What makes a new song a folk song?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 05:45 PM

"You can't simply write a folk song. Even if it sounds like a folk song, it is not a folk song until it has been around awhile and sung by a lot of people. One person is not a "tradition."
reasonable enough, but a while is how long? it is a variable, Fiddlers green written IN THE 1970S It is assumed by many to be trad, folk songs can be intentionally written whether they become folk songs [get mistaken by people to be trad] depends on how well they are written.
Reynardine is a case in point[ now attributed by many to be written by bert lloyd] was written with the intention of being a folk song and has apparantly succeeded[ many people thought it was traditional., and have introduced it in the past as a tradtional folk song

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 05:50 PM

so new songs can become folk songs whether or not they are intentionally written as such or are not.
Bert Lloyd of course had a great knowledge of the trdtion which made it easier for him to do this, and lets get this absolutelty straight, I have NEVER criticised A L Lloyd for doing this, other have done so BUTIHAVE NOT ,I THINK IT IS PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 07:01 PM

Johann Gottfried von Herder (25 August 1744 – 18 December 1803), a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic, was the first person—as far as anyone knows—to use the word(s) "folk song." He was suggesting to composers that if they wished their music to reflect the national character of their country, they should study the country's volkslieder (folk songs).

Sounds to me like he was suggesting these composers should go and write a new folk song, Don!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 07:25 PM

"Reynardine is a case in point[ now attributed by many to be written by bert lloyd"
Reynardine appeared on 19th century broadsides and was collected in Sussex in fragmentary form in Sussex in 1904
It been found in Scotland, Canada and America.
Folk songs aren't written - they evolve into becoming folk songs
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 09:28 PM

No, Bounty Hunter. What von Herder suggested is exactly what some composers have done. Which is why the compositions of Aaron Copeland and George Gershwin sound distinctly American and the compositions of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Frederick Delius sound distinctly English.

They didn't write folk songs, they incorporated folk song melodies and/or folk-like themes in their compositions.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Oct 14 - 09:59 PM

'Scuse me. Bounty Hound.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 03:24 AM

There is a huge difference between saying that in your opinion, folk is x, y, z and stating that the world is wrong and you are right.

Musical genres are used to help people know what they are getting, and saying the whole entertainment industry definitions are wrong because historical narrow definitions are right has two obstacles to credibility.

1. What gives one definition priority over another?

2. Folk in its widest sense sells in its millions and is listened to in numbers that committees would never envisage when voting clauses to motions.

That's all folk.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 04:29 AM

"saying the whole entertainment industry definitions are wrong because historical narrow definitions"
You seem to have hit the nail right on the head here Muskie - as far as I am concerned anyway.
The sole purpose of the music industry is to produce, package and market a music in order to sell it - no need to understand it or even like it as long as they can hang a price tag on it, pure and simple.
Folk song, on the other hand, is the product of ordinary people, made and remade by generations of land labourers, weavers, miners, seamen, soldiers from the ranks, below-decks sailors......, it reflected their lives, experiences and aspirations down the centuries.
The themes were universal enough to be taken up and passed on from generation to generation, crossing from trade to trade and community to community, spreading across counties, countries and even continents, so that a song created in, say a fairmtoon in Aberdeenshire, could turn up a century later in the mouth of a miner in Kentucky, or a Traveller in Roscommon.
I spent my life as a manual tradesman; I was told on leaving school that people like me weren't destined to be artistically creative and that all I needed was to be able to tot up my wage slip at the end of the week, and that is how it had always been.
On discovering folk music I found that this was not the case; I found that my people before me, who were land labourers in rural Ireland who had been driven out by The Famine and forced it settle all over the world, America, Canada, and in the case of my immediate family, Britain, had been part of a people who recorded their experiences in many thousands of songs.
My father's family, his father and grandfather, were merchant seamen.... part of an industry rich in song creation.
My father fought in Spain and came back with a small handful of songs produced by the people who fought on the Republican side there - the first couple of songs I ever learned were in Spanish.
When he was forced out of work for being a "premature anti-fascist" he became a navvy, a trade which produced a small but fairly significant body of songs about life on the road and away from home.
His sister and her husband settled in Derry and were driven out by anti-Catholic rioters in the forties - all reflected in songs of the period.
That may be "narrow and historical" to you, it isn't for me.
For me, it's part of what we are and where we've been and it's why, every time this subject comes up, I will try to make a distinction between the songs that are churned out by the music industry for a profit and those that have been made by people of my background which are a part of my cultural and social history.
This isn't to dismiss commercially-made songs as unimportant, they aren't.
They provide a great deal of entertainment for many millions of people - including me, though moreso in the past, than nowadays,
but they are a different beast altogether.
That may not be your bag - if not, sorry 'bout that, can't help you.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 05:21 AM

"It's worth winding him up just because he reacts by over reacting" (Musket) Seems to sum up so much of this thread and the permanent attitude of some contributors. (Something about living under bridges and eating goats springs to mind.)

Thanks to Don Firth for sensible and temperate interventions. In response to "the masses are always right" as an argument – what is the point of having specialists who actually study things if we take that approach? Why have doctors and surgeons when your neighbour, who has studied nothing, can always tell you what is wrong with you and what to do about it? As for trusting Amazon and i-tunes as a guide to what is correct !!!!!!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 05:31 AM

Folk songs are written, Sometimes they evolve sometimes they do not, shoals of herring was written[ ittmat or may not havebeen written intentionally as a folk song but it became accepted without any involvement.
Recruited collier was allegedly written by Lloyd. your scholastic assessment of Reynardine has been doubted not by me but by others on this forum, who hve suggested both the above songs were written by Lloyd, it was you who accused me of crticising Lloyd, that was untrue it was others who criticised him from a scholastic point of view , please getyour facts correct. ARE YOU SUGGESTING RENARDINE EXISTED AND lLOYD ADDED TO IT[if that is the case he wrote part of a song with the intention of passing it off as a folk song], and the final product was partly written with the intention of becoming a folk song, since we have to be pedantic.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 07:13 AM

"ARE YOU SUGGESTING RENARDINE EXISTED AND lLOYD ADDED TO IT"
I'm not suggesting it, I'm stating it as a fact.
Lloyd did nothing more than singers have done throughout history and adapted it for his own purposes as a singer - nothing wrong with that.
The problems arise when and if singers make academic or folkloristic claims on them - some say Bert did, I don't know in this particular case.
The final product was not partly written with the intention of it "becoming a folk song" - it was already a folk song when Bert got it, it was current here in the West of Ireland long before he got his hands on it.
Bert actually wrote a couple of songs, not many, but he never claimed them to be folk songs.
Nothing pedantic about that, just a series of facts.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 11:20 AM

So making a living out of music is contemptable.

Just so long as we know. Jim seems to be dreaming up more exclusive clauses.

Folk music is a genre of music. It includes those who have done well out of it as talent will out.

Clearly...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 11:39 AM

"So making a living out of music is contemptable. "
Are you so insecure in your own opinion that you have to invent conclusions like this Muskie - who has ever suggested such a thing?
You have had my opinions of what folk music is and why I feel it is unique and important - if you don't agree with what I have said, please stop inventing things I haven't said
Give us a break
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 12:05 PM

Keep it up, Jim!

That awkward know-nowt, argue-for-the-sake-of-it-coz-it-boosts-my-pathetic-ego, Musket, wants its hash properly settled by some who know wotzwot

Like you & me, wot-wot!

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 12:12 PM

Is it time to request assistance from UN Peacekeepers,
or would they prefere to commit to an indefinite posting to Syria
rather than risk coming here...????

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 12:19 PM

Jim, the recruited collier, it has been suggested by some on this forum that this was a composition by Bert, what is your opinion?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 12:55 PM

"Is it time to request assistance from UN Peacekeepers,"
I take it that was posted to lighten the mood PFR
Time after time threads on this subject have been driven into the ground by distortions such as those put up by muskie, by "it's only music and I just wanna sing" and by slagging off and extremist folk policing - take a peek at the number of threads on the subject listed above that have been closed down by the site administrators.
It's always seemed totally grotesque to me that on a site like this, we can't discuss one of the most basic questions - what exactly is folk music.
You have had a summing up of what I believe it is and why I feel it is important.
It's not "more exclusive clauses" of my invention, it's not a new argument - it is the concept of folk music that launched the revival in the fifties, MacColl spent a lifetime advocating and it is covered in the opening chapters of Lloyd's 'Folk Song in England' - music of the people, or 'Voice of the People' as Topic have chosen to call their magnificent series of albums.
If I'd ever had any doubts of the validity of their argument, forty years of work with Travellers, with Norfolk singers and here in West Clare dispelled those doubts - it was their music, they all said it at one time or another.
We're recording a 90-odd year old singer at the moment - he told us, "if somebody sneezed in church a song was made about it".
Those songs were taken up, remembered, changed and passed on - that's what makes them folk songs - they came from and became the voice of 'ordinary people' (whatever that means).
It doesn't mean they are better or worse than other forms of song - I've never argued that they are - some of them are crap in my opinion, but personal preferences should not be part of any of this.
You want to tell me that the products of the music industry are better or more valuable, fine, they are as far as you are concerned, but that does not make them 'folk' - it really is more fundamental than that.
I believe that the folk scene has been largely fucked up because it has lost its base; it has never been taken seriously as an art because we haven't taken it seriously ourselves.
You want to tell me that I, as a working man, belong to a social group incapable of producing a creative culture - feel free - I was being told that over half a century ago by teachers who believed that my future depended on my getting a start on the Fold assembly line in Speke way back when.
I believed it then, until I was lucky enough to meet and work with people who convinced my that it wasn't like that.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 01:20 PM

Jim - threads like this I try to read and understand every post..

It's no easy task [I know I missed 3 or 4 days, 2 or 3 weeks ago],
but well worth it for the knowledge and insight shared here.
Two of your most recent posts are excellent.

My family were over the moon when I passed the 11 plus
and had hopes raised that I could escape the inevitablility
of working in the factory our estate was constructed to serve.

There was a time 30 years ago when I was well read and informed
about the Workers Self Education movement & institutions of previous generations.
I can barely remember any of it now - sad how the brain atrophies from lack of stimulation..

So I genuinely do value a lot of what I read here.

It's just such a terrible shame it gets so bogged down in endless petty point scoring arguements....

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 01:58 PM

So if I wrote a song about a 90 year old farting in church and somebody memorised the words it would be a folk song?

Odd.

So long as a real folk singer didn't record it on an album eh?

Don't keep changing your definition to mean anything opposite of what I say Jim. You'll have Mike wondering if my ego trip is actually worthwhile.

Me! Me! Look at me!

Etc .

😎

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 03:49 PM

I have not 'changed' my definition one iota - it has been my argument all along and it isn't "my" argument to change anyway - basically, fold songs are the songs of the labouring classes, about them, taken up by them and almost certainly made by them in the first place.
They may not be better (or worse) than the products of the pop industry, but they most certainly are different in every respect.
If I have ever said anything different, I would be happy to apologise for doing so.
You can trivialise what I have said Musikie - I'd much rather you answer it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 06:44 PM

"Folk songs are the songs of the labouring classes"

That's we said when we were in punk bands in the late '70s.. Except we called it punk so as not to confuse people, a bit like Amazon and itunes do when calling folk "folk."

Making it up as you go along again eh? Lots of songs written recently on that bandwagon.

zzzz


Mind you, we'd never use a condescending phrase like labouring classes just because our songs patronised sections of the community, (bored youth in our case.)

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 06:51 PM

Yeah well - that sems to be that then!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Oct 14 - 09:47 AM

Reynardine, Appears to have been a fragment , one stanza? according to whoever put it in wikipedia, and Lloyd apparntly did attempt to pass it off as a tradtional song . you stated that you did not think all broadsheets were folk songs, you a;so stated that it started off as a broadsheet, clearly Lloyd thought this one was and had no problem having an intention to write more and pass it off as traditional song aka folk song, basically the vast majority of it was a lloyd new song or composition. see here
Reynardine and Lloyd's contributions

According to folklorist Stephen Winick, although the name "Reynardine" is found in one 19th century version, the association with foxes, as well as Reynardine's supernatural characteristics, first arise in connection with a fragment of the ballad (a single stanza) that was collected in 1904 by Herbert Hughes. The source's recollection of the ballad was that Reynardine was an Irish "faëry" who could turn into a fox. This ability (which is not suggested in any extant version of "The Mountains High") may have derived from the word "Reynardine": renard is French for "fox".

Winick points out that Hughes and a friend named Joseph Campbell (not to be confused with the mythologist) wrote short poems incorporating this stanza and the fox interpretation, aspects of which A. L. Lloyd in turn adapted for his versions of "Reynardine" (see Winick 2004). Winick also shows that Lloyd's versions incorporate several striking turns of phrase, including "sly, bold Reynardine" and "his teeth did brightly shine", that are found neither in the original ballads, nor in Hughes' or Campbell's versions.

Lloyd generally represented his versions of "Reynardine" as "authentic" folksongs (going so far as to claim to have collected the song from one "Tom Cook, of Eastbridge, Suffolk"), but this informant has never apparently been encountered by any other collector. Lloyd's claims have led to the current state of confusion; few modern singers know that the "werefox" interpretation of the ballad is not traditional. Lloyd's reworkings are certainly more interesting to the modern listener than the simple and moralistic original ballads, and have gained far greater interest from singers and songwriters; his versions of "Reynardine" have served as inspiration for many additional modern reworkings.

Modern versions of the song are performed on the albums Fire & Fleet & Candlelight by Buffy Sainte-Marie, Liege & Lief by Fairport Convention, Milkwhite Sheets by Isobel Campbell, Airs and Graces by June Tabor, Anne Briggs by Anne Briggs, Rosemary Lane by Bert Jansch, Weaving my Ancestors' Voices by Sheila Chandra, Arthur the King by Maddy Prior, Country Life by Show of Hands, Prince Heathen by Martin Carthy, Reynadine by Carolina Chocolate Drops and Dave Swarbrick, and Birds Fly South by Zoe Speaks, among others.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Oct 14 - 09:50 AM

by coincidence the recruited collier was only collected once too , remarkable, nor was the informant of recruited collier ever encountered by another collector, which might possibly indicate it was composed by Bert
.Lloyd generally represented his versions of "Reynardine" as "authentic" folksongs (going so far as to claim to have collected the song from one "Tom Cook, of Eastbridge, Suffolk"), but this informant has never apparently been encountered by any other collector.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Oct 14 - 10:17 AM

"Lloyd generally represented his versions of "Reynardine""
I suggest you check on the Roud index to see how old Reynardine is, how far it has spread and how many times it has been found - it gives 146 references to the song.
It has also been given a Laws number (P15), which indicates that it was Current in the United States.
Laws' note to the song reads:

BRITISH BROADSIDE BALLADS TRADITIONAL IN AMERICA

P 15 RINORDINE
A man makes love to a girl he meets by chance in the mountains. When she asks his name, he cautions her against telling her parents, who would cause his death, and says that his name is Rinordine and that he has a castle in the forest. The ballad ends with a warning to maidens against walking at night and meeting Rinor.

One evening as I rambled two miles below Pomroy,
I met a farmer's daughter all on the mountains high,
I said, "My pretty fair maiden your beauty shines most clear,
And in these lofty mountains I'm glad to meet you here."

Thomas, Devil's Ditties, 108, 7d, m. (Ky.). Belden, 286, 12 (Kan.); equiv. of 10 (Mo.). Combs, 165, 8 (W. Va.). Chappell, 84, 13, m. (N.C.). Eddy, 192, 14 (O.). Gardner, 96, 19 lines, m. (Mich.). Flanders-Barry, 64, 6, m. (Vt. A different text with its literary source reprinted). Mackenzie, 102, 7d (N.S.) Detailed refs. Randolph I, 379, Id, m. (Ark. from ms.).
JFSS I, 271, 2d, m. (Sussex).
Broadsides: (B) Bebbington, 7d ("Mountains High". Harvard IX, 117). Such, 7d ("The Mountains High" Reprinted in JFSS I, 271). (A) N. Coverly, Jr., Boston (Thomas Coll. I, 55, "The Soldier and His Fair Maid". 6d and I, 64, "Ranordine", 7d). Songsters: (A) The American Songster, Phila., 1836, 191, 7d. The Forget Me Not Songster, Phila., 18, 7d. The same, N.Y., 199.

The fact that a song has been claimed from only one informant is immaterial - we have submitted a few dozen songs to be given Roud numbers which have only one informant, yet all have been obtained from a traditional source.
There is no reason to believe Bert didn't get The Recruited Collier where he said he got it - he was more prone to adapting songs, in my opinion.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Oct 14 - 11:21 AM

"The fact that a song has been claimed from only one informant is immaterial" not in the opinion of many on threads[ BUT NOT ME] on this forum about Bert.
however, I have always stated that in my opinion[ and my approach is nt from a scholars point of view but from the point of view of a performer]that it is the merit of the song that is important., not whether it was traditional or adapted by Bert or anything else or even a new song, the fact that someone may have adapted or composed it is in my opinion immaterial, I am quite happy to sing the occasional modern song, my criteria is the quality of the song, Igenerally introduce them as a modern song and then credit the author.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 20 Oct 14 - 11:22 AM

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 20 Oct 14 - 11:32 AM

Sorry about blank above. The browser froze, and when I got back here that had appeared.

I thought I'd posted something about Reynardine and The Recruited Collier last night, but it seems to have disappeared.

Not a lot to add now to the comments made since then. It does seem to have been pretty conclusively demonstrated (and if someone doesn't provide a link I'll do so when I have time) that Lloyd took a poem about a recruited ploughboy and turned it into The Recruited Collier song, as part of his attempt to establish the existence of "industrial" folksong. No evidence has ever been found for the existence of the person from whom the song was allegedly collected.

So this is another instance of Lloyd adapting something already in existence, but in this case it apparently never existed as a song (folk or otherwise) until he got his hands on it.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 20 Oct 14 - 11:45 AM

It's alright. Amazon has Kate Rusby's version as folk, although Bert Lloyd, in the music and books he is listed under comes out as traditional song.

Thats the thing with genre, its what it is, not what you wish it to be.

Assuming you care about such things, or folk police as we call him err. I mean them...





Whoops
🙀

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 20 Oct 14 - 11:53 AM

Genuine question here. Where does the 1952 Anthology of American Folk Songs (The Harry Smith Anthology)- which included many recordings of songs with known composers - fit in? Were people getting it wrong even then?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Oct 14 - 12:39 PM

" it is the merit of the song that is important"
Important to what - certainly not whether it is a folk song.
'One Fine Day', is quite a good number, don't think Puccini ever called it a folk song.
"I am quite happy to sing the occasional modern song"
After a quick shufti through my repertoire book, I find I have around 60, - qite happy to sing them all if the occasion arises.
"Lloyd took a poem about a recruited ploughboy"
Would be grateful if you could follow this up Richard.
One of the things that has always struck me about the argument that Lloyd 'composed' it is the song's form.
The last half verse is typical of songs where the source singer has forgotten part of the song and gave just what he or she remembered.   
"which included many recordings of songs with known composers"
True - I think Smith's collection included 'Wreck of the Old 97' which could be said to have had two known composers as it gave us one of the earliest known copyright court cases over a song that entered the tradition and was claimed by two musicians.

"In 1927 it was claimed that the actual author of "Wreck of the Old 97" was David Graves George. David was a local resident who was also one of the first on the scene. He was a brakeman and telegraph operator who just so happened to like singing. He wrote the ballad after he was inspired by the tragedy that he witnessed,. In 1927 when a record came out by the Victor Talking Machine Company with "the wreck of the old 97" on it. David Graves George filed a claim for ownership. It was only on March 11, 1933, that Judge John Boyd did finally proclaimed that David G. George was the original author to the ballad. Afterwards Victor Talking Machine Company was forced to pay David from the profits that were made from the 5,000,000 records that were sold. David received an approximate $65,295. Victor appealed three times. The first two times, the courts ruled in favor of David. The third time it was reviewed by the nations highest tribunal. The supreme court of the United States decided to overrule the lower courts and again grant Victor ownership of the ballad."

The '54 definition reads: "The term can be applied to music that has been evolved from rudimentary beginnings by a community uninfluenced by popular and art music and it can likewise be applied to music which has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community", so it's not really "getting it wrong"
"Assuming you care about such things, or folk police as we call him err. I mean them..."
Don't worry too much about it Muskie - in that respect, your position is quite safe nad in your case, probably comes with a pension!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 20 Oct 14 - 12:46 PM

Musket said
> Thats the thing with genre, its what it is, not what you wish it to be.

That doesn't prevent some people here from loudly asserting their respective, and conflicting, ideas of what they think it is. "I'm right. You're wrong and you're a ."

Talk about flogging a dead horse. We've long passed the point at which anyone's argument has any chance of changing anyone else's mind, even those whose minds weren't closed before we started.

FWIW I personally have some sympathy both with those who recognise the fact that the term "folk song" now has a wide range of meanings (at least to some people) and with those who would prefer it kept with its narrower meaning and new term(s) found for the other kinds of song.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Vic Smith
Date: 20 Oct 14 - 06:33 PM

Talk about flogging a dead horse. We've long passed the point at which anyone's argument has any chance of changing anyone else's mind, even those whose minds weren't closed before we started.

Pity, I followed the first 100 or so posts in this thread and then gave up. I was going to ask who won. Looks like no-one did according to Richard.
Well, what a surprise!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 20 Oct 14 - 07:10 PM

I never knew it was a right v wrong thread. You should have said..


Yawn..

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 02:49 AM

"I never knew it was a right v wrong thread. "
You've done your best to make it one with your disparaging sneering at anything traditional, Muskie.
"Yawn"
Wake up at the back there, you really should get something done about your rapidly disappearing concentration span - if discussing the music bores you so much, why bother?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 05:53 AM

So, no opinions on the songs with known compsosers on the Harry Smith Anthology? I'm happy to call 'em folk songs. Though as the recordings are from the 1920s they can hardly be classed as new...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 06:04 AM

Yeah, I sneer at traditional music.


Is there anything you can say that has a basis in reality, you old fool?

Zzzzzzz

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 06:07 AM

"So, no opinions on the songs with known composers on the Harry Smith Anthology?"
I gave you my response along with an example of one of them with 'known' composers (albeit disputed) and an acknowledgement that such songs could have become folk songs - as the '54 definition pointed out.
That has nothing to do with the fact that today's composed songs are not being taken up and absorbed into the community in the way songs like 'Wreck of the Old 97' were.
I'm happy to describe the 'Smith' songs as folk, and would be over the moon if new songs were being absorbed in the same way.
Thence the difference
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 07:52 AM

new songs are being absorbed.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 08:40 AM

Not outside the folk clubs, they're not - if they are, where are they, what indication is there that they are being taken up?
The nearest MacColl ever came to claiming that his songs were 'folk' was when he heard of the popularity of 'Freeborn Man' among Travellers - when the interviewer asked him if he regarded it as a folk song, he replied, "we'll see - come back and ask min in ten years time".
We recorded it from Travellers in very basic, fragmentary form from a couple of Travellers, they hadn't learned it, they remembered it from one of the groups singing it on the radio - that is not absorption.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 08:44 AM

Oy Jim.

Ive got a list of hundreds of thousands of folk songs awaiting your approval.

I'm happy to describe them as folk, how about you?



Gets more ridiculous by the minute..

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 11:07 AM

"Gets more ridiculous by the minute.."
It does indeed
Istead of your snideasides - how about putting your money where your mouth is?
You've been remarkably coy about actually showing why anything you choose to call folk is folk, but a little thin on the at producing evidence why that should be the case -
You have a documented and widely accepted definition (which you claim is mine - it isn't) - now how about some substance to your 'Alice in Woderland' claims instead of the abuse you appear to shine in.
If you are not prepared to, stop sniping - it's neither clever or intelligent.
Anyone can throw stones, why not show us what you know?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 12:04 PM

I would, but two things first.

1. I keep doing so.

2. You claim otherwise.

No point.

Once more then.

Folk is folk. It includes traditional folk, contemporary folk, folk rock, folk baroque (special sub genre for Pentangle presumably) and many other sub genres such as protest, roots, world, singer / songwriter, celtic etc.

All the above can slip between genres because the 1954 and any other attempt at defining something which is abstract and entertainment is sheer folly.

Folk is an umbrella term, and to get back to the original question;

Yes, you can write a folk song. If Jim Carroll says you can't, it isn't a problem because he isn't important.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 12:51 PM

All ɷɷɷɷɷɷ, Musk! Nothing but wind'n'piss.

If I was quite as ignorant and opinionated, and vain, and self-satisfied, and generally altogether a resident of Nonoville, as you are, I should try to keep it to myself, not go on exposing my idiocy and ineptitude the way you do.

Still, Carry On Blustering. Good for a laugh, like all those other Carry-Ons.

Teeheeheeheeheehee........

☺〠☺~M~☺〠☺

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 12:54 PM

Why not try sticking your umbrella term uno-ware

... and then open it up!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 01:06 PM

stop being ridiculous, Jim, I have given examples earlier, so here we go again, Caledonia, is extremely popular in ireland outside folk clubs and it is a new song, that is often mistaken by performers for traditional.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 02:52 PM

"stop being ridiculous, Jim"
And you stop being so ****** arrogant
I've told you that popularity and mistaken identity have nothing to do with the making of a folk song
If you think differently, show me where I am wrong - I really am not prepared to take your word on very much, not with your track record (tell me again about Bert Lloyd having written Reynardine!!)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 03:32 PM

Is it worth the effort? probably not.

Jim Carroll
"More misrepresentation."
More aggression
I may have mistaken your point, I have not misrepresented it - if I have, I apologise.
You had my text in front of you. You did a cut and paste job to change the meaning of what I said.

The term did not have a broader meaning
What I said was "Unfortunately (and for perfectly valid reasons), they chose a term for it which was already in use with a much broader meaning." This is true. I have produced evidence to back this up. If you want to contest the evidence, feel free to do so but simply denying it won't do.

The conference was made up of different national groups; from what I can gather, and difficulties in reaching a consensus arose from the fact that some aspects applied differently from nation to nation.
That's gobsmacking. All I can really say is, well done, you've just blown the 1954 definition out of the water.

All of this is a far cry from the 'anything goes' argument that is being applied to the term here - I may have missed it, but I don't recall your having stating your own opinion on that one.
I have stated quite clearly that I have a simple solution to clubs that put on music that doesn't suit my tastes. I don't go to them. That is all it is in my power to do.

"If you came to our club and started to jump up and down and demand your money back every time somebody sang a song that you felt didn't fit the 1954 definition then, yes, you would be asked to leave."
The subject of needing a definition would not com up unless you raised it. You would not be asked to leave unless you were causing a disturbance. That attitude is clearly reflected in your behavior on this thread and many others.

"The trouble is, you are very selective in your reading. You seize on every crumb, no matter how obscure or dubious, if it supports your case while brushing aside anything that doesn't fit your prejudices."
You demonstrate this on a regular basis.

"If you disagree with what I have to say, have the decency and honesty to to address what I have to say and not make things up" - was a direct response to your having written "Jim would have us believe, there are no other traditional clubs in the country" - which is simply untrue - I have never made such a statement, nor do I believe it - you made it up.
You've come pretty damn close to it. I borrowed that sentence from you when, despite having what I actually said in front of you, you totally misrepresented my meaning. Seems that when you used it, it was fully justified; when I used it was "******* aggressive".

The tenor of your responses to my postings ranges from patronising "I'' probably regret asking this..." to one of open aggression.
I hate to tell you this, Jim, but you can come over as a tad patronising and aggressive yourself. I don't think anyone who can come up with such a beautifully crafted piece of nastiness as "your "ding' ding - Lewes is on the bus" attitude" is in any position to claim the moral high ground.

I realise I should learnt to tolerate people like you
I can't tell you how much that means to me.

(you're not the only one who can be patronising)
So true.

but there really is no need for your constant open animosity
You seem to bring it out in me.

we are supposed do want the same thing out of the music.
Indeed we are. Why don't you join me in trying to promote traditional music in English folk clubs instead of doing everything you can to undermine it?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 04:08 PM

"Is it worth the effort? probably not."
Not a good start Bryan - getting a bit pissed off with facetious clowns who have gaot te balls to state their own position
I really can't be arsed to read postings that start like this - come back when someone teaches you some manners eh.
See - you were right, it really isn't worth the effort
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 21 Oct 14 - 04:22 PM

Rather proves my point. Never mind. Other people may have read what I have to say and noted your wriggling out of giving answers.