Writing a folk standard

Subject: Writing a folk standard
From: Andy7
Date: 27 Oct 16 - 06:40 PM

I'd love, one day, to write a folk standard, that everyone sings around the clubs.

I know I almost certainly never will, haha!

But I wonder, what is it that turns a great song - of which there are many - into a 'standard', that so many people enjoy performing, and so many more enjoy joining in with the chorus?

Good words, good tune, not too hard to sing, all those of course ... but what is that extra special 'something' that makes those songs so popular?

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Leadfingers
Date: 28 Oct 16 - 05:09 AM

If it was possible to pinpoint that extra something we would ALL be writing good songs

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 28 Oct 16 - 10:17 AM

I was fortunate enough to successfully write such a song. "Back In The Clydesdale" is being sung in pubs and festivals across the country and overseas. It has been recorded numerous times by a variety of artists and provides steady (if small) royalty checks in my mail. I wrote this in 2003 and I'm still trying to duplicate the feat.

"Back In The Clydesdale"

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 28 Oct 16 - 10:22 AM

That blue click didn't work, try those.

"Back In The Clydesdae"

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Oct 16 - 01:24 PM

Expecting a fair few lefty folkie activist singersongerwriters are struggling tonight trying to find a good rhyme for "Uber", "gig economy", and "self-employed" ...???

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: CupOfTea
Date: 28 Oct 16 - 02:42 PM

A fair few of the more recently written "in the tradition" songs that resonate are songs of comfort, goodwill, friendship. I think of the Gordon Bok songs like "Hearth and Fire" or "Turning of the Year" - what Caroline Paton calls "comfort songs" Or end of the evening companionship songs like "One More Before We Go" that stress camaraderie, complete with choruses, that tend to feel like keepers.

The balance between great melody and crisp wording that makes a song a pleasure to sing. Richard Thompson manages this quite well.

A universality of feeling in the song - that a wide range of people can identify with the viewpoint of the singer - gives it a wider section of the population to take root. That you WANT to sing along is more important than having a performer who is encouraging you to do so. (though that doesn't hurt any).

I also think, that on a regional basis, some well loved singers who have songs they do often that encourage participation, gives rise to those songs' longevity in their circles.

The watershed between "great" songs and "standards" might very well be when someone records your song, and innocently credits it as "trad" - as Si Kahn and others have found. I don't think you can sit down with the expectation of writing a great song. Intention, sure, but don't all songwriters attempt greatness?

And the more I think of it... some standards aren't all that "great" - it's the direct simplicity that gets to your heart and mind. Mine is the point of view of someone who only sings the songs written or passed down by others...so I have thought about this a wee bit.

Joanne in Cleveland (a sucker for rhyme & scansion)

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: GUEST, DTM
Date: 28 Oct 16 - 07:49 PM

IMO, if a song writer composes 100 say songs then generally he/she might get a couple of quality ones that will rise above mediocrity.
Sometimes a composition you think is a good song may not take off while others you may regard as a filler may have that something extra that others hear.
That said, I think if you ever write a real cracker (along the lines of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'), you will know. :-)

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 28 Oct 16 - 07:49 PM

Herewith the rules:
Good (simple?) title (might help, but don't copy anyone else's if you don't want to get over-hit on Google or face a law-suit - do Google search first!!)
Fab tune (actually catches some people before the words!) But no plagiarism allowed: was gobsmacked to find that one of my local songwriting competitions allows recognised (even still in copyright) tunes. Quel horreur and travesty!
Great - and memorable - lyrics.
Topical - yet eternal and ever-relevant. No "short shelf-life" songs.
Theme: that your audience can identify with (immediately preferable, than before they have to think about it!).
Good chorus, or at very least, singable refrain. (Which means they probably won't listen to your carefully constructed verses, but just be waiting for the totally brilliant chorus/refrain to come round!)
My formula for an award -winning song at the next song-writing competition I enter (not far off now - watch this space! I'll probably be ousted by some parodising, plagiarising tune-copying bastard!)

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 28 Oct 16 - 07:51 PM

Note to self: Always proof read post for proper grammar before sending.

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Oct 16 - 03:53 AM

Writing a good song is part luck and part experience. You have to learn your trade mostly, and that includes test driving it in Folk Clubs, and reading the reaction and not being brow-beaten by criticism.

Writing a standard is part luck, and a lot of groundwork. You have to get it out there, lots of exposure and it has to chime.

I have seen earnest attempts that clearly fell at the first hurdle. And even in Folk there is the dreaded fashion syndrome. The song may have a shelf life that is not obvious without hind-sight.

IMNSHO songs that want to be born have a better chance than you wanting to write a song, let alone one with something that is not easy to define. Good songs carry the passion gene, and even that is not enough for the highest accolade.

But Hey! Don't let nay-sayers like me stop you, as I always rail "the word NO kills creativity".

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 29 Oct 16 - 03:58 AM

I don't suppose anything I've written will ever become big or a standard but I was quite pleased to be recognised yesterday by someone's saying " excuse me , you mr dinosaur bone ?" Referring to a song audiences often sing along to .

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: GUEST,Mr Red at the local library
Date: 29 Oct 16 - 09:16 AM

Sturgeon's Rule: "9 tenths of everything is crud"
& GBS said: "the Golden Rule, is that there is no Golden Rule"

So let the song come out when it has to. Break all the rules if you want, it is a gamble, and recognise the 10% will be OK and 1% will fly. And if you are lucky 0.% will soar.

Now that makes (if my math(s) is correct, on average, 1000 songs. Get writing!

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 29 Oct 16 - 09:26 AM

The whole thing is a mystery to me.

Song writers often have doubts about a new song and do not appreciate the value of their own work. They may not value a song if they think it has come too easily - whether the words or the music.

Experience is not necessary - many writers have success very early in their careers.

Meaningful words and a great tune are not necessary either! Consider, for example, Mull of Kintyre.

Some songs which the writers had little confidence in;
Yesterday - Paul McCartney
Flower in the Snow - Allan Taylor
Anderson's Coast - John Warner

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 29 Oct 16 - 10:03 AM

I supppose I've done it lbeit in a small way. I wrote a song about my home town Kilkenny in Ireland called Singing In Kilkenny, did very well there and they even framed it and put on the Mayor's office wall, and it's often sung there at sessions. Thing is it came to me in a flash of inspiration one day and it took only about twenty minutes to write, 4 good verses. BUT! I've not really been able to write anything worthwhile since so I have no formula to offer ;)

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Andy7
Date: 29 Oct 16 - 11:36 AM

There are some very good tips in this thread - the song has to be on a topic that everyone, or nearly everyone, can relate to; nothing about contemporary events that will date easily; and a 'warm' subject, e.g. raising our voices in song together, good friendships and good company, fine ale, raising a glass, being homeward bound after a journey (or after an evening together), etc.

Right, I'll give it a go; and I'll let you know, maybe in a few years, whether I ever hear anyone else singing my 'standard'! :-)

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Oct 16 - 01:35 PM

A song can be a mega-hit despite having a crap tune and dull words about something hardly anyone cares about, if somebody famous enough sings it (exhibit A: "Mull of Kintyre").

Quality guarantees nothing.

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 29 Oct 16 - 03:18 PM

I don't believe that you can deliberately write a "Folk standard". Just keep writing songs. If someone else enjoys it, then great. If lots of others enjoy it, and want to perform it, then you're headed there.

If you can write something you think is memorable, you're part way there. Just wait for the opinions of others.

If you set out to write a "Folk standard" then it is probably just an egotistical wish.

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Andy7
Date: 29 Oct 16 - 04:51 PM

Yes, I agree it's egotistical, and a strange idea, to set out to write a folk standard; I was kind of joking with my post!

And yet, we all want others to like our songs, so there's a little bit of truth in there too!

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Oct 16 - 05:56 PM

I don't believe that you can deliberately write a "Folk standard". SPOT ON,You are echoing my thoughts

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Andy7
Date: 29 Oct 16 - 06:51 PM

Okay, here's a lighthearted but interesting challenge, if you're up for it. Although many don't believe it possible, let's each TRY to write a folk standard!

And in 5 years time, let's revisit this thread, and see whether any of those songs we wrote DID become standards! :-)

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Oct 16 - 03:34 AM

Modesty aside but if there is no ego there is no performance, or none worthwhile. There has to be something extra, like the joy of singing it.
And that applies to the song writing too, but it is in the words.

Jack: Crap words, crap tune, but you didn't say anything about the symbiosis! Mull of Kintyre worked because (pick your subdivision):
McCartney, money, obscure Scottish location, plagiarised Folk tune, Christmas, simplicity and let us not overlook that it was inspired by the composer's hideaway retreat (and we knew it).

As Benny Green (Lord Rockingham's Eleven and many better things) said: "lyrics are rubbish until they marry the tune then something magic happens" - not entirely true, but true of crap lyrics!

Or am I talking lyrically............

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Oct 16 - 03:41 AM

Nigel's quite correct - you can't write a folk "standard", any more than you can write a jazz "standard", or a standard anything else. All you can do is pick your genre or style, if you have to, and write your song.

It's interesting to me that, in the field of traditional-style tunes, modern-day compositions can fit seamlessly into the style, be accepted instantly and get played at sessions and for dances without a second thought. Think of John Kirkpatrick, Andy Cutting, etc. Just great tunes.

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Oct 16 - 04:23 AM

You can never write "a folk standard" thugh, if you are really good, you might, just might write to the the standard required for a song to be absorbed into the folk tradition
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Oct 16 - 08:35 AM

You mean, you'd better start work hard and early, because you're going to need to achieve the elevated artistic standards of "Happy Birthday to You" and "Lloyd George Knew My Father"?

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: GUEST,Some bloke
Date: 30 Oct 16 - 09:26 AM

You can of course write a folk song. It's a style or set of styles, nothing more, nothing less.

Jim is correct however when he mentions a way of it becoming a standard, i.e. For people to sing it assuming it has always been around. Ewan MacColl was a master of the art. Try telling people his songs aren't folk and you can have hours of fun being laughed at. John Connolly reckons he hovers between pride and frustration when his Fiddlers Green is assumed to be traditional (or as per many lyrics websites, even ruddy Irish.)

Watch out though. The price of writing standards is that everyone assumes you are dead. I have lost track of the times I have heard people sing The Final Trawl and tell the audience Archie Fisher is no longer with us. (True, I think he is touring abroad at present.)

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Oct 16 - 12:44 PM

"It's a style or set of styles"
No it isn't - it's a process of creation, transition and acceptance a composition goes through before it can become 'folk'
There are too many different styles to talk about "folk style".
MacColl always made it clear that he didn't write 'folk songs', though he hoped one day that some might become recognised as such - probably his 'Traveller Songs' came nearest to being absorbed - the death of Traveller song traditions (around 1974 in Britain) put paid to his dream and he was the first to acknowledge that.
Peggy still makes that point as a performer.
MacColl actually composed very few songs in a recognisable 'folk' style.
Folk songs are, by definition, in the public domain - try telling any singer/songwriter that we all own one of his/her songs - then phone your solicitor!
These discussions usually degenerate into whether the subject is worth arguing about, which is a pity.
As a singer, I sang whatever I felt fitted into the somewhat loose definition adopted by the clubs I frequented, so as not to con the listeners who turned up to listen to 'folk songs' (as distinct from music hall ot Country and Western or swing or early pop.....
As a researcher and collector who frequently talks and writes on the subject, I need to be more accurate - folk songs proper carry far too much cultural, social and historical baggage to do otherwise - the clue lies in the most common description - 'The Songs of the People'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 30 Oct 16 - 06:18 PM

Ok, looking back to what I wrote on 28th, it was just some things that run through my mind when writing a song which I hope will catch others' imagination, and they'll want to hear again.
But I agree, it's a very long way off from becoming any sort of "standard" - only time will tell, and some songs may not have instant appeal but grow on you.
Just thinking of a few examples that get sung up here: you have to be quick off the mark in a session before someone else sings them first:
Follow the Heron (Karine Polwart)
Coming Home (Steven Clark)
Both Sides the Tweed (based on James Hogg poem but revosed by Dick Gaughan)
Norland Wind/The Wild Geese (poem by Violet Jacob, set to music by Jim Reid)
( + Include anything else that was a poem by Violet Jacob/Marion Angus/Mary Brooksbank)

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Mr Red
Date: 31 Oct 16 - 03:43 AM

Tam Kearny - late of Toronto - told the tale from MacColl of collecting songs in a lumber camp. He got several, one's learned at the lumberjack's grandmother's knee. And were "old".
one was a real find. So he asked for more:
one was "Please Release me" (wot Englebert Humperdink sang)
and one was Ewen MacColl's own!

Grandmother's can't be wrong - but memory can be.

MacColl wrote and let the people (Folk?) decide. And they did, and do.

And my contention is that if it was launched on the world in your grandparents' time it is "old" and "old" gives it a patina. Which gives way to assumption.

So there you have another way to write a standard, start young and grow old.

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Oct 16 - 04:09 AM

"MacColl wrote and let the people (Folk?) decide. And they did, and do."
The vast majority of people don't give a rat's arse what the songs are or where they come from - they sing them because they like them.
Because they sing 'You'll Never Walk Alone' on the terraces doesn't alter the fact that it is a Rodgers and Hammerstein composition and will never be a folk song while it has a hole in its bottom.
Repetition or admiration does not make a folk song - the genre is much more complicated and important than that.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: GUEST,Dtm
Date: 31 Oct 16 - 09:02 AM

Just for the record, who agrees with Louis Armstrong's definition of folk music?

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 31 Oct 16 - 11:56 AM

Mr Ed

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Oct 16 - 12:33 PM

"Just for the record, who agrees with Louis Armstrong's definition of folk music?"
"Mr Ed"
Love it, love it!!
The 'Armstrong' quote is attributed to many, including Broonzy.
I totally agree with the Catter' who put me right severally years ago (Maybe Will Fly) who said it was a brilliant riposte rather than a serious statement
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Will Fly
Date: 31 Oct 16 - 12:41 PM

Not guilty, Jim - some other 'Catter, i"m afraid. :-)

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: GUEST,Sone bloke
Date: 31 Oct 16 - 02:56 PM

"You'll never walk alone" is of course in the folk tradition, even by Jim's rather narrow interpretation. The Anfield rendition allows the song to go down in folklore for many years to come.

Back to the original question, that deserves better than preaching by someone who thinks a meeting in 1954 trumps err.. the evolving folk tradition. (That's irony, that is you know. My mate knows a lot about irony. One day he'll tell me what it means.)

To become a standard (almost as subjective a term as folk itself) you need it to be assumed to be Oirish. Even better if Christy Moore is generally seen as writing it.

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Oct 16 - 03:32 PM

""You'll never walk alone" is of course in the folk tradition"
It doesn't sound like any folk song.
It was written by two famous professional American composers.
It is owned by their estate
Any use it is put to has to be purchased by the user.
To reduce the oral folk tradition to repetition is to misunderstand it and debase it.
You may as well describe Happy Birthday to You, the National Anthem and every droney hymn we were forced to repeat at every school assembly as "folk"
Folk is far far better than that and far, far more important
Sorry pal - you have a very dim view of folk if that's what you believe it is.
I don't need a meting in 1954 - I spent forty years talking to real folk singers - fishermen, farmers, Travellers - the real "folk" who made and gave us our songs.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: ripov
Date: 31 Oct 16 - 05:07 PM

Mr Carroll - I really must differ from you (although rather nervously) regarding your last post.
If there were a way folk song should sound, it would have been mentioned already in this thread.
Does it matter who wrote "You'll never walk alone"? it will eventually be out of copyright anyway. And do those who sing along on a Saturday afternoon think about that? (it'd be interesting to know if royalties have been demanded!)
Is the oral tradition not maintained by repeating what has been heard. Modification/evolution comes with time (or mishearing).
"Happy Birthday" has been passed on from parent to child, and between children, almost ever since it was written. And it is sung because folks WANT to sing it. That surely is folk. God save the queen has not; most peope don't want to sing it - even musicians hate it - and I totally agree it is not folk! (I've never tried leading off with it in a session though - nor am I likely to!)
All folk is not far better. Folk inhabits a broad spectrum, just like everything in life, and there's always room for 'the stone that the builder rejected' Some of the not so good bits may indeed be rather ephemeral though.
I think I get less and less sure about how I would define folk music, indeed folk arts generally. And while musicians, artists and academics may be the guardians of the tradition, surely it has to be relevant to "ordinary" folk, or it has no meaning.
And my respect for the work you do, and the people who have been your "sources". Strange though that you don't mention musicians - but then most musicians have to have a day job.
Tony

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: GUEST, DTM
Date: 31 Oct 16 - 05:17 PM

LOL, GUEST,henryp
Good one!

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Oct 16 - 06:45 PM

ripov: "... And it is sung because folks WANT to sing it. That surely is folk. God save the queen has not; most people don't want to sing it - even musicians hate it - and I totally agree it is not folk! (I've never tried leading off with it in a session though - nor am I likely to!"

A few years back, as a rather nervous newbie at a 'mediaeval banquet' during a folk music weekend, I was suddenly picked on by 'King Arthur', on pain of forfeit - for no apparent reason that I could see! - to perform a song for the assembled company.

So, thinking quickly, I faced His Majesty, went down on one knee, and sang the beginning of 'God Save Our Gracious King'.

It seemed to go down very well! Was that folk music? :-)

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: GUEST,ripov (cookie vanished AGAIN!)
Date: 31 Oct 16 - 07:23 PM

Well - what can I say?

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: GUEST,Some bloke
Date: 01 Nov 16 - 03:24 AM

I couldn't have put it more eloquently myself Ripov. Don't be too concerned about pricking the bubble of pomposity though. Knowing a lot about a small part of the genre is a wonderful thing but trying to apply it elsewhere is just daft

If everyone came up with narrow (minded) interpretations of the musical genre "folk" then the descriptors themselves would never be valid. You can't legislate for evolving, oral tradition or music of the people by referring to minutes of a meeting in a particular country over sixty years ago. A few thousand scousers singing "You'll never walk alone" doesn't have any bearing or influence on copyright so not even that absurd clause works. At Hillsborough, regardless of who we are playing, the kop and north stand sing "Hark now hear the Wednesday sing, United ran away, and we will fight forever more because of Boxing Day." A folk song referring to Boxing Day 1979. I was that soldier, I saw all four goals. Kids not born then sing it with pride. That's yer oral tradition Jim.

After all, 99% of contemporary folk hadn't been written in 1954 when people with fairisle sweaters and sandals had a meeting and many of the writers hadn't been born.

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Nov 16 - 03:46 AM

Ripov
Have no idea why differing with me should make you or anybody nervous - my opinions are no more valid than anyone elses here.
"If there were a way folk song should sound, it would have been mentioned already in this thread."
How a song "sounds" has no bearing on it being folk - I thought I'd already said that.
The "Folk process" is what makes a song 'folk', the making, remaking, the moving from person to person, community to community, country to country even, the adaptation to suit different communities - the passage of time and place.... until its origins are either lost or are considered unimportant.
We worked with Irish Travellers in London - back in the early 1970s they were still making songs among themselves - we recorded at least half a dozen of these Traveller-made pieces, all about their lifestyle and trades - we never managed to find the maker of one of them.
The nearest we came was with the best and longest of them, about a Travelling Man who married a woman because of her ability to buy and sell feather mattresses (a traditional Traveller trade).
One singer describe how, as a young man, he had sat on the bank at the side of the road outside the church where the wedding was taking place and watched as a group of Travellers made verses on how they thought the life of this (apparently mis-matched) couple would develop

"Oh the first of our years, they were lovely,
And the second, we couldn't agree,
And the third, then she put on the trousers,
And so, made a wreck out of me"

We were given the song by at least half-a-dozen singers - all but one asked us not to play it to anybody else as, at the time, the couple were still living - the exception was a blind singer who first said, laughing, "Don't play that song to anybody - he's (the husband) my first cousin and he'd murder me if he found out I'd given it to you".
A few years later she said - "You can pass that song on after I'm dead".
Not one of the singers could remember who made the song - it had become public property and ownership was totally immaterial.
That is an example of the making of a folk song.
I gave a talk to our Local History Society here in Clare a month ago, the subject was, in part, locally made songs - in totting up, I counted over sixty songs made in this immediate area - we managed to get a suggestion of the author of only one of those songs - and that was only a guess.
I entitled my talk 'Breaking wind in Church' because of something a 95 year old farmer told us a couple of years ago.
He said; "In those days everybody made songs; if a man farted in church, somebody made a song about it."
You can't 'like' a song to becoming folk - you can only like it to the top of the charts.
It is about acceptance, transmission, adaptation and change - and above all, lack of definite ownership.
Your 'national anthem/Happy Birthday' analogy is an extremely shaky one - I find H.B. a deary piece of doggerel, as do many people I know - it is the event that is being relished, not that simplistic, extremely dull verse.
On the other hand, I've heard the National Anthem sung with love and relish (not by me!) - again, the occasion, not the song.
The Irish National anthem is usually sung with pride and gusto over here, especially this year when a great achievement is being celebrated.
It's not a folk song - it was written by Brendan Behan's uncle, Peader Kearney
Folk is folk because it is 'the voice of the people' (as the Topic Series was entitled; Bert Lloyd did a great series of 13 radio programmes years ago where "the people" features again - "Songs of the People".
Calling songs 'folk' has become a convenient label for those who don't have another designation for their compositions - unfortunately, it has muddied the waters for the real thing, in my opinion, which is why I'm prepared to fight my corner as often as I do.
It is more than a random group of songs, it is a social phenomenon and, I believe, an extremely important one.
It represents the creative outpourings of an entire class of people who are largely regarded as having never producing anything in the way of art of any note.
Worth getting yourself a bad reputation for, as far as I'm concerned.
When push comes to shove, the answer lies on the bookshelves; Folk Song
is among the most documented and researched genres of song - nowhere does 'repetition' feature among those researches as a defining feature.
Listen to all the arguments before you make up your mind.   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Mr Red
Date: 01 Nov 16 - 05:16 AM

"You'll Never Walk Alone" sung by 15,000 Football referees is Folk singing.
Gerry Marsden et al singing it - is commerce.
The song is a song.

the Venn Diagram shows overlapping circles.

Or is this a Kop-out?

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Nov 16 - 06:01 AM

"the Venn Diagram shows overlapping circles."
Then you have to show where they overlap
Where are your versions - where has the song changed ownership - where is it not merely repetition of a standard set of words - why do we have to pay for permission to record it - why is it not in the public domain?
What makes it 'folk' in any definable term?
Never heard of a choir made up of 15,000 football referees - - do they accompany themselves on their whistles?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Nov 16 - 07:50 AM

The words of football songs are anything but standard. Adaptation, pastiche and parody are as energetic as anything from the Jacobite songwriters of the 18th century. The football song is the liveliest form of folksong creativity in the English-speaking world today.

Tunes aren't fixed either - it's common for football songs to be allusive mashups.

The procedures of a football song writer are not that different from what Matt McGinn used to do, though with less concern for a wide or enduring audience. (I don't have a problem with ephemerality, and I welcome creations that could never become any sort of "standard"). McGinn recycled tunes with no regard for their origin and was happy to mangle them out of recognition. (I rate McGinn far above MacColl).

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Nov 16 - 08:27 AM

There is the wold of difference between a parody and the repetition of a piece from Carousel Jack.
Parodies have always accepted candidates as folk songs - simple repetition is simple repetition - no more.
"I rate McGinn far above MacColl"
à chacun son goût
As much as I enjoyed Matt's songs, the ones that will follow me to the end of my days are masterpieces like 'Joy of Living', 'Shellback', My Old Man, Farewell to Ireland 'Tenant Farmer'....... and the hundred or so other MacColl compositions I still get a buzz from decades after I first heard them - no competition, as far as I'm concerned - but this is about definition, not personal taste.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: GUEST,Some bloke
Date: 02 Nov 16 - 09:36 AM

This here phenomenon Jim....   Let's see now.

It describes everything from rock n roll to gangsta rap via punk and country and western. Songs by people describing their lives and communities. Be careful what you wish for. At least folk genres sound occasionally like the music you put forward as folk.

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 02 Nov 16 - 12:07 PM

From: Jim Carroll - PM
Date: 01 Nov 16 - 08:27 AM
There is the wold of difference between a parody and the repetition of a piece from Carousel Jack.
Parodies have always accepted candidates as folk songs - simple repetition is simple repetition - no more.
"I rate McGinn far above MacColl"
à chacun son goût
As much as I enjoyed Matt's songs, the ones that will follow me to the end of my days are masterpieces like 'Joy of Living', 'Shellback', My Old Man, Farewell to Ireland 'Tenant Farmer'....... and the hundred or so other MacColl compositions I still get a buzz from decades after I first heard them - no competition, as far as I'm concerned - but this is about definition, not personal taste.
Jim Carroll

No, this if about "how to write a folk standard", if such a feat is possible, intentionally. The discussion "What is folk" can be found in many other threads in Mudcat.
You may believe that this discussion is about the definition of 'folk', but that doesn't appear to have been the intention of the original poster!

Cheers
Nigel

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 02 Nov 16 - 12:08 PM

For those who can't be bothered to read the whole of the thread, this is where we started:
From: Andy7 - PM
Date: 27 Oct 16 - 06:40 PM

I'd love, one day, to write a folk standard, that everyone sings around the clubs.

I know I almost certainly never will, haha!

But I wonder, what is it that turns a great song - of which there are many - into a 'standard', that so many people enjoy performing, and so many more enjoy joining in with the chorus?

Good words, good tune, not too hard to sing, all those of course ... but what is that extra special 'something' that makes those songs so popular?

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Nov 16 - 12:41 PM

Never heard of a choir made up of 15,000 football referees - - do they accompany themselves on their whistles? Their singing is Folk - no matter what they sing, or how robotic they are.
If you look for widespread acceptance by large numbers of people - look no further. ie a standard. FWIW I hate football and a lot of the tribalism that goes with it. But I refuse to be caught with the halo effect when it comes to the singing. It is spontaneous, evolving, rarely has commercial benefit and is done by common folk.

"Football (soccer) is a game played by 22 men in their underpants kicking a bag of wind, watched by 15,000 referees". Guy Martin.

Subject: RE: Writing a folk standard
From: Andy7
Date: 02 Nov 16 - 02:38 PM

Thanks for the reminder of the thread subject, NP.

Is anyone tempted to take up my lighthearted challenge, and set about deliberately trying to write a 'folk standard'?

To save having to try to define 'folk' again, the challenge will have been won if the song is frequently sung at singarounds in folk clubs!