive harm?

I mean, what gives here, me old dilly duckling?

Eh?

Best regards azevva

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 02:32 AM

"like, you don't shit in the dining room and eat in the loo?"

A convict sentenced to solitary confinement might disagree...

"well, yes.. actually I do.."


.. and a lot of us used to live in nearly as cramped conditions in dodgy student bedsits..


Meals ?

So who hasn't at times in their lives lived on cold pizza and kebabs for breakfast..???

and cornflakes in the evening when there's eff all else in the larder...

Real life does so often tend to get a bit out of kilter with fixed orthodox categories and classifications !!!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 02:40 AM

I suggest a medicines review myself...

In reply to the last serious question aimed at me. Too right I am celebrating how folk as a genre has broadened to encompass far more than pre copyright tit trouser fodder. Traditional ballads and tunes form a wonderful basis for origins of what we call folk but what has evolved from that is honest original music in the face of commercial products.

The artist selling most in The UK to date this year? Not an X Factor product, not a boy band regurgitating Osmond songs, but Ed Sheeran. The acts most in demand for festival bookings? That'll be Bellowhead, Eliza Carthy, Seth Lakeman... And I don't just mean folk festivals. A few years ago, festivals were a cash cow for old '80s Brit Pop bands with nothing originally new to offer. Acoustic roots and folk in general has taken front stage.

The only sad bit is that folk clubs as many of us recall them are no more in many areas. The "we're going this way round" with folders crammed with songs is different. Far more inclusive and less elitist, but certainly not a spectator sport.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 03:10 AM

"The people and the media have spoken. No use crying over spilt milk."
"Come out with your hands up - for you, the folk song revival is over" appears to be what you are trying to say Steve.
Who gives a toss whether folk songs were made by working people or broadside hacks - they are now part of the "dim and distant past" and no longer matter - to some people.
"What you gonna do about it?"
Don't know about you - I'm going to continue to argue the case for folk song being what Topic claims it is with their magnificent series of albums "The Voice of the People"
I was going to take a year out and try to make our recordings of Walter Pardon more available, but given the tenor of the arguments here, maybe there's not enough interest to make the effort worthwhile, so we'll probably leave that for posterity to decide - as far as the today's revival is concerned, the 'tit-trousers' have had their day.
What will we do instead?
There's plenty of work to be done here in the hope of putting Irish folk song on the map.
Our collection of several hundred Clare folk songs goes on line shortly - our friend, Len Graham, was kind enough to suggest that every County in Ireland should have such a collection freely available - we can only hope.
"Spleen's quotes were songs by Christy Moore, Paul Weller, Nick Cave and a couple of others,"
Thanks for the heads-up Phil - I thought he was pointing out that what went on in folk clubs was far removed from folk song, which I thought he did quite well.
I've met Christie Moore a few times - I remember him from my Manchester days way back - his sister is now our nearest neighbour and friend.
I know the massive respect he has for traditional songs and the "diddycoys" who helped preserve it.
By the way, "diddycoy" is the racist Traveller equivalent of "nig-nog" and for me, the use of such a term, alongside the persistent ageist jibes that we have been subjected to here, is sign enough that that folk song has been subject to a hostile right-wing takeover.   
We spent an extremely enjoyable day being interviewed for the MacColl programmes and reminiscing about all the wonderful nights we spent at the clubs in England before they became refuges for those who didn't make it on the pop scene - good days - bit of a cold-shower to come back to this.
One of the best parts of yesterday was to hear our producer friend, a good singer in her 'other life', rave about MacColl and his ideas, and thrill at the recordings of his and others singing way back then - she knew of MacColl only through his songs which are extremely popular over here.
Not too long ago she was the guest at a ballad weekend in Edinburgh and was knocked out by what she heard there.
Pity the 'Yes's' didn't make it in the referendum!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 04:00 AM

We're stepping into the murky realms of subjectivity here. ALL lyrics are going to be meaningful to someone if only by association. My personal view is that messages get in the way of the music (No message! Too many messages! - Harry Partch, from the libretto for The Dreamer thatRemains).

One of the things that attracted me to Traditional Song in the first place was its complete LACK of meaning. As a boy of 14 I sat irate in a roomful of ten earnest folkies utterly baffled as why their guest would follow the uncluttered narrative of something so pure as The Plains of Waterloo with the dogma-laden ghastly heavy-handedness of The Band Played Waltzing Matilda/i>. As a juxtaposition it makes a lot of assumptions, but I bought her LP anyway - still have it, the very lovely (for the most part) Airs and Graces.

In my youth the lyrics I was happiest with were things like The Revealing Science of God or Living in the Heart of the Beast in which I fancied lurked something utterly profound but ultimately unsayable (I still do!). This led, in time, to my passions for the songs of Joy Division and The Fall who rarely sang about anything yet summed up the entire crumbling epoch of the UK in the late 70s / early 80s. I'm a huge fan of Robert Wyatt but once he gets political, I switch off, just as I seem to have spent much of my festival life of the early 80s walking out of Billy Bragg sets in a state of utter dismay in search of something less proscriptive lyrically and musically more engaging and / or revolutionary in an actual sense. Exceptions prove rules though, I've been recently buying up some of those amazing Fela Kuti re-issues (£7 a pop at Fopp & HMV! Don't miss out!) who I first saw at Glastonbury in 84 when I ran to the stage at the beginning of their set thinking Sun Ra had just landed. What I saw was none the less amazing & Fela never pulled his punches lyrically - but the music, my God! The fecking music!

Bona Fide Traditional Folk Song / Ballad is different experience; hearing it sung by Bona Fide Tradition Singers is a different experience again, or seeing it in Glorious Broadside replete with cryptic woodcuts that frame the inner mystique of the thing perfectly - and which the Good Soldier would dismiss as 'commercial'. Ha! As if! But then, I'm moved by Wigan singer Sid Hague singing his self-penned folk songs about rock 'n' roll, nativity plays and country parks; there is a purity of mind here that can't be faked, like Alfred Wallis in song form; Folk Art (if you must) free of pretension and assumption. Such a rare thing in this day and age.

Forgive me, it's half eight on a Saturday morning & I'm just out of bed, but I'm gonna post this anyway, right now before I get onto a rant about Why Ballad Singing Is NOT and Never Should Be Storytelling, and why the language & imagery of such things are more important than the narrative, and how the human mind creates its own unique & profound relationships with the most simple of images anyway, which is why Wichita Lineman is still the best song ever written, ever, and why Camus was right when he said...

A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened

...as quoted, of course, on the cover of Scott 4. Scott Walker! My God! Another perfect lyricist who buries his meaning beyond recognition in his images. Who'd have thought this was about a soldier praying over the corpse of Che Guevara?

Save the crops and the bodies
from illness
from pestilence hunger and war
I journey each night like a Saint
to stand on this straw floor
our uniforms are loose
they look flimsy
night black shadows
under the peaks of our caps
shaved up to Augost
I still hear them singing
babaloo
babaloo...

Or that this featured the ghosts of Elvis and his still-born twin brother, Jesse, looking over ground zero of 9/11?

Nose holes caked in black cocaine
Pow! Pow!
No one holds a match to your skin
No dupe
No chiming
A way off miles off
No needle through a glove
Famine is a tall tower
A building left in the night
Jesse are you listening?
It casts its ruins in shadows
Under Memphis moonlight
Jesse are you listening?
Six feet of foetus
Flung at sparrows in the sky
Put yourself in my shoes
A kiss, wet, muzzle
A clouded eye
No stars to flush it out
Famine is a tall tower
A building left in the night
Jesse are you listening?

Puts a shiver up my spine just reading it! And tear in my eye at the perfect poetic beauty of the thing, which is what it's all about anyway, though I'd defy anyone to get away with either of those in their local singaround.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 04:03 AM

(Aaaagh! I'm sorry, I'll post that again...)

*

We're stepping into the murky realms of subjectivity here. ALL lyrics are going to be meaningful to someone if only by association. My personal view is that messages get in the way of the music (No message! Too many messages! - Harry Partch, from the libretto for The Dreamer thatRemains).

One of the things that attracted me to Traditional Song in the first place was its complete LACK of meaning. As a boy of 14 I sat irate in a roomful of ten earnest folkies utterly baffled as why their guest would follow the uncluttered narrative of something so pure as The Plains of Waterloo with the dogma-laden ghastly heavy-handedness of The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. As a juxtaposition it makes a lot of assumptions, but I bought her LP anyway - still have it, the very lovely (for the most part) Airs and Graces.

In my youth the lyrics I was happiest with were things like The Revealing Science of God or Living in the Heart of the Beast in which I fancied lurked something utterly profound but ultimately unsayable (I still do!). This led, in time, to my passions for the songs of Joy Division and The Fall who rarely sang about anything yet summed up the entire crumbling epoch of the UK in the late 70s / early 80s. I'm a huge fan of Robert Wyatt but once he gets political, I switch off, just as I seem to have spent much of my festival life of the early 80s walking out of Billy Bragg sets in a state of utter dismay in search of something less proscriptive lyrically and musically more engaging and / or revolutionary in an actual sense. Exceptions prove rules though, I've been recently buying up some of those amazing Fela Kuti re-issues (£7 a pop at Fopp & HMV! Don't miss out!) who I first saw at Glastonbury in 84 when I ran to the stage at the beginning of their set thinking Sun Ra had just landed. What I saw was none the less amazing & Fela never pulled his punches lyrically - but the music, my God! The fecking music!

Bona Fide Traditional Folk Song / Ballad is different experience; hearing it sung by Bona Fide Tradition Singers is a different experience again, or seeing it in Glorious Broadside replete with cryptic woodcuts that frame the inner mystique of the thing perfectly - and which the Good Soldier would dismiss as 'commercial'. Ha! As if! But then, I'm moved by Wigan singer Sid Hague singing his self-penned folk songs about rock 'n' roll, nativity plays and country parks; there is a purity of mind here that can't be faked, like Alfred Wallis in song form; Folk Art (if you must) free of pretension and assumption. Such a rare thing in this day and age.

Forgive me, it's half eight on a Saturday morning & I'm just out of bed, but I'm gonna post this anyway, right now before I get onto a rant about Why Ballad Singing Is NOT and Never Should Be Storytelling, and why the language & imagery of such things are more important than the narrative, and how the human mind creates its own unique & profound relationships with the most simple of images anyway, which is why Wichita Lineman is still the best song ever written, ever, and why Camus was right when he said...

A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened

...as quoted, of course, on the cover of Scott 4. Scott Walker! My God! Another perfect lyricist who buries his meaning beyond recognition in his images. Who'd have thought this was about a soldier praying over the corpse of Che Guevara?

Save the crops and the bodies
from illness
from pestilence hunger and war
I journey each night like a Saint
to stand on this straw floor
our uniforms are loose
they look flimsy
night black shadows
under the peaks of our caps
shaved up to Augost
I still hear them singing
babaloo
babaloo...

Or that this featured the ghosts of Elvis and his still-born twin brother, Jesse, looking over ground zero of 9/11?

Nose holes caked in black cocaine
Pow! Pow!
No one holds a match to your skin
No dupe
No chiming
A way off miles off
No needle through a glove
Famine is a tall tower
A building left in the night
Jesse are you listening?
It casts its ruins in shadows
Under Memphis moonlight
Jesse are you listening?
Six feet of foetus
Flung at sparrows in the sky
Put yourself in my shoes
A kiss, wet, muzzle
A clouded eye
No stars to flush it out
Famine is a tall tower
A building left in the night
Jesse are you listening?

Puts a shiver up my spine just reading it! And tear in my eye at the perfect poetic beauty of the thing, which is what it's all about anyway, though I'd defy anyone to get away with either of those in their local singaround.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 04:53 AM

A rather thoughtful post Jack.

A pity others into writing long posts aren't so readable, eh Jim?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 05:22 AM

"A pity others into writing long posts aren't so readable, eh Jim?"
You can follow Jack's obscurantisms - damned if can
Put it down to my Sec Mod education
Don't think there's much in my postings particularly unreadable - indigestible for some people maybe!   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 06:18 AM

It isn't your education my friend. It's how you are using it to defend preposterous positions.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 Oct 14 - 06:31 AM

Jack's obscurantisms

It's different for everyone, Jim. The thing I hate about folk is the religiosity that underlies a very conservative orthodox mindset convinced that what they are doing is somehow right and superior with respect of the Popular Culture it wilfully demonises along with the class it appeals to, those same ordinary folk who dared pass on their so-called Folk Heritage in favour of TVs, radios, cereal heating, painkillers, dentistry and the other pollutants of modern culture that are anathema to Folk Purity, or the grubby innocent purity of the folk whose work is only vindicated by the likes of you plundering it for posterity. Like you said earlier that the working class are mere passive participants in a culture they longer create, and yet which is a thousand times more meaningful to their lives than their so-called Folk ever was - otherwise, why reject in favour of the other thing? And yet, the experience of musical & cultural creativity of the so-called Ordinary Classes remains more vital than ever it was as we exchange drudgery for leisure in which listening to music can be a damn sight more rewarding than singing it yourself.