What songs are banned in your folk club?

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 19 Dec 99 - 02:03 AM

All things that are old to me are new to my children. Thats the nature of all things. The Great Wheel. What goes around.....

However, I'll kill the next person I hear sing "The Red Velvet Steering Wheel Cover"

Don

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: AnTirKitten
Date: 18 Dec 99 - 08:12 PM

My friend (a techno-fan) has the WEIRDEST album I have ever heard. It includes techno versions of -two- different Ave Marias and the Sesame Street song as well as "Memory" from Cats.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled babble, Cat

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: emily rain
Date: 14 Dec 99 - 06:50 PM

i'm always fascinated to see the vast regional differences in repertiore. i sang "lovely agnes" at the local jam (in suquamish; a reservation in rural nw washington), and people were so charmed they requested it over and over again for weeks. they're just now beginning to get the hang of the chorus so they can sing along. and all the songs i learned to avoid at the minnesota renaissance festival seem to be new to everyone out here. and of course their tired old favorites are completely unfamiliar to me.

i used to be confused when fiddlers would say "i'm going to play a traditional tune from county cork"... i didn't understand how they could possibly know where in ireland it was from. surely once it caught on it spread like wildfire and was played all over? ah, but now i know better. even with cd's and the internet, songs still manage to have strong regional roots.

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Caitrin
Date: 14 Dec 99 - 04:31 PM

That's actually the CD it came from, Mbo. I had borrowed it from a friend, and could never remember the CD title so I never managed to find it again. Thanks so much!!

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From:
Date: 14 Dec 99 - 12:43 PM

When my dog does something I dont like, I simply turn my back on him. It works.

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From:
Date: 14 Dec 99 - 11:12 AM

I liked the "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" Beatles parody version, best--but what is really the best is listening to an entire CD of the same song, played over and over again in different ways--

Incidentally, Tiny Tim did a great cover on his album with Brave Combo--

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Callie
Date: 14 Dec 99 - 02:14 AM

"Stairways to Heaven" is an Australian cd compiled after a comedian called Andrew Denton had a tv show where each week a different artist would do a particular version of STH. The best one was by Rolf Harris (with wompa board).

Callie

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Mbo
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 11:32 PM

If'n you like orchestral arrangements, you absolutely MUST get "Symphonic Rock: The British Invasion" done by the London Symphony Orchestra. I picked up this awesome CD when it was $13.99, but now it's ending up in bargain bins for five bucks--A REAL STEAL! Highlights include:
Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin--this one'll blow you away! Reminds me of remark about the original song "Rumbles like a nuclear-powered Panzer flying down the autobahn at 100 mph!"

You Really Got Me by The Kinks--perhaps the most exciting track on here--it's arranged in the style of Ravel's Bolero. The tune fits perfectly with Ravel's rhythms, and key chains. You can't miss it!

Ruby Tuesday by The Rolling Stone--a beautiful and majectic rendition. When I first heard it, before I had heard the original Stones version, I thought it was something by Andrew Lloyd Webber!

Layla by Derek & The Dominoes--superbly arranged like a Spanish bullfighter classic--complete with castanets, classic guitar (a special treat for me!) and Latin rhythms.

House of the Rising Sun by The Animals--part dixieland funeral dirge, part bonecruncher, it plays with double meanings: House of the Rising Sun is in New Orleans, thus Dixieland Jazz, thus banjos, which in this recording are played so they resemble kotos, thus Japan, the Land of the Rising Sun!

Of course, the version of Stairway to Heaven is beautiful, but near the end, it launches into some rather raucous and disturbing material not contained in the original.

All in all, a great album, especially for those who like 'old chestnuts' like these, or are looking for new expressions of old favorites!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Caitrin
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 09:13 PM

I've seen people get entirely too pretentious about music. At the cast party for The Crucible, my friend Jeremy and I launched into Stairway with the entire cast and crew joining in either with voice or guitar; it was great fun for everyone. Sure, it may be a bit overdone. No, it wasn't the best sounding rendition that ever occurred. But we all had a great time. And sometimes, music can just be fun. It doesn't always have to be deep or fantastic sounding. I personally think there's something to be said for the communal spirit that can arise from doing well known songs together.
Speaking of different arrangements (And indulging in a bit of thread creep) I heard an orchestral version of Clapton's "Layla" that was really awesome.

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 08:18 PM

I came THIS close to not doing "In My Life" on the album, but Grit laskin spent years learning the concertina part...and he OWNS the damn company...and his wife Judith loves it, and I think SHE'S fabulous,..and ..and, well I still think the best way of dealing with the overdone stuff is to fall asleep with your eyes open. Oh, you can also bury your head in your hands as if you're contemplating the deeper meaning of "the Unicorn" and grab a few winks. Be sure to wake up when it's over though!
Rick

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: catspaw49
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 08:07 PM

Ya know Meebo.....I'm proud of ya' lad!!! If you like it and want to play it, quit worrying about the is it folk bullshit...or is it trite, tripe, or trampled!! Just keep on playing and singing and I'll join Rick in that good feeling for the 21st century. A good song with your own rendition is often something special. Want an example?

I wore out on Lennon/Mccartney's "In My Life" a LONG time ago. Rick has it on his new album and I almost punched the "SKIP" when it came up...but I didn't. You need to hear it...a fine song for me again.

Spaw

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 06:50 PM

*grin*...confessing to being the yearly perpetrator of Mrs. Ravoon...

I am one of those who REALLY tires quickly of songs which are done to death. In my first folk group long ago, one old fellow came every month and sang "The Strawberry Roan"--badly..never heard him sing any other song! Some songs wear better than others, but which ones varies by your own predilection. I try personally not to overdo the ones I am 'known' for, but it is hard when you keep getting these requests...

I find that 'cutesy' songs and mediocre maudlin songs wear out fastest..i.e., "A Place in the Choir", and "The Rebel Soldier" (will my soul pass thru the Southland){yes, it is TOO mediocre!}...I have a long list...but, though I might wish, I would never try to ban anyone singing them, just try to schedule MY bathroom trips well!..

p.s....Bill Monroe's "Uncle Penn" wore on me about half-way thru the 2nd time I heard it..*shrug*...and today I heard some Bluegrass group make it even worse by overstressibg syllables and 'wallowing' in it.."hung up his fiddle, hung up his bow^ow-ow"....*sigh*

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: lamarca
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 05:58 PM

We once had an Open Sing in DC where the topic was "Oh, No, Not Again!", inviting people to do those overdone favorites that month - and then abstain for the next 11. At the time, some of the songs which made the list of "Please don't sing THAT one again" list were current ones like "Waltzing With Bears" and Sally Roger's "Lovely Agnes". I sang Silverstein's "The Unicorn Song", complete with the noxious hand gestures common in the Irish pubs around here (making alligator jaw motions, chimpanzee scratches, etc.) Most of the songs that got done were recently written; very few "Trad." songs (if any) were sung.

Songs that are overdone are done to death sometimes because they are good songs. I think "retiring" a few songs for awhile makes them seem fresher or more appealing when someone new shows up and sings them. One of our local singers (a 'Catter, too) sings "Mrs. Ravoon" - but only once a year, around Halloween. As a result, it's more effective and fun to hear it, rather than being a tired joke that gets trotted out every week.

I think that all clubs or songswap groups with "regulars" wind up having some songs that are overdone, and it's not as much censorship as an informal way of poking members into learning some new stuff when groups have a "nickel fine" list. If someone who isn't a regular sings one of the "banned" chestnuts, I would hope that the group would appreciate a fresh rendition, and maybe the song would have new life by being given a rest for awhile.

As someone that's only been singing and listening to folk music since about 1980, what I DON'T like is an "old-timer" sneering at something I sing because a version of it was overdone in 1964. There's something a bit absurd about having to learn "new" old songs for every occasion!

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Little Dorritt
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 04:56 PM

absolutley no need to ban songs -just sit at the back of the room and when Rose of Allendale starts -leap to the floor, crawl under the tables and exit to the nearest bar - works for me everytime! I think I am exceptionally lucky because the majority of singers at my club have a huge repetoire and it would take several years to get round to repeats . If a song is morally offensive or prejudicial then thats another matter.

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Mbo
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 04:48 PM

Sigh...I love the Clancy Brothers! They're the basis of all I know and love about Celtic music, and of course the Dubliners and Irish Rovers are right up there too.

--Mbo

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Drewsmilitia
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 03:50 PM

Dread Zeppelin do a fantastic Reggae/Elvis version of Stairway To Heaven.

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 03:30 PM

Oops - just noticed a typo in my last post that could give the wrong impression - I learned from listening to the Clancey's not for them

Jon

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 03:15 PM

Sam, I agree and even if you may not have been one of them there are alot of people (and I am one of them) who basically only got into folk music because of songs like the Wild Rover and The Black Velvet band. I learned a lot of these for the Clanceys BBC TV show is the late 60's and later in life got into the jigs reels etc. but these songs are very important to me - my first folk songs...

and also in my case, the Dubliners proved to be one of the bigesst influence in getting me into the dance music...

Jon

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: MTed
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 03:06 PM

The blank was me--my cookie expired or somesuch--

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From:
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 02:57 PM

I fall in on the no censorship side--as a former Balkan music geek (who am I kidding? You never get over it--) I am all to familiar with the Ethnic Music Police who carry the power to banish anyone who even asks to hear "Makedonsko Devojce" or "--and who cast out musicians for trying to play music such as "Miserlou", and pity the fool who mentions "Never on a Sunday"--

Lest you say that they are trying to recreate an authentic, ethnic experience, I remember an allegedly Serbian group that once played the folkdance circuit who were asked to play at a Serbian Festival, only to discover that Serbian-American audience didn'tknow any of the dances that they had so painstakingly collected--

Another example, I know of group of performers whose Klezmer repertoire includes a protracted ballad that consists of a Yiddish account of the sinking of the Titanic--no one knows how many verses there are, because no one has ever been able to stay awake til the end--No Hava Nagila--

The result of this sort of this folkie cliquishness is that little groups of musicians and dancers go farther and farther up the river, so to speak, because the music that they play, sing and dance to is unknown to anyone but them--and they complain because as time goes by fewer and fewer people turn out for their events--

Oh, does anyone else have the "Stairways to Heaven" CD with twelve versions, each in a different rock genre?

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Sam Pirt
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 01:51 PM

Hi

I know that I play tunes from Finland, Denmark, Ireland, scotland and I'm English!! Yet when I play those tunes I get so much out of them and put so much feeling into it that it becomes my own tune, not a Finnish tune or Danish tune as it started out. The same can be true of songs if there is an issue or a reason behind a song, does that not make the performance of that song more intence and meaning full?, and that meaning may not be what it first appears at face value. I rest my case, feel free to disagree but thats what I think anyhow!!

Cheers, Sam

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 12:16 PM

Great post Mbo. The youth wing of Mudcat will take us nicely into the 21st century.
Rick

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: AnTirKitten
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 09:21 AM

I agree, btw, with Mbo. For each song in my repetoire, there is a "persona" attached. Some of these personas have lives that I have lived fragments of (Black Jack's Lady, for example) some have not. But the song is still a good one that speaks to me. And yes, I do also write songs based on my life etc and perform them too.

Cat

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Mbo
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 08:12 AM

"Stairway to Heaven" also sounds good in a Baroque arrangement; try it with harpsichord and oboes today!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Callie
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 02:25 AM

Just as I don't think there should be bans on any songs, there also should not be bans on how songs are sung or by whom. A friend of mine plucked up the courage to sing at a local folk club and the response of one of the 'oldies' was "oh gosh, ***** **** does a MUCH better version of that one". Down with musical snobbery!

By the way, Stairway to Heaven sounds great performed a-la Balkan. Try it with a dron bass!! Callie

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Mbo
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 10:34 PM

Banning songs is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of, and I guess it's a problem with all you old-folkies. But remember, I'm young, and have never heard some of these songs, and banning them means ruining the experience for the younger generation. For instance, I love "Stairway to Heaven" and "The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald" is one of the most haunting songs of all time. Same goes for "The Wild Rover," which I've never heard, "The Fields of Athenry," a GREAT song I just heard yesterday, and "The Unicorn," a cute children's song "The Black Velvet Band" a classic which I've written new lyrics to. AND I LIKE OASIS! Also, I think marrowbones' comments were a bit unfair--one of the best things about music is taking on the persona of the character in, or narrating a song, and becoming the vessel to illustrate that character's feelings. If you want music where you're not a sea captain or a wild rover, that means you'd have to write your own original songs, and do away with folk music altogether. But then no one would be able to ever sing YOUR songs, because they're about you and not them. Then we'd have a whole music culture of people writing songs, hoarding them, and only performing their own material. You folks need to get a life and expand your musical horizons. Tired of hearing "The Black Velvet Band"? Then go some place that plays a different kind of music. You talk about people hating folk music? I think folkies are just as bad, if not worse about judging other forms of music. "You gotta roll with it, you gotta take control, you gotta say what you say, don't let anybody get in your way..." (A little Oasis for those who don't know or care)

--Mbo

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 12:46 PM

Years ago during my short stint working for Gulf Oil (yes my friends..I DID actually have a job once) I learned a valuable technique. Sleeping while keeping your eyes open. At a music gathering when someone starts singing the hated (by me), and much repeated **** ** ** ****** ** or even worse, **** *****, or at a bluegrass get together, *** ** *** ***, I just smile beatifically and catch 20 winks. Banning songs is silly...although I once sang Kevin Barry at the Bond Place Hotel and almost got my lights punched out.
Rick

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Tony Burns
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 11:37 AM

Wyowoman, Stairway to Heaven as a bluegrass number would be wonderful. (You don't find too many bluegrass musicians in the section of Steve's Music where the sign banning it is posted. :-))

If you like that version you would probably enjoy some of the 'mixes' that Toronto band Jughead plays. The one that pops to mind is "Born to be Special" where they weave together "Born to be Wild" and "Orange Blossom Special". It's a real crowd pleaser. (So was the flaming washboard during "Like My Fire" at their 10th anniversary party last Thursday.)

Mary, re: Barretts, How Can I Keep and Today While the Blossoms. You and I would not meet during bathroom breaks. :-)

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Nick Jones
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 10:57 AM

Sam Pirt makes a good point, but of greater concern is the relevance of singing certain songs, quite apart from how over-sung they are. When a singer(known to me) starts with "I am a bold sea Captain......" I always think, no you're not, you're an accounts lecturer at the university! How many of you have ever been Wild Rovers eh?....When you have been one then I'll sit and listen to you singing it for the next 20 years. Get a smaller accordion Sam!

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Willie-O
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 10:52 AM

Michael K would that harpist be Mary Anderson? (Wouldn't put it past her.)

Sam, you're right already, o.k? (Don't stop us though, you're interfering with our free expression.) Doesn't stop us from fantasizing about a better world with universal good taste. Let us have our dreams, o.k.? (since I don't habituate folk clubs in deep Sussex.)

(In that world Shania Twain would be making a modest living singing actual country music)

And I have used the strategy of "the management won't let me sing that song" to avoid performing The Rodeo Song, and probably others (Barretts Privateers at a Christian summer camp, actually) myself. Rather often, when people are drinking, you have to explain to them that there are boundaries to tolerable behaviour. (Such as borrowing my guitar and mike to play The Rodeo Song and getting _me_ in shit with management)

Bill C

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: harpgirl
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 10:33 AM

...I've about decided that if John Sullivan flies to Ireland in a dream once again, I might just ban him from singing it in my presence for the rest of the universe's life! harpgirl

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Sam Pirt
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 08:36 AM

Hold on a second, let me stop you here. To ban a song is a serious action, whether it be for serious reasons or jokey reasons. In effect banning something is a form of censorship or to put it a bit firmer, DICTATORSHIP. Don't you decide personally what song is suitable and besides arn't songs a form of personal expression, you can't censor personal expression, you can ignore it but you should never BAN it. I may have taken a serious stand here but if it wern't for 'The Wild Rover' would folk music be as popular as it is today? I my self can't stand it but people do like it and so why sensor it? If you ban something for being popular how do you expect you tradition to be passed on to the youth like me? I didn't grow up with the wild rover (thankfully!!!) and so it is still as fresh as it was to the older generation when they were my age, THATS FOLK MUSIC!! The song or tune that is being sensored here is not the point, the point is that a club has decidied band the performance of music in their club. By Banning somthing you give it a label and you create hirachy which then steps on the feet of the people who's music folk music is. Folk music is music made by the people for the people. I have said enough, what do you think?

Cheers, Sam

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: coriander
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 05:32 AM

Hmmmm! How about singing The Crystal Chandalier to the tune of the Wild Rover, then? I like the idea of switching lyrics and tunes - that way you can roll two frowned upon songs into one!!! Even more fun than a parody! coriander

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Willie-O
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 01:05 AM

Ah, go on, just ban one song. You'll feel better.

Ours (unofficial neighbourhood policy, we're not an organized group or a pub) is "The Crystal Chandelier".

Bill C

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Mudjack
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 12:50 AM

Banning Songs? How about banning the practice of abusing the "Blue Book" as a juke box selection list? Newer participants abuse the Rise Up Singing book as a request line and really pisses me off when they select a song that they just want to hear because they were reminded how good the song sounded 30 years ago when they were getting woed or laid while smacked out on grass.I would likely accept the practice if they would make some some attempt to lead the song. They just want their turn and look to someone else to lead and sing it for them. Maybe I should lighten up and get smacked on grass.
Mudjack

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Mary
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 09:40 PM

I guess I don't believe in banning songs under most circumstances, but one that seemed to make Seattle Song Circlers cringe was Today while the blossoms....I actually like that one...I would schedule my bathroom breaks however around Barrett's Privateers and How Can I Keep From Singing..

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Matt
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 08:49 PM

Blackberry Blossom was banned at the Thanksgiving Winter camp up in Tehachapi.

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 08:43 PM

The local folk club I can't speak for, but my local has a ban on The Unicorn Song, and all us musicians that play there are THANKFUL! ;-) It's a great way to turn down a cheese-fan without hurting feelings... "I'd love to play it for ya (is my nose growing?) but the management won't let me... So if I did play it, you'd have to pay me yourself for tonight's gig... sorry...", has been heard from me more times than I'd like to think about...

A few of us will also tell the story that Shiel (sp?) took it to his grave with him...

Anything to get out of playing that song!! I'd rather play The Wreck of the Edmund Gack-gerald...

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: annamill
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 07:39 PM

What!!

Love astonishedannap

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: MK
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 07:32 PM

Wyo:

(tiny thread creep) There is an amazing harpist I book from time to time, and she does a great arrangement of ''Stairway to Heaven'' on Harp! (Her promo offers a repertoire ''from Bach to Led Zepplin".) Im am sure this tune has been played on just about any conceivable instrument, but I've yet to hear it on bagpipes!

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Jeri
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 07:28 PM

Nothing's banned at the session I attend. Folks will simply find somewhere to wander off to while the repeat stuff is being sung/played. There's a tendency to play the same tunes every week, sometimes twice in one night if a player shows up late and starts it again.

Our youngest player brings in new tunes, and has the guts to keep playing them every week until people don't have a choice but learn them. I try to learn the tunes he does because I think my putting out the effort sort of hints that others can do the same. It's hard to get a bunch of old farts (myself included) to learn new tunes.

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Micca
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 07:25 PM

I have mixed feeelings about this but I think innovation should be encouraged. The group of people who hang out together at Towersey festival( including Liz the Squeak)positively revel in doing songs to different tunes or finding new and interesting versions. For example
The Wild Rover to the Tune Day o Day o Daylight come and me wanna go home
or Oh my darling Clementine to Bread of Heaven.
theres always a way of spicing up what (to you) may be a tired old song.

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: WyoWoman
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 06:35 PM

Yes, but you get an entirely fresh perspective when you do "Stairway to Heaven" as a bluegras tune. A couple of my friends do this and it's a complete hoot.

WyoWoman

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Tony Burns
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 06:21 PM

The "No Stairway to Heaven" sign actually exists in Steve's Music Store in Toronto and has been replicated in many other stores that sell electric guitars. That's most likely where Mike Myers took the idea.

Banning a song in that case makes some sense to me. It is for the benefit of the long suffering sales staff who prefer not to hear it played poorly over and over and over and ...

The sign at Steve's always includes a few other 'popular' numbers.

As for banning at song circles, folk clubs, etc. I agree that it is snobbery at its worst and should not be tolerated.

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: bunkerhill
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 06:06 PM

Is it in Wayne's World that the music store sign says "No Stairway to Heaven"? Some songs get tiresome, own authors shit on 'em (e.g. story Bromberg tells on JJeffWalker and Bojangles). I think of Aunt Rhody and Bile Them Cabbage as waaaay tiresome. Bunch a people getting together and communicating via AR and BTC, which they all know, strikes me as waaay waay untiresome. Maybe another thread's in order about how to encourage creativity within the framework of familiarity and promote introduction of new material. Sign me -- jamming-impaired and envious.

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 06:05 PM

There are songs which, though not banned, are understood to be the exclusive property of certain leading singers in pubs: At the Starry Plough, for instance, no one but Shay Black sings "The Wild Mountain Thyme." I've never heard of anyone banning a song, but I have heard comments from one participant to another when they thought they were hearing a song too frequently (including the time when, as I started "The Green, Green Grass of Home" for the second week in a row, the leading instrumentalist in that group said to the leading bluegrass singer: "He plays that every week." I stopped playing it at the Fifth String after that, but it's on my to-be-sung list at the Starry Plough after I've sung enough Irish and other British Isles songs in a row (at one song per week) to satisfy Shay.

--seed

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Marc
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 05:30 PM

I also agree ,music should never be banned. The Unicorn Song.

Marc

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: AnTirKitten
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 10:08 AM

*lol* The ones in my bardic repetoire that have limitations are for very specific reasons. One of them, the SCA variant of Columbo (with lots of verses thrown in from the North Atlantic Squadron) I will not sing before midnight at SCA events (just in case a kiddy might hear). The other, Jesus Brother Bob, by the Arrogant Worms offends some folk's religious sensibilities (?). I only sing that one by request unless I'm sure of my audience.

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: JedMarum
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 09:59 AM

At my favorite jam session, there are several players who play the same songs, jam after jam, week after week; "Oooo-weee, ride me high, tomorrow's the day my bride is gonna come," and then maybe, "When I lit from Reno, I was chased by 20 hounds" and a few others. I have never minded hearing, playing, singing along on these songs, week after week, and no one else in the cirlce seems mind. I have been performing for many years, and there are some songs that I have played every night, year after year, and I still enjoy singing them! I'll never tell anyone else their favorite song is too commonplace for me to sit through. If the snobs don't it? F*ck 'em!

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Áine
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 09:55 AM

A few years ago, I would have been incensed that any kind of 'banning' of songs could go on in a group gathered together to sing, for to me music and song are the foundation of the freedom of Man's soul.

However, I have now lived on this earth long enough to know that when any group of humans come together, there will always be those who have to exert some kind of control, from the petty to the extreme. This saddens me every time I see this happen; but I know that it is inevitable. Perhaps at the celebration of the next millenium, humans shall have evolved to a level of innate and complete tolerance for each other.

Meanwhile, as we wait for that next great event, our voices should not be silent if we disagree with any policy of any kind of group. Remember that the most powerful word in any language is simply 'No.'

-- Áine

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: coriander
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 09:18 AM

Oops, I hope I didn't come across as in favour of musical snobbery! That wasn't the intention - far from it! I have a friend who always points out which songs in my book carry a fine for how much in what clubs (and yes, he has them in his songbook too!), which spawned the idea of the parody version, and just kind of set me wondering....... More of a curiosity thing really! coriander

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From:
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 06:38 AM

If you are bored with singing the same songs over and over again , can I surgest you visit the web site for the ' Marrowbones ' folk group at http://www.plmassey.free-online.co.uk and request a copy of 'A Song You Dont Hear Every Day'deliverd to you by e-mail attachment . This is completly FREE to singers and collectors of folk songs.

The Marrowbones have been peforming in folk clubs /festivals ect for over 30 years and have written and collected over 25 songs with Traditional English tunes.

In a 100 years time ,( if folk clubs are still in existance ) you may be glad to hear the Wild Rover if the singers of the day pick up on songs by the likes of OASIS ! ! . Can you imagine it ? , Thank heavens for real music.

Pete Massey.

Subject: RE: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 05:05 AM

I have always been against the ideas of banning songs because they are too popular/ well known and consider the banning of the Wild Rover to be some form of musical snobbery.

In the unlikey event of me ever going to these clubs, I will do the Wild Rover and try to follow it with the Black Velvet Band, if I haven't been kicked out after the first one....

On a more serious note, I would suggest that the rebel songs are best avoided in a lot of places. In some ways, I think it is a shame and I know quite a few of them but they can cause bad feeling and I don't sing them any more, especially as my wishes for Ireland are peace.

Jon

Subject: What songs are banned in your folk club?
From: coriander
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 03:39 AM

Just for fun...... Down here in deepest Sussex it seems that many of the Folk Clubs (although regrettably not the one I usually attend) have a ban on singing "The Wild Rover" which alledgedly carries a fine on the grounds that the song is over-performed and old hat etc. I have a parody version for these occassions - which I have to admit I have yet to put to the test to see whether I get fined. What other songs are frowned upon in the more serious gatherings? Perhaps we could have a list of "Songs to avoid and where not to sing them"! corinna