Nationality of songs

Subject: RE: Nationality of songs
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Jul 15 - 08:39 AM

I can get even more compliacted on the continent where not only people and songs move but borders as well.
Is an Alsatian folksong (in Alsatian, a German dialect) a French or a German folksong? Here, the solution is easy, for both counties involved would call it Alsatian, but Alsace never was a nation, so such a song would have no "nationality".
Annie of Tharaw (title of Longfellow's English transalation): The song was originally written in a local dialect (Low German with some Slavian words), translated centuries ago into High German. The monument for Annie stands in Lithuania, Tharaw is now in Russia.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Nationality of songs
From: GUEST,Alan Ross
Date: 18 Jul 15 - 10:40 AM

Hi! Thread readers- I should never have started!   I have been trying to get on with real life... So anyway, my original (stupid moan) that a song was on a cultural database, very prominently headed as a source of Irish song. Either with words, or just the music, which was previously well documented as a Scottish work.   This creates a myth surrounding the song, or other works that they hold. And if people turn to that resource, then they'll make an assumption based on the context of where it's been placed.   

I am talking about modernish folk songs - and I'm sure it works all ways with the Scots and the Irish and all nationalities being just as guilty of this.   

In copyright terms - don't trust all registrations.   A registration is just that.   You can have many works under the same title.   Many works become wrongly credited as Trad. depending on who is a member of the copyright society and who isn't, and whether their publishers notice and remove the false registration. Also there are just many printers errors, human errors (at the societies giving out licensing information) etc.

'Dark Island' as a tune has wrongly been listed as trad. due to the publishers being unable to deal with every case and remove all the worldwide breaching registrations and claims and the licensing societies accepting the registration. Who has the money or time to remove every false credit with a worldwide viral tune, that is so well known, but bogged down in rumour?   They would be there forever.

I don't want to go in to the history of the tune, which is well documented in other threads. Also, Ian Maclachlan has family so you have to always bear in mind that when circulating rumours. You can hurt living people, even though he himself is now deceased. I can't understand though, why the publishers did not fight off Mike Oldfield's Trad. registration... but it's not my business....   

The Irish tag is now frequently applied to the tune - which is clearly wrong - but we are part of this Celtic diaspora exchange. I never usually see the tune listed as being 'Welsh' origin though!

My own pedantic attitude was probably formed by my having worked on archaeological archives and research, objectively transferring historical information. My apologies for that!

There are loads of historical, cross-cultural songs 'Wild Mountain Thyme' (bit half n' half with McPeake modern re-arrangement) etc. But my 'beef' was in fairly modern songs' origins being 'fudged' for a certain purpose.

Dave's comment of today 18th is pretty much what I meant.. and far cleverer and relevant than I could have written about the Tags we give to songs, and cultures by style, nationality and performer - and in MODERN terms who classifies it and why its part of their 'tradition'. The responsibility of whoever is creating an academic database is to have some historical regard for that.

In the original example I set out all I said was that there should have been a note that it is a Scottish song, often sung in Ireland. If it had been a Polish. American. Chinese song - my point would have been the same. The fact that they put in the location where it was recorded 'in the field' creates an implication that it originated from their nation.

Somebody previously mentioned Football terrace songs. That's an area where many cultural distinctions or copyright norms can go by the board - a no man's land - it's what takes off among the supporters. True folk music?

Subject: RE: Nationality of songs
From: GUEST,Alan Ross
Date: 18 Jul 15 - 12:52 PM

Oh, nothing to do mix ups of origin. But getting the political national and cultural significance of a song wrong can cause problems. A member of my family (MOR singer) once naively sang Y'Viva Espania to Spanish tourists at a gig - unfortunately they were from the Catalonia region (many want independence). They weren't happy. That's getting the cultural identity of the audience wrong!

Subject: RE: Nationality of songs
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jul 15 - 03:20 PM

The labeling of songs, nationality and mytholigising. comes into this one.   In 1974, my father Stewart Ross wrote a wholly original (words and music) song called 'Here's To Scottish Whisky' for a TV program ceilidh sing-a-long. The song wasn't recorded or used, but was instead recorded in full on 'heather and haggis' style by the Tartan Lads. It was a title track of an EMI LP and then included on many compilations as a song representing Scotland and it's 'national drink'.

Not sung live that much though, as it's most famous recording had an orchestration.

Years later I find that a music writer has come out with a book 'Taboo Tunes' - a history of banned music. He's talking about the Irish having 'Whiskey in the Jar' and the Scots having 'Here's to Scottish Whisky' as being sung in American drinking dens, despite the subject matter being politically incorrect.   

The song didn't exist until 1974! Also, it was about as authentic as a plastic Nessie. My father didn't drink and wrote it to order.

The trad. music style idiom label given by record companies created a myth. An assumption was made that a stereotype heather and haggis song must be of a certain vintage. So that's why getting a song's chronology and documented story as well as its nationality is important, if not you propagate a myth.

I wrote to the author sent him documentation, interviews and press stuff - and he admitted a cock up.