What makes a new song a folk song?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 02:19 AM

Might be a coincidence then, but he calls himself a folk singer, has done well in BBC Radio 2 folk awards and both Mark Radcliffe and Mike Harding have given him plenty of air time, on their folk programmes. Not bad for mediocre pop....

Your comment "in the idiom" is quite interesting Michael. I have mentioned folk singers adapting rock songs in this thread, and as the thread is about new songs being folk songs, it makes Noddy Holder and Bob Geldoff writers of folk songs, thanks to Martin Carthy and Dave Burland respectively. Both songs are of course folk because in years to come, old men with their Lycra space suits up to their tits will refer to them as reflecting events, lives and thoughts of the age.

Space Girl.. Is it a folk song because it is science fiction or because MacColl and Seeger wrote it?

Meanwhile back at the ranch.. I sang Elton John's Daniel last night. Gave an introduction about the song, the missing verse etc and assuming Jim has the appropriate triplicate forms available, I would like to try and register it as a folk song.

Perhaps Jim will explain his comments above that as he likes two of the acts I mentioned but not the third, that one (Sethman) isn't folk.

There you have it. Folk is whatever Jim likes. If he either doesn't like it or he hasn't heard it, it can't be folk.

Just so we know the ludicrous stance this thread is dealing with.

🐮💩

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 04:13 AM

"I suppose his jeans end south of his belly button eh?"
A number of times while we were collecting in London, we were asked to bring some of the singers we met to various clubs - we were able to do so on several occasions, with happy results.
On the night we went with Mikeen McCarthy to the Musical Traditions Club, his reception was tremendous - someone was good enough to write the evening up in Dance and Song - a memorable night.
On request, we took Mikeen to The national Folk Festival in Sutton Bonnington - still have the recordings of some of the sessions with Mikeen, Kevin and Ellen Mitchell and Packie Manus Byrne - folk song at its best.
Another night in the basement of Cecil Sharp House, we had Mikeen with two musician friends, piper/concertina player, Tom McCarthy and fiddle player, Fergus McTeggart, who entranced a roomful of people for a couple of hours with song, stories, music and reminiscences of playing back home - memorable, to say the least, truly magic nights.
Each time we asked someone who was generous to give us the benefit of their time and experience, we had to decide on who we would take along, whether they would cope in front of large audiences, or handle lengthy periods of playing and singing in an environment thy were unused to.
We were very lucky with the audiences that turned up - true lovers of folk song and music, who realised the value of what was on offer and, on the few occasions necessary, were happy to overlook the problems that some of the performers faced at being in unfamiliar territory, or performing songs they hadn't sung for generations - or simply being not as young as they were - past their prime.
Those were the days when the revival was made up of enough folk song lovers to be worth making the effort for.
If the contributions of you pair are anything to go by - those days are now long gone.
What we have here is, as far as I'm concerned, unacceptable loutish behaviour from someone who apparently dislikes folk song and is prepared to take out his dislike on elderly, now dead singers who were generous enough to give us our repertoire - Yob Folk just about sums it up.
Most of the old crowd are no longer with us, and even when they were around, it would have been unlikely that they would have had access to forums like this - but their relatives and descendants do.
I wonder how they would react to seeing members of their family referred to in the loutish way the neanderthal contingency of the revival have done on this discussion!      
I know of at least one decedent of one of the old 'tit-trouser brigade' who have contributed to this forum, and who has passed on loads of information on one of our more important traditional singers.
I hope you really are an extremist example of what has happened in the clubs Muskie - joking or not, your crude loutishness is unacceptable - on par with a roomful of kids shouting out "bum" and "knickers" to shock the adults.
You have already given us a spectacular display of your deep knowledge of Child - how about trying not to act like one - there's a good boy?
I find Al's dishonest denigration of fellow performers because they were unwise enough not to ask him to sing at their club, little better and just as distasteful.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,keith price
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 04:45 AM

Well said Jim.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 05:41 AM

Developing the point picked up above by Musket, as to my use of the concept of "the traditional idiom" in relation to Seth Lakeman:-

The five songwriters I had mentioned in that Cambridge Guide entry were all ones who had a firm background of experience as singers of traditional song; so that their own compositions were inevitably influenced by this, and fitted thematically and stylistically into the sort of music we are engaged with here. Other singer-songwriters "adopted" by 'the Folk Scene' [to employ a useful idiom which I am sure will make the necessary communication as to my meaning to anyone reading posts on this forum] might not have had this background or experience, and so would IMO be less qualified to have their work accepted in the terms implied by the title and topic of this thread.

I think this an essential distinction to be observed in seeking to answer the question which forms the thread title.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 07:49 AM

Here are some definitions that people have suggested (bet you didn't know that was what you were doing).

A "folk song" is...

- any song sung in a folk club
- any song sung by a folk singer & accepted by a folk audience
- any song widely sung in folk clubs & taken up on the folk scene
- any traditional song, plus new songs in traditional idioms
- any traditional song but no newly-composed songs, unless they are taken up by ordinary people in the way that traditional songs were

I think an awful lot of confusion - and heat - has been generated by people applying the word 'folk' to the performer and starting from there. If somebody thinks of himself as a folk singer - & gets bookings from other people who also think he's a folk singer - it's understandable that that person would be a bit narked to be told that little or none of what he's singing is actually 'folk'.

If you get away from the idea that the adjective 'folk' applies to the singer - and apply it to individual songs - then the problem goes away. So Martin Carthy's a singer, Ewan MacColl was a singer, Seth Lakeman's a singer. Carthy sings mostly folk songs; MacColl sang folk songs and his own songs, most of which were in a folk idiom; Lakeman sings some folk songs and a lot of his own, some of them in a folk idiom.

This is assuming that there's something about the song itself which makes it 'folk' - as distinct from, say, 'rugby club songs' or 'Boy Scout songs', which are whatever songs are actually being sung by rugby players or Boy Scouts. Admittedly, there are 'folk club songs', or standards as they'd be called in the jazz world: songs you'll never hear on the radio but can be sure of hearing in any folk club if you wait long enough - "No Man's Land", "Beeswing", "Sally free and easy", "Farewell to the gold"...

As for what it is that makes a folk song a folk song, in one word: origin. Not the ultimate origin but the last stop, as it were, before it enters the repertoire of professionals and hobbyists. I'd suggest that folk songs are songs that have been collected from people who didn't know where they came from; songs that people sing for fun, round the fire or while they're working*. Which means that folk song exists mainly in the past tense - singing songs in that way isn't something people do much any more. A new song would become a folk song if it got away from its composer and lived on in that way, but it's not likely to happen now.

I think this is what most of the collectors would have understood by 'folk song', however imperfect some of their collecting practice was*. But I know a lot of people really don't like using the word 'folk' as restrictively as this, so I don't suppose there's much chance of going back to it.

*Dave Harker showed that some of what we now consider the traditional repertoire probably wasn't sung like this, but was faked up by collectors or their contributors. (Not that he was the first to go down this road; Robert Chambers cast doubt on several of the big ballads, including Sir Patrick Spens, as early as 1849.) But what Harker didn't show (although you'd never know it from the way he writes) is that all - or even most - of the accepted traditional songs were actually 'fakesong'.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 08:07 AM

"But what Harker didn't show (although you'd never know it from the way he writes) is that all - or even most - of the accepted traditional songs were actually 'fakesong'."
Has anybody shown that they are Phil - I've yet to come across convincing evidence if they have?
I may have missed out on Lakeman - I heard some of his songs a few time, and decided that there was nothing of interest for me.
Just checked half a dozen of his offerings on U-tube and find nothing different
Still sounds like a loud, non-narrative music based on pop sounds - a far cry from the articulate, audible storytelling or lyrical structure that constitutes folk-song as I know it.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 09:18 AM

or maybe a newish descriptive phrase floating around the internet...

"Fauxk Songs".....?????

eg.. Fauxk

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 10:08 AM

Has anybody shown that they are Phil - I've yet to come across convincing evidence if they have?

Not as far as I know - perhaps I should have said "neither Harker nor anyone else has shown". (Steve G will probably have a view.)

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 11:03 AM

I find this questioning of whether there is a tradition, odd, to say the least.
We have a large body of songs collected by Sharp and his contemporaries, mainly from the agricultural working people.
In the 1950s, we got the same songs, in widely differing versions collected from the same social group of people by the BBC
One of the great revelations to us is finding the same group of songs in the rural west of Ireland - Lord Lovel, Lord Bateman, Katherine Jafferay, The Suffolk Miracle, The Outlandish Knight were some of the ballads; Banks of Sweet Dundee, The Grey Mare (Young Roger Esquire), The False Lover, Farmer and the Grocer..... a couple of months ago we took down a version of The Girl with a Box on Her Head from a ninety odd year old man.... all probably originating in Britain, but all claimed to have been in the family for centuries.
The biggest surprise was the huge repertoire of anonymous local songs made about everyday life here in the West - land politics, shipwrecks, drinking bouts, murders.... right through to a lament for when a beloved local priest was moved on to another parish.
If these aren't 'folk songs', they are convincing enough fakes to have me fooled
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 12:03 PM

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle - PM
Date: 25 Sep 14 - 03:53 AM

You fellers can sure dish it out, but you seem to have trouble taking it
Jim Carroll

that's cos you lie about us and over simplify. i never saw joe heaney, or several others, i should have. i became a professional singer out of financial necessity. playing anything a jobbing musician had to to make living. i learned to respect songwriters whose work put food on the table. when i wasn't working in pubs - i visited my fair share of folk clubs, but i admit not as many as i perhaps should have.

i did buy joe's double album from a fine singer/songwriter called Pete Coe, who carries round albums by joe and others like him for people who might be interested.

Joe of couse used to sing some songs in Irish. perhaps he did this at a Clancy's concert. they were a very public face of folk music type act. i never saw them. but i remember Ian Campbell saying they had this thing, where every night they used to run on stage and and throw aside a stool that was put there every night for them to throw aside, in a lets get down to business sort of gesture.

At our song club in the Vernon, Derby we had a singer who regularly sang in Gaelic. we all listened respectfully - though admittedly without a great deal of comprehension to hear him do his three songs. Hugh Lamont. we also listened to every other sort of music.

you really are talking bollocks about the English folkscene - we aren't a hard nosed gangs of 1950's concert goers who next week will be listening to MJQ, and expect exactly whats on the ticket.

I on the other hand exaggerate not a jot when i describe the reaction oF your mates at the Grey Cock folk club in Birminghan and their arrogance and unfriendliness - I will never forget it."
that is what Al said, he does appear to like some traditional songs and singers [bob lewis] he has a problem with some people at one club
I had a problem with Ewan MacColl, so decided not to go to the singers club, I still rate him as a song writer and singer.
I found another club in London[ even though i had no problem getting on to sing] very cliquey and unfriendly, the point is that cliqueyness and unfriendliness can occur whether it is a contemporary or a trad club

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 12:33 PM

If someone running a pub would like to host a club, run by Jim and with Keith Price sat listening earnestly over his shandy, it leaves the way clear for the rest of us to enjoy folk music.

Jim, where did I give the impression I am an extreme anything? The "extreme" idiots are the ones who turn up at a place of entertainment and try to tell you what is wrong with your music. Now, if I couldn't sing, couldn't play and people were wishing I'd shut up, that's one thing, but the ones who try telling you what is and isn't folk are as fucking annoying here as they are in a pub full of people out for a good night out.

What inspires people to stand or sit there complaining that folk isn't what they want it to be after all? You'd think they'd get a life.

It's thanks to such buffoons that Folk clubs are rebranding themselves as acoustic nights or acoustic roots etc . And that's a shame because the vast majority, nay, 95% of us enjoy folk in its widest sense.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 01:23 PM

"The "extreme" idiots are the ones who turn up at a place of entertainment and try to tell you what is wrong with your music. "
Never came across any of them - came across plenty who stopped turming up to clubs because they found they were being conned by the stuff that was being put on in place of folk music
Your extremism comes from the way you dismiss and insult people who don't adhere to your "folk is anything I care to call it" attitude - particularly despicable is the way you insult the older generation who gave us our folk song.
I'm quite happy to argue with people I disagree with - you don't argue, you bully when you can't get your way - you belong in a schoolyard.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 01:24 PM

What is your statistical basis for that very precisely numerated assertion, please, Ian?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 04:18 PM

"The "extreme" idiots are the ones who turn up at a place of entertainment and try to tell you what is wrong with your music. "
Never came across any of them - came across plenty who stopped turming up to clubs because they found they were being conned by the stuff that was being put on in place of folk music"
haha,jim there is one in our village, who when he is very drunk, turns up and says stop playing diddley music, and play bluegrass like yakitty yak,.
he clearly doesnt know that yakkityy yak is not bluegrass, he is an extreme idiot who is rather like a record player that is stuck, he cannot play anything himself but think it is his prerogative to tell others whats wrong with their music, his comments have racist overtones, so i fecked him off good and proper

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 04:58 PM

says stop playing diddley music, and play bluegrass like yakitty yak,.

What's Yakitty Yak, Dick?

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 05:58 PM

Yakety Yak" is a song written, produced, and arranged by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller for The Coasters and released on Atlantic Records in 1958, spending seven weeks as #1 on the R&B charts and a week as number one on the Hot 100 pop list. This song was one of a string of singles released by The Coasters between 1957 and 1959 that dominated the charts, one of the biggest performing acts of the rock and roll era.k" was written by Leiber, Jerry / Stoller



Take out the papers and the trash
Or you don't get no spendin' cash
If you don't scrub that kitchen floor
You ain't gonna rock and roll no more
Yakety yak
(Don't talk back)

Just finish cleanin' up your room
Let's see that dust fly with that broom
Get all that garbage out of sight
Or you don't go out Friday night
Yakety yak
(Don't talk back)

Just put on your coat and hat
And walk yourself to the laundromat
And when you finish doin' that
Bring in the dog and put out the cat
Yakety yak
(Don't talk back)

Don't you give me no dirty looks
Your father's hip, he knows what cooks
Just tell your hoodlum friends outside
You ain't got time to take a ride
Yakety yak
(Don't talk back)

Yakety yak, yakety yak
Yakety yak, yakety yak
Yakety yak, yakety yak
Yakety yak, yakety yak

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Tootler
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 06:26 PM

What's Yakitty Yak, Dick?

or, if you like

http://youtu.be/PtTC3pGBjs4

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 06:52 PM

I know the song, just hadn't heard of the idiom - Yakkety Yak, like Diddle-De-Dee - as if there's a sub-genre of Irish Music out there where they Yak instead of Diddle...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 06:59 PM

Yaks diddle. Otherwise, where would little yaks come from?

(Sorry, I'll go now....)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 10:06 PM

i'm a clown, now i'm dishonest........

you are devoid of argument jim - you deceive yourself. musket and i have listened to much the same stuff as you, and we have a different opinion of it.

we are not dishonest. we obviously just have higher standards. we have worked as professional musicians and entertainers and we have had to attain standards of stagecraft, musicianship and competence.

to my certain knowledge in at least one club, you are content to sit through evenings of total bollocks. okay - you stick to what you like.
and keep the abuse coming, but don't flatter yourself that i'm dishonest.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 01:34 AM

"you are devoid of argument jim "
You haave to be joking Al - you have had masses of argument from me on at leas two threads we have been involved in recently
You may not accept any of what I have had to say, but you cannot possibly claim that I haven't said anything
I don't care what you do - it doesn't impress me greatly, but that's my problem.
What concerns me here is your and Muskett's BEHAVIOUR.
Your attitude towards fellow performers and enthusiasts I find totally unacceptable with your attempts to denigrate by presenting a dishonest picture of what they do - "fishermen's smocks" my arse - whatever their shortcomings, that's about as far from what the Birmingham crowd as you can get!
Muskett appears to be on another planet altogether with his indifference/contempt for what some of us have been involved in for most of our lives and his insulting behaviour of our late benefactors.
Even now you are referring to the music of working people as "total bollocks" - fine, 'cha-cun à son goût', as the saying goes.
I'm off to Dublin for some singing and a few good films - leave you and yours to it for a few days.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 02:44 AM

Indifference and contempt.

The only examples of that are in Jim's dismissal of contemporary folk.

Michael. My 95% of people enjoying folk in more than just tit trousers barking out something about squires and wenches is based on painstaking research over many milliseconds. Notwithstanding as I said before, you can get bloody good roses from decent cow shit.

I suspect I personally have a nostalgic affection for an unaccompanied dirge or two, same as I have for many contemporary folk songs. Some of my more recent album purchases? Latest offerings from many heroes of mine. Mostly writing their own songs, mostly typical folk artistes yet by Jim's arbitrary definition using his particular narrow experience, not folk.

Fucking absurd.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 03:18 AM

" Jim's arbitrary definition using his particular narrow experience, not folk. "
The only "arbitrary definition" here is your own
You have been given the '54 definition which you have described as "out-of-date" which, just like your ridiculous claims about Child, you have totally failed to provide evidence for.
Your pathetic and disgusting attacks on those who don't accept your personal (that is what it is) definition, which apparently includes 'I Don't Like Mondays' (any evidence of anybody else supporting that view) sum you up - pathetic and disgusting.

This is hoow "personal" my personal view is Muskie - now let's see the %95 people you claim support yours
You can't even scratch up d decent definition between you - "anything goes" isn't definable
Pratt!
Jim Carroll
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 03:27 AM

Mostly writing their own songs, mostly typical folk artistes yet by Jim's arbitrary definition using his particular narrow experience, not folk.

This is a perfect example of what I wrote less than a day ago, back here.

I think an awful lot of confusion - and heat - has been generated by people applying the word 'folk' to the performer and starting from there. ... If you get away from the idea that the adjective 'folk' applies to the singer - and apply it to individual songs - then the problem goes away. So Martin Carthy's a singer, Ewan MacColl was a singer, Seth Lakeman's a singer. Carthy sings mostly folk songs; MacColl sang folk songs and his own songs, most of which were in a folk idiom; Lakeman sings some folk songs and a lot of his own, some of them in a folk idiom.

It's a very simple definition which everyone can understand; it's clear and easy to apply, and it doesn't lend itself to endless argument about boundary cases (is a new song folk if you sing it at a folk club? if Martin Carthy sings it? if lots of people sing it at folk clubs? No, no and no). So there's probably no chance of getting people to adopt it, or rather re-adopt it.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 04:07 AM

(is a new song folk if you sing it at a folk club? if Martin Carthy sings it? if lots of people sing it at folk clubs? No, no and no)

As a empirical pragmatist in such matters, and after long years of bitter-sweet experience in such matters even unto accommodating the MO of such stalwart Traddys as Peter Bellamy & Jim Eldon, I'd have to say Yes, Yes and Yes to this, and with some considerable evidence.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 04:42 AM

yakity yak, dont talk back.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 04:43 AM

Yakety frolics
Don't talk bollix

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 06:29 AM

I haven't been given the 1954 definition any more than you have been given the 2014 definition.

There is no such thing as the 1954 definition because, amongst other things, 1954 was a fucking long time ago. As was 3rd August 1182 at 3.23pm.

The difference is Jim, I call Banks of The Roses a folk song. You don't call I Don't Like Mondays a folk song. It is you who is being narrow and out of date. It is I and reading this, many others who are being inclusive and understanding of the evolving folk tradition.

Aye, bugger off to Dublin. They put on decent cabaret for the tourists...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 06:38 AM

Inbetween bouts of arse scratching and getting the kettle on for Mrs Musket getting back from ringing, I just counted the previous "lyrics req'" threads recently and for the previous 30 threads, only four, (although I may be mistaken of course, relying on my head) are for songs that would fit in the old fashioned 1954 absurdity.

And this is a folk website if I'm not mistaken?

At a gig the other night, I got into a conversation about 1954, and after explaining what it was to two professional folk musicians, they had a giggle about how in those days, everything from working mens' clubs to pigeon fanciers had to have committees, so the more pompous fools could feel important. One person (who just about everybody here has heard of) let a fart go (quite impressive) and asked if it could be tabled as a motion...

You see, there is a difference between stamp collecting and posting letters...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 07:06 AM

I wrote in Folk Review about 1972, in a column of mine on this topic, as many one or two of my "Taking the Mike" back-page columns were: "It's a free country; call them all 'folk' if you like. Except that this impairs communication, which is not altogether a good thing. If every article of household furniture was called a chair, we wouldn't know where to park our arses."

This formulation much caught Peter Bellamy's fancy: I must have heard him quote it a couple of dozen times.

It seems to me there are those on here who are well-meaningly defending & augmenting such confusion of nomenclature, in the interests of some putative "freedom of expression" or such. Just be careful, as they say, what you wish for.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 08:39 AM

I used to love your columns and reviews in folk review. so witty and wise.

Clive James. George Melly and Mike Grosvenor Myer - the three great reviewers of the 1970,s!

What a man!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 08:51 AM

Gee,thanks, Daddy-O.

Anybody's in West Side Story

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 09:28 AM

never been too keen on the boomtown rats on mondays or any other day of the week;
but would definitely consider songs by ian dury, wreckless eric, and xtc
as prime candidates for 'folking up' at drunken social singalongs...

...and more than a few other well remembered punk era classics and pop charts obscurities.

unfortunately this kind of 'just for the fun of it' punk to folk adaption has been lately appropriated
by ade ed mundson 's bad shepherds,
and promoted by fawning shallow showbiz journalists
as if he's the artistic genius who invented and owns the idea.....


[typed and posted in bed from our lg blu-ray player browser app-
- as if like being back in1998 on dial up and using a broken keyboard...]

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 10:01 AM

well they weren't my fellow performers - their choice.

I don't know where you're coming from at all - why are you standing for this gang of toffee nosed kids - the bullingdon club of the folk revival.

and what exactly was wrong with Ralph McTell. he was a hundred times more the voice of the working class than that crew.

Ralph (i imagine) would probably concede that he's not one the great divergent thinkers of folk guitar.like Davy Davy Graham or Martin Carthy. But he turns up when he's supposed to with his guitar in tune, he has worked out what he has got to say to present his music, he knows all the words in the lyrics and he sings in the right key for his voice. In short he has workingclass pride in his work, and a work ethic.

your mates in the Grey Cock....diletante would flatter their approach. and the fisherman's smocks are etched into my memory with venom, gall and wormwood - not to mention gnashing of teeth.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 10:03 AM

Jim, it seems to me, has been cogently arguing for a rational restriction of the "Folk" category nomenclature, to apply to work at least idiomatically/thematically related to the traditional music & songs of the - errr - well -- err ···

··· "The Folk" -- that traditionally identifiable community to whom such a title would naturally, by longstanding sociological & semantic agreement, pertain.

Some -- Musket most prominently SFAICS - seem for some reason to feel they have a right to strike airs of some sort of moral superiority, in insisting that there is something somehow inherently evil in wishing thus precisely to define the term; and that when it comes to defining the category, "anything goes" must be the watchword or some definite though unspecified dire consequences will follow, till all sense of a recognisable identity to the category shall be lost.

I am greatly exercised as to WHY these people should view such an outcome as desirable.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker[out of bed and back on his co
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 10:48 AM

MGM·Lion - I'm in my mid 50's,
son of a factory shop floor trades unionist and an old folks care home arse wiper;
average 1960s civilised working class council estate upbringing:
until passing the 11 plus complicated my life for ever after afterwards...

I'm no scholar - one of my more neurotic degree lecturers took a dislike to me
and condemned me as "being anti-intellectual !!!"..

So in my rather simplistic outlook:

'Trad Folk' is the good old pissed up singalong playalong stuff which came into being
long before any of us were ever born

'Contemporary Folk' is anything created since then which a general popular consensus
could consider 'folky enough for whatever reasons'
as long as it aint obviously so far removed it's something else....

with allowances made for exceptions to the rules
as long as the disputing don't become too violent.........

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 11:58 AM

Thanks for that reasoned response, pfr. Interesting. But isn't "general popular consensus" a bit of an over-generalised cop-out when trying to establish any sort of preecision of category? I mean, if 'generalised popular consensuses' are to be the order of the day, why try to define anything whatever?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 12:18 PM

well........ MGM·Lion, you're right there !!!

Collecting, archiving, preserving, are concrete tangible activities..
lifetime jobs well deserving of all respect and honours.

Categorising, defining,... hmmm.. yes.. very difficult...

Especially when it almost inevitably leads to'proscribing' !!!

Problems that can too easily affect all areas of modern arts curating and criticism..

Thankfully I just muck about with musical equipment
and have no real talent or any ambitions as an academic or critic...???

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 12:37 PM

An old school friend of mine is a respected novelist and critic.
Many years ago I was part of the same youthful social circle,
moving up to the big city,
harbouring half baked notions of making it in the arts & media...

So there was a time when I was seriously 'intellectually' engaged
and could have sustained an intelligent conversation at an art gallery party..

that was a long time ago...

So please don't think I am just a thick yobbo dismising notions of critical categorisation out of hand.

It's just not particularly important or meaningful in my musical world at this stage in my life...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 01:52 PM

Categorising, defining,... hmmm.. yes.. very difficult...

Especially when it almost inevitably leads to'proscribing' !!!

"Almost inevitably"?

My experience doesn't go back very far, but by the same token it is current. I've sung in Hartlepool, Helston and several places in between, including almost all the clubs currently running in Manchester. And I have never, ever, ever seen anyone proscribed, barred, discouraged, criticised or so much as gently sniffed at for bringing a new song to a folk club. It just doesn't happen; maybe it did at one time, but it doesn't now. You're much more likely to be discouraged from doing a long ballad - my local FC actually has a half-serious 'rule' banning songs longer than 20 verses (which would exclude most versions of Musgrave & some of Lord Bateman & Patrick Spens). (Never mind that Lord Bateman taken at a decent pace takes about half the time of Desolation Row or Percy's Song.)

Anyway, I'm not proposing that anyone should change what they do - I don't always sing traditional songs myself (I even write my own sometimes, shock horror). I'm just saying that you shouldn't call something a folk song if it's not what Child, Sharp et al would have called a folk song. But this is such an incredibly straightforward point that the disagreement it provokes obviously isn't motivated by failure to understand it, so I'll stop restating it.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 02:36 PM

well i'm not anti the long ballads. or anything really. got to admit if someone did Tam Linn followed by Desolation Row, i'd get a bit pissed off.

i just want folk clubs to be inclusive. i think the thing is however -if you take on a big song. it is a committment. i will not be entertained by someoneplaying an irritating samey chord arpeggio for twelve or fifteen minutes, or reading the words to me. if i want to read the bloody words i can do it myself.

a song - short or long - modern or traditional - is a compressed and passionate statement. if you don't embrace the challenge performing it properly - find something you can commmit to - gardening perhaps, or car maintenance.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 03:03 PM

Phil - oops.. apologies for an idiotic typing mistake,
on re-reading my post I notice I got the !!!s confused with the ???s

I do wonder if iI'm developing some kind of dyslexia as I'm getting older.

I'm definitely a sloppy typist and seriously need eye testing for reading lenses...

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 03:04 PM

I must be going soft - I agreed with every word of that!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 03:07 PM

My last comment above was in reply to Al.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 03:23 PM

What makes a new song a folk song?

The prospect of keeping the songwriting royalties!

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 03:42 PM

"Inclusive" of what, Al?

Ave Maria? Freude schöne Götterfunken? Das Forelle? Johann Sebastien Bach? Stockhausen? Walton's Belshazzar's Feast? Handel's Messiah? Paradise Lost? The Faerie Queene? Mick Jagger? The Who? Under Milk Wood? The Iceman Cometh? Eskimo Nell? A Couple of Swells? Rhapsody In Blue? My ♥ Belongs to Daddy?.................

And why?

Just asking...

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Musket
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 05:21 PM

Michael. What's all that bollocks about moral superiority?

Folk is a broad church. It has many facets. It includes but is by no means limited to the pompous pronounciations of what people thought sixty years ago, but includes everything since. Jim might be a 1954 reenactment society but that's no reason to take him seriously.

Folk is the music of the people? Yeah Right. Most "working" people in The UK wouldn't and don't relate to yokels rattling on about maypoles and cockades. The Imagined Village is all about seeing that.

With knobs on

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 05:34 PM

It includes but is by no means limited to the pompous pronounciations of what people thought sixty years ago, but includes everything since. Jim might be a 1954 reenactment society but that's no reason to take him seriously.

That may not be moral superiority, but it's certainly "striking airs of superiority". As I think you'd see if you read it back.

"Most working people in the UK" don't relate to any single thing (certainly not to The Imagined Village). The only music that's worth a damn is the music that inspires you, however many other people get it.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 05:51 PM

MGM asks:

"Inclusive" of what, Al? And why?


I'm not Al, but let me play the other side of the street for a moment and attempt an answer.

Before I sat under the traddie bodhi tree I was an eclectic so-and-so. Songs I did at the Folk Club included...

King Strut (Peter Blegvad) (done as a dramatic monologue)
Nicky (Momus) (free translation of Brel's "Jacky")
Round Midnight (Monk/Henighan) (after Robert Wyatt)
Dominic Takes A Trip (Edwards) (a song of my own whose sole purpose was to take the p*ss out of two other regulars at the club)

You get the picture. Inclusive of what? Any damn thing. Why? Because I thought it would be fun.

And the fact is, it was fun. Having somewhere you can go where you can get up on stage, as a complete amateur, and sing anything you feel like, to an audience mostly consisting of other amateur performers - it's great. I still go there from time to time, and I wouldn't be without it. Acoustic nights and open mics, and unmiked 'open stage's; they're great.

But I think - choosing my words carefully - that the word 'folk' has a very important meaning which has very little to do with this kind of club, and nothing to do with any of the songs I listed above. I think folk-meaning-traditional songs need preserving and celebrating and enjoying and messing about with, and the anything-goes FC environment doesn't encourage that; if anything, it encourages forgetting them altogether. I also enjoy the 50+%-traditional singarounds I go to now much more, partly because I enjoy the songs more and partly because they're much better performed; I've really worked on my own singing as a result, in a way that the FC would never have encouraged me to.

Subject: RE: What makes a new song a folk song?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 05:53 PM

1000!

Couldn't resist.