BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?

Subject: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 02:35 PM

In reading, ad infinitum, the threads on What is Folk? is it only I who doesn't understand? When a new song- in the tradition- is written, what genre is it??

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 03:01 PM

I just call 'em "folkstyle".

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 03:21 PM

I thought Rick was using "Folk-Like".....Good job on the change Rick, I think that "Folkstyle" has a better ring to it.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 03:34 PM

Thanks, you two! That answers my question.

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 03:38 PM

Depends -- it's folk-like if it's say AMerican Pie, but if it's ANnie's song, it's "folkoid". My reasoning is that foksongs survive the centuries because of a certain combination of qualities, imagery and spirit as related to raw experience. When they succeed in transmitting a part or all of that actual experience, through the use of whatever rhetporical or aesthetic device, they are like successful "memes" which are reproduced and carry forward.

However to take an impression of those qualities, and then write something which seems to match that impression, is like ... oh, maybe like designig a house based on an inspiring wallpaper. You then get the derivative and less robust form called folkoid in my book -- seeming to touch the bases but not quite able to carry the weight of the genuine process.

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Mbo
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 03:42 PM

I don't want to get into the big old "What is Folk" argument again, but there's a lot of stuff out there that people seem comfortable with being in the realm of folk, including Dougie MacLean, Jim Croce, Ani DiFranco, etc....really, I can play almost any kind of music acoustically, add some bluegrassy bass runs in, and can pass it off as folk. And I have fooled people before, giving acoustic, folky renditions of 80's hair band rock, and having them thing it was folk. Did anyone get that Friday's Lyric Quote of the Day was actually a Pearl Jam song, but is handled very muchg in the folk vein? 'S truth! Try it for yourself, it's fun. It makes you think twice about another kind of music when it's put into a style you are more familiar with, then it's alright. **BG** Oh, BTW I write Beatles/ELO/Dougie/William Jackson infused Celtic folk.

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 03:47 PM

Whew, Amos!

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: GUEST,Mike Campbell
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 05:35 PM

I write "folk" songs. They must be folk songs, because the commercial radio stations won't play them. One of my original songs ("First Kill" written in 1994) is even listed in the "DigiTrad Lyrics Database".

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 05:36 PM

I write songs that I can sing. What kind of songs? The kind of songs I write.

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: MMario
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 05:39 PM

I write songs. I leave the classification up to others, with the exception I divide mine into "songs I can sing at faire" and "songs I can't sing at faire"

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Lady McMoo
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 05:55 PM

Like McGrath and MMario I just write songs and tunes. I let others worry about how to categorize them, it doesn't bother me a bit!

All the best,

mcmoo

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 07:48 PM

yep...what you write is 'songs'....and if they have a certain 'feel',50-60 years from now, if they are being sung by people who barely know, or DONT know the author, they may be considered 'folk'...even if not, they may be famous and well loved...In this age of keeping records of everything, it would be hard to leave totally 'anon' songs behind, If Bob Dylan becomes 'folk', he will be like Woody Guthrie, whose name is connected with most of his stuff. Now, not all of Woody's stuff may be considered folk, and certainly not all of it is GOOD...but he will have a few things that will go on forever...probably.

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: rainbow
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 08:25 PM

i tend to call the style "folk and its edges"... i love the edges... and someday time will tell if songs will be called folk, or people will recall, "oh yah, remember that triple-A song...." :-)

... perhaps TIME determines folk music... people wanting to learn your songs and playing them and others playing them down then line makes them folks songs... the content and other things can make it a folk song... the association of a certain time period or history with your song makes it a folk song...

if it fades away and no one else plays it, perhaps its a folk song that never was... a folk song that never got a chance... a folk song that was so forgettable it was forgotten.... maybe if that happens its past is that it was just a song... or perhaps a song "written in the folk tradition."

... lorraine

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Crowhugger
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 08:49 PM

McGrath of Harlow, I'm with you.

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 10:39 PM

Y'know, Crow and Roger, I am going to come over to where you are ... I'd rather write three songs than quibble about the Dewey Decimal categorization of one...

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Mbo
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 10:51 PM

Dang, McGrath! You always make me look like an idiot!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: GUEST,Neil Lowe
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 11:05 PM

New Age Country...using Lisa Mednick as inspiration.

When I eventually get that genre down-pat, I'd like to venture into the realm of FolkThrash and Death Metal Disco. There's fertile territory just waiting to be cultivated.

Those with more formal ambitions should explore the frontiers of Classical Grunge.

Regards, Neil

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Mbo
Date: 12 Mar 00 - 11:31 PM

Hey, I have done some Folk Thrash stuff! And classical grunge? Listen to ELO's very first album. Cellos can be grungy too! YES! It's all good, baby!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: The Shambles
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 03:10 AM

Original Music That Sounds Traditional

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Crowhugger
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 06:23 AM

Shamb, are you trying to say, "been there, done that"?

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 09:47 AM

I think New Age Folk is a great opportunity for writing... tunes like: "Barbry Ellen's Next Lifetime"
"Brave Roland and the Spirit Guides"
"The Karma of Lord Randall's Girlfriend"
"When Billy the Kid Came Back as Pat Garrett's Teenage Son"
"The Haunting of Robert Ford"
"Passing Through and Through"...
"Ghost Riders On the Freeway"...
"The Reincarnation of Pretty Boy Flloyd the Aardvark"...the opportunities are endless. :>)

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: The Shambles
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 02:03 PM

Crowhugger.

No. Quite the contrary. Every new thead here brngs something new to even the most 'thrashed out' subjects but there was some good comments on the subject in that thread and those folk may not want to find another way of saying it.

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: MK
Date: 13 Mar 00 - 02:14 PM

Lately, I've been taking old ragtime tunes as well as old country tunes, and re-arranging and re-recording them to resemble I suppose new country with a blue-grassy and slightly commercial edge to them, with a little bit of shameless ''flash'' to them. My (emerging) sound?   8-)

But I can write in just about any genre...and as well enjoy taking old standards (more along a jazzy, swing medium) and modernizing them as well.

Like most here, it really does depend on my mood.

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: GUEST,thomas the rhymer
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 03:51 AM

I write 'em and play 'em just as good as i can

and I mean to be real, and thoughtful's my plan

a folksong tells stories, explicit or vague

a folksong finds meaning in "chicken or egg"

a folksong will speak to the young and the old

a folksong is deeper than "do what you're told"

a laugh or a cry with a thoughtful demeaner

or the quietest voice that found some grass greener

the start of a process, the end of an era

a mistaken thought grinning, the truth in an error

for a good song, a folksong, would be dear to the many from the dusty outback, to the kells of killkenny

it may be co-written or origional as sin

but a folksong is one to help most the folks win

and I wish that the simpletons like me on this planet

could take back the music, and not try to can it.

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 04:20 AM

To paraphrase the (UK)Fast Show: "today I am mostly writing memos and e-mails..."
RtS

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Hyperabid
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 04:38 AM

I think most musicians have very catholic (small "c") taste and could probably write anything.

Catagories are for Music journalists who typically can't.

Personally I find it is the instruments that tend to make me think the word "folk" rather than style which is personal to each artist...

Hyp

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 06:25 AM

I have been suitably punished for my feeble "joke". The mail server here is now down so I can't write or receive e-mails today! (and writing lyrics is one of the many things I can't do either)
RtS

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: GUEST,old Grump..(yeah, it's Bill D..lost my cooki
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 08:16 AM

categories are for those who have taste and discrimination....like YOU!. When you go out to eat, do you like to know what the restaurant is serving? Chinese? Italian? McDonald's? Or would you rather just go to a place that has a sign up offering 'FOOD'...and taking whatever they have today? You may like a wide variety of cooking styles, but sometimes you are in the mood for mashed 'taters and gravy....and you probably wouldn't like it with cilantro-flavored salsa on it. Why is music so different?

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: GUEST,old Grump Bill again
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 08:31 AM

(oh, sure..sometimes I go to a pot-luck and cram my plate with everything that looks good, and sometimes it gets so full that I get some...ummmm..'new taste treats'...but even when I eat out at a buffet, I like to choose...

the metaphor can go on & on, and can be applied to reading books, buying clothes, drinking booze...you either see it or you don't. Definitions based on throwing the dart and then drawing the bulls-eye to encompass YOUR tastes just begs the point.

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Amos
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 09:34 AM

Bill D -- you have a keen logical sense and your point is well made. Given the number of palates out there, which far exceed in complexity the ability of poor categories to serve, it gets a little hazy trying to draw clear liens around something as volatile and embrasive as folk music. As you probably know there have been lots of discussions about how to draw such lines. Can't blame people for throwing up their hands and dismissing the whole question as an academic exercise. One reason is that (I think) the musical experience forms itself along different differentiators than the existing language supports -- so people are drawn into a tug of war between their intellectual analysis using prebuilt categories not very cleanly defined (like "pop", "folk" "jazz" and "rock" all of which have huge arrays of subdivisions) and their hearts which may skip just as lightly for a good Childs Ballad as for a Donovan cut. The ear hears things the label doesn't cover so the whole discussion ends up full of loose ends.

A

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Bert
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 10:46 AM

Hmmm, I used to think that my stuff was kinda folky, but when I recorded 'Plastic Flower Seeds' the guys gave me a country style backing. The recording engineer asked me "how many of my songs were country?" I said two or three, but when I got to looking at them again and found that most of them were more country than folk.

Although I still think that 'Silicone Cindy' is folky and 'Size Doesn't Matter' has been called 'an instant folk song'

Bert. WhoisnotgoingovertoCowpiebecausetheydon'thavesuchagoodforumandIlikeyouguys.

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Ebbie
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 10:52 AM

Bert- thanks! I too have been saying I write country but since I'm not even sure what THAT means and people tell me my songs are folky, I'm thoroughly confused. But I have decided not to care!

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Amos
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 11:05 AM

Bert,

Country's a good catchall for the modern semi-urban folk-like song. An "instant" folksong would have to be right up there with "government assistance" and "military intelligence" as a world-class oxymoron. Just add water? The time-test of folk music is exceeding slow but exceeding fine...but I think the purer scholars around here would insist on it as a necessary criterion.

A

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Bert
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 11:15 AM

Amos, re: 'instant folksong' I didn't say it, a friend of mine, used that terminology. I took it as a compliment because he asked if he could sing it.

You're right it is an oxymoron - quite funny though.

Bert.

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 11:46 AM

thanks, Amos, for helping me out there, I sometimes get overwrought about it all,,*grin*

...and Bert, many of your songs DO follow the 'topical song' format, which often leads to folk 'status', if there is such a thing. You write what comes into your head, and as you remember from the Getaway, there are places where no ones inspects their credentials. We sang along happily with you ...but there were 'certain' workshops where the topic sort of excluded them, and I'm sure YOU knew that. But I HAVE seen, on occasion, people TOTALLY ignore a formal topic or change an informal mood, just to get in one more rendition of their own stuff..*sigh*....There are a few ...like Craig Johnson, who has written wonderful stuff that sounds trad from day one, (ask Art Thieme!)...but who would just as soon sing or play a trad song, and while he is flattered to be asked for his own songs, KNOWS how he differs from 'the real thing'.

but, Bert..at least you can and do write..*smile*..I have added a verse or two to a couple of things, but I CANNOT create a tune or write a complete song. I guess that's why I have so much time to explicate and analyze..*wink*

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Amos
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 02:27 PM

Well, Bill, with such keen conceptual skills, you could teach people how to write songs...the text is already mostly writ on that there Folksongs for Dummies thread which I nearly split a gut over...

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 02:29 PM

The reason, maybe, that people have trouble with "Folk" as a genre is that it's broader, perhaps, than a music category.

Constant exposure to commercialized folk numbs the senses and causes a shock when you hear what P Simon heard that became Graceland (i. e. we lose a kind of linkage to any music created without expectation of remuneration.

It helps to remember that folk music is that which is created as a means of expression (could have just as easily manifested as a visual expression, except the author could muster make better rhyming skills than dextrous) that has to come out.

The creator is compelled to express. And will do so whether the product is ultimately exchanged for the means of keeping body and soul together or not.

So in that vein, folk music can manifest any category of music, even classical (Mr. Holland's Opus) or as cadance for marching soldiers. The best and purest folk songs, perhaps, are those made up by children on the playground.

That does not preclude making money. It just recognizes that the song would have been born anyway. If a coal miner makes up a tune to pass time and protect against fear and boredom, the tune may someday be professionally arranged and become a hit; it's still a folk song.

I could be way off base, but I like to think that some of Ochs, Dylan, Simon, Lightfoot, McTell and Stan Rogers would fall under this definition.

When you write, ask yourself: is this for money, or am I simply compelled. If a word, line or verse demands to be changed to suit the sensitivities of the audience, demand of yourself, on occasion, that the line stand. Because that's the way you felt it, the way your being needed to express it, and compromise would be like getting a slap in the face from your lover.

Subject: RE: BS: What do YOU write? Pop? Country? Folk?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Mar 00 - 07:27 PM

What do I write? Some parodies, Ballady type stuff, soul searching and in depth studies of lifes' toils and tribulations, meaningful naratives on the futility of love and unrequited passions.

Usually abbreviated to crap.....

LTS