What is a Folk Song?

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 08:02 PM

Some bloke , you are incredibly unknwing, you seem obseesesed with peoples appearances you continually mention tradtional singers with trouser up to their tits , now you erroneousl;y describe the international folk council as being men wearing beards and sandals, Maud Karpeles was a woman and did not have a beard, basically you are ignorant[unknowing], if you have nothing correct to say please desist from this nonsense

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 05:59 PM

This seems to have been the other main driving force behind the Council along with Karpeles:

Arnold Adriaan Bake

No sign of beards yet.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 05:41 PM

I agree with you, Sb. To use an academic description to bash folksingers with is ridiculous.

I'm fascinated to know how you know most of them had beards, or are we talking about different people? Or sandals for that matter. You're giving a perfect description of me!

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: GUEST,Some bloke
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 02:47 PM

Mine do come over harsh but with some justification. I like it when others don't mince their words too.

It isn't the reality of 1954 I have an issue with but the Holy scripture persona many afford it. As a set of guidelines as you put it, it is neither fish nor fowl. It was an attempt to own the process which was, using your words, frankly ridiculous.

I may or may not agree or disagree with the detail, but that would be irrelevant. Its that some felt the need for it I and many others find extraordinary. To be fair to them, they didn't expect mainstream entertainment to embrace what was a small interest.

Anyway, most did have beards. The prevailing weather may however precluded fairisle sweaters.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 02:21 PM

If that last post comes across as a little harsh I apologise in advance.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 02:00 PM

Okay Sb a little clarification needed here. Whilst I also agree with Ss
these were academics from all around the world, The International Folk Music Council, so what they were discussing was scholarly approach to the subject and not what people should or shouldn't perform in folk clubs. Also it was 1954, before the folk song revival had properly taken off in the UK. They certainly weren't all 'serious men with beards'. The main driving force was Maud Karpeles, a stalwart of the EFDSS and collaborator with Sharp. They were not all in agreement on the final wording of the 54 descriptors as they didn't apply accurately to every country's folksong corpus. But in true democratic style they managed to reach a concensus (unlike today's politicians in many parts of the world). You can disagree with what they came up with (I prefer not to use it as a definition, just guidelines) but to call it 'ridiculous' is quite frankly ridiculous! And as I said, it wasn't just 'one small European country'.... Get yer facts right!

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: GUEST,Some bloke
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 01:36 PM

With you Stringsinger. Folk is a general term in my mind and if genres must be catalogued, then the term folk is the last one to use.

The idea of a few serious men with beards and sandals in 1954 sitting down and in a meeting with minutes, observing rules of procedure, accepting motions before the substantial agenda resolution etc and deciding what constitutes folk is ridiculous.

Especially as they referred it to one small European country...

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 01:30 PM

There seems to be an Anglocentric view when it come to defining folk songs.

There are folk songs all over the world and I believe "folk song" should always be plural.

My opinion is that folk songs are generally accessible to those who want to learn them.
Not like an opera aria or concert art songs. Their durability has to do with being accessible and easy enough to learn to be handed down from one generation to another.

You have to train hard to sing arias, motets, art songs etc. Even jazz songs require some amount of musical training although Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday seems to have by-passed that.

I place blues into the category of folk songs. Traditional Appalachian songs and dance tunes done by bluegrass musicians are folk songs. There are European, Asian, African, Indian etc. folk songs. Folk songs have a direct relationship to a sub-culture. They often define it.

I submit that folk songs are communal in their evolution.

You don't have to be a traditional emissary from any particular culture to sing them and enjoy them.

I do believe though that you have to put on a different set of ears to appreciate traditional singers..It's difficult today with people having fast paces in their lives to quietly sit and listen to a twenty stanza ballad or a low decibel level a-capella singer. I personally find this satisfying. Untrained outdoor voices have an appeal for me.

I believe that people became interested in this form of expression when they were exposed to it without preconceived musical prejudices. Some old guy without teeth sitting on a log or farm fence post hollering out a traditional song can be an edifying experience or a blues bottle neck National Guitar player from a poor black community can be entrancing. You have to leave a lot of learned musical responses behind.

I took a commercial music course at Georgia State University with a lot of would-be rock producers, musicians, future commercial music moguls, mainly young people, and I brought in a recording of Almeda Riddle. They hooted, catcalled and rejected it. Talk about musical intolerance, there it was. And they would decry any attempt by anyone
to put down their rock music. They needed to put on a different set of ears. Commercial musicians can be big snobs when it comes to their own music.

I don't think it matters whether we define it or not because it will always be there in some form or other....a lullaby, a skip rope rhyme, a dirty song or a schoolyard chant, in a barracks or in a prison, on a picket line, or someone just singing to themselves a song that their grandfather, uncle, aunt, mama or daddy taught them from the back woods, Old Country, from an old hobo, or when they were in the Merchant Marines.....they come from unlikely places. All over the world.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 01:24 PM

1960s - When I was a small boy in Scrumpyshire on school holiday,
my mum was allowed to take me with her on one of her char woman jobs
in a big old local posh town house...
While the owners were away.
Even at that age I could tell the interiors very old world
like Hammer horror houses on the telly...

Running round the rooms was like entering a dark other world from long ago once upon a time.

One room contained nothing but big massive dark wood furniture,
every shelf and drawer displaying old glass topped display cases
full of orderly rows of butterflys, pinned through their bodies...
It seemed like there were thousands...
many recognisable from Ladybird books and Brooke Bond tea cards
my family encouraged me to study...

Funnily enough, that's what comes to mind when folks mention Cecil Sharp
collecting songs from where my family would have been living and working..
Not too far from from that big grand house,
and probably in the same time frame
that Butterfly collection was being so obsessively pinned down and catalogued...???

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 12:59 PM

Ah, yes, Dick. You'd be quite safe saying ALL of the songs he collected are FS. They all qualify by '54' descriptors regardless of any known origins. If there are problems with some of his views and his relationships, there was nothing wrong with his collecting by the standards of the day. As far as I know every scholar I have come across has nothing but praise for his collecting.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Mar 19 - 02:20 AM

steve , not knowing all of Sthe songs in sharps collection, just covering my back from any clevor trevors

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: GUEST,Some bloke
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 01:25 PM

It’s whatever Jim Carroll says it is. Emphasis on the word “whatever.”

Sorry, just cutting the crap. It’s where such threads lead to anyway.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 01:02 PM

Curious about the word 'majority', Dick.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Mar 19 - 03:14 AM

thevast majority of songs collected by cecil sharp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko2UKE75en0

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 06:50 AM

Regret I know nothing of Harry's brother, Jim. Sorry.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 06:36 AM

You may be able to confirm this Mike - but I seem to remember Bob Thomson telling us that Harry's brother was a singer and, according to local talk, a better one than Harry (such claims aren't always reliable of course, "you should have been here last week!!" is a fairly common statement).
One of the aspects of the tradition much neglected is songmaking within the communities.
We first noticed it with Travellers - still practiced up to 1975 with Irish Travellers in London; but here in Clare, we have been staggered at the number of songs that have been made in the past on local subjects and have never moved out of this area because of their local nature.
One of the riches subjects of local songs was the land-wars that took place from the 1880s right up to independence in 1922.
A 90-odd year old singer told us last year that "If a man farted in church, somebody made a song about it".
For me, it stresses the importance of folk songs as carriers of (quite often unrecorded) history; one of the reasons why I so vehement that they should be treated differently from other types of song.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 05:44 AM

Harry Cox became recognised late-ish in life. A lot of songs thought of as "his" he appears to have "inherited" from earlier singers around Catfield & Sutton, Norfolk. Older collections attribute some of the songs on his 2CD complete collection "The Bonny Labouring Boy" (Topic 2000) {which BTW includes some with collection attrib to Bob Thomson & myself} to the previous generation of informants from the area.

(See my transcript of one of our visits to him under title "A Visit to Harry Cox" in Folk Review for Feb 1973.)

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 04:57 PM

"but only a few had the repertoire of a Walter Pardon."
Large repertoire singers were fairly common - Mary Delaney probably had around 200 - we got over 100 from her.
Tom Lenihan, the same.
Mikey Kelleher - 60-odd.
Par MacNamara - around the same
Duncan Williamson - going on for 60 and literally over 1000 stories.....
Can I justclear something up - I'm not suggesting lots of people didn't have songs - of course they did, but communities had 'singers' with a capital S who were recognised as such
Walter wasn't one in his community - pretty sure Harry Cox wasn't.
Tom Lenihan was - Mry Delaney was - with the kudos that went with the title.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Lighter
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 04:26 PM

> but only a few had the repertoire of a Walter Pardon.

That seems to be indisputable.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 03:29 PM

It's quite possible that both Lighter and Jim are right: lots of people sang, but only a few had the repertoire of a Walter Pardon.

Cecil Sharp in the Appalachians, and Carrie Grover, in Nova Scotia, both reported that singing was ubiquitous in remote agrarian communities the early 20th century. No reason to suppose it wasn't in Britain as well, a hundred years earlier. And as Lighter points out, Sharp found a large number of songs while covering an extremely small area of England, even at a time when singing was in decline.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 02:58 PM

Sorry - didn't finish
There are exceptions, of course - New Deer in Aberdeenshire springs to mind, but collector Peter Cook had a theory on this based around the Irish who worked there and helped revitalise the singing tradition with their own.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 02:47 PM

"Why could it not have been robust a hundred years earlier?"
It might well have been, we have o way of knowing.
"were interested in collecting such songs in the early 19th century simply because the songs were so common"
In limited areas, this might have been true, but over a century or so, there weren' actually many collected and because they were treated as artifacts (sort of like butterflies) we know virtually nothing about the backgrounds.
Even in a relatively healthy tradition (like we found in the Irish Travelling communities) - if you went looking for singers, you were directed to one or two people.
This immediate area of Ireland was rich in songs right up to the 70s, but the vast majority of them came from half-a-dozen singers (take a look at our West Clare County Library website - The Carroll Mackenzie Collection will find us).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Lighter
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 02:19 PM

The most convincing bit of evidence is Walter Pardon's testimony - which is from the twentieth century.

I think that the local focus of the collectors equally supports the opposite conclusion, especially for previous generations.

What are the chances that a truly rare phenomenon would manifest itself so strongly in the very areas that the collectors worked in and, in theory, hardly anywhere else?

No one doubts that the tradition was waning by 1900. Why could it not have been robust a hundred years earlier?

(One *might* argue that so few intellectuals were interested in collecting such songs in the early 19th century simply because the songs were so common - and so widely unappreciated by those same intellectuals.)

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 02:08 PM

If you look at the sources of the songs collected by Sharp and his colleagues, you will see that they covered a relatively small area of the British Isles and represent a tiny area of Britain.
They were virtually head-hunting songs they believed were rapidly disappearing -
The urban areas were barely covered.
They always claimed that they were collecting from a rapidly dying tradition, which was probably true in most cases.
Taking Britain as a whole; their collection is in fact quite small.
Take a County the size of Norfolk, probably one of the richest areas of Britain, and you will find that the number of informants represent a pinprick of the population in general.
Some forty years later, when the BBC carried out their mopping up campaign, the number of singers had reduced considerably and by then, they were recording from singers who were largely remembering a tradition rather than reflecting living ones.
Walter Pardon was a remarkable singer with a sizable repertoire, but he could only remember songs from his family tradition, which happened at Harvest Suppers - the few songs he learned from outside the family came from basically one man, and they were largely of music hall origin.
He could not remember hearing another local singer.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Lighter
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 01:12 PM

> there is no great evidence that this was ever not the case.

This intrigues me, Jim. If it were true, wouldn't the collections of Sharp and others be far scantier?

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 01:03 PM

"Wide appeal is certainly one characteristic of a traditional song"
Folk song at present appeals to a very small number of people and there is no great evidence that this was ever not the case.
"Wide appeal" within small communities maybe...
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Lighter
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 12:24 PM

> whether they are of interest to anyone but the performer (whether they tell a story or not)

Wide appeal is certainly one characteristic of a traditional song.

Without that appeal, it is forgotten - quickly or immediately.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 12:11 PM

"Of course it is impossible to draw a line between folk songs and other songs "
Not in the slightest
Not only are folk songs well defined, but there is over a century's documentation covering what they are and where they came from
The misuse of the term, basically deliberately so, is a comparatively recent phenomenon and has no research to back it other than "folk song is what I choose to consider it is"
A self conscious manipulation of the term makes no difference to the existing definition (much in need of up-dating based on what information has been gathered latterly) makes not an iota of difference - until a new definition is reached and accepted generally, the one we have serves very nicely, thank you.
As Mike points out, narrative is just one type of song which doesn't include, say, shanties, lyrical songs, ritual pieces, skipping and ball games...... and songs with verses which don't ecesserily relate to one another.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 12:09 PM

Ho hum, maybe I should just have started a new thread to alert people to Peggy's appearance on this morning's programme.....

Kitty

PS Tim - Derek and I also tend to note whether songs tell a story, and whether they are of interest to anyone but the performer (whether they tell a story or not), as it tends to be relevant to consideration of whether we'd like to hear that performer again....

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Lighter
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 12:00 PM

> no references to 'telling a story'

An ingenious balladic criterion, Tim, and you;re welcome to it, but wouldn't it leave out all those traditional songs that *don't* tell a story?

Most chanteys, for example.

(And IMO, songs like Marty Robins' "El Paso" and Jinnie Driftwood's "Battle of New Orleans" don't meaningfully become "folk" just because they obviously do "tell a story" any more than does a rap song that does so.

Also, if your definition of "folk" isn't shared by others, they won't know WTH you're talking about - a maddening situation we've already touched upon.

Tricky, isn't it?

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 11:57 AM

But the 'telling-a-story' criterion surely applies only to narrative songs, Tim. What of lyrical or otherwise discursive songs?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: OldTimeTim
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 11:50 AM

Having renewed my credentials with Mudcat, I found this thread, and have read some of the debate with interest and sometimes amusement.
Of course it is impossible to draw a line between folk songs and other songs (leastways everyone will have a differing opinion as to where the line should be drawn)

However, my wife and I have been playing a game for some years at festivals, folk clubs and other music events where the F word is implied but not used: - was that last song folk or not folk? - we don't debate - we just see if we agree - and mostly we do.

This activity has led us to try to crystallise our previously unstated criteria, and it pretty much coincides with the answer to the question; - did that song tell a story, and if so was that story of interest to anyone other than the author/performer? two yesses and it qualifies as folk

I expected that I would find something similar in this thread, but was surprised that there were no references to 'telling a story' in the bits that I scanned though!?

PS I looked up the plural of yes, and found a minefield almost as large as the above thread!

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 10:34 AM

As I said, Michael, it's about halfway through the programme, which started just after the 9am news summary - I think it was about 9.25 when I looked at my watch while listening to the original broadcast, as opposed to the online version put up on the BBC website afterwards. There will be a shortened repeat on radio 4 this evening at 9.30pm, too, but I don't know which bits get left out in the shortening!

Kitty

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 07:47 AM

Could we haves a time-check of the point where Peggy comes on? Not sure I want to listen to the whole programme.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 06:43 AM

Thanks for that Kitty (don't know why we can sometimes get BBC in Ireland and not in others - no problems there)
Everybody should listen to what she has to say here - explodes a number of myths
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 06:10 AM

Just heard Peggy Seeger talking about this again on the BBC radio 4's
Midweek programme. The item about Ewan's songs (and his attitude to traditional songs) and Peggy's singing and playing starts about halfway through the programme...

Kitty

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: PHJim
Date: 08 Jan 14 - 11:14 PM

Peterborough, Ontario's Catfish Willie used to say, "It's a four letter word that starts with F and ends with K and if you use it, they won't play your songs on the radio.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Bert
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 07:39 PM

...Keeping these songs alive is about singing them, enjoying them and teaching them to
others. The definitions will take care of themselves....

Right on Frank.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 07:35 PM

The definition is in the process of change. There are traditional folk songs and folk-like
songs in the style of traditional folk songs. Both are now included in the definition.

Usually, the communal theory applies. If people change it through the ages it becomes
like water flowing over a stone. It has a smoothness and beauty of its own.

It's generally in a simple straightforward speech style.

It's generally musically simple without complex harmonies or melodic turns that are
inaccessible to most people. (This would include vocal ornamentation).

I associate it with a history of a particular place or sub-culture.

It is also a photograph of a bird in flight when it is reproduced in a book or in musical notation.

The question becomes when it is a folk-like song, composed by a single author whether this qualifies as the real deal. I really think that it needs to be changed by others along its life span.

It is durable. It lasts because it was important enough for more than one person to keep it alive. It probably may have been changed in this process.

There are some beautiful folk songs that are not known by the general public, these days.
There is an irony here. Music of the "people" not known by the "people" (a large collection of them).

Whether we can correctly define a folk song or not, they will last and be durable because they have some quality that keeps them alive.

Another ID would be that the folk song has many "variants" (variations in tunes and texts found across the nation or world.)

The American cowboy songs "Streets of Laredo" emanating from Ireland as "The Unfortunate Rake" or "Whoopie Ti Yi Yo" from the Irish "Rockin' the Cradle" would be examples of the "variant" theory. "Sam Hall" and "Robert Kidd" turn up in the shape-note hymn "What Wondrous Love Is This?"

The question here is did someone deliberately write a song based on another in a conscious way or was there a process here that defies a planned composition?

We'll be arguing about this for years.

Keeping these songs alive is about singing them, enjoying them and teaching them to
others. The definitions will take care of themselves.

One thing, they are not fads based on contemporary popular music which is ephemeral.
However, there are some fine songwriters who successfully write in a folk-style. The definition might expand to include them. I think we all know who they are. If not,
I would be happy to mention them, some of whom are alive today.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 06:42 PM

Beckenham is not high on my "Must See" list.[The Snail]
here speaks a person with a prejudice.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 07:44 PM

"I don't go with Gene Burton's definition of folk song."

From the looks of things, nobody else does, either. For once, though, I find myself in agreement with m'learned colleague Mr. Bridge; for verily the converse of his statement must also be true: the more unpopular wisdom is, the more it approaches, er, even greater wisdom.

I see myself primarily as a visionary whose time is yet to come...

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 07:28 PM

People may have been wondering about my silence. I cannot be bothered to discuss with the wilfully ignorant on this at the moment. Jim, Dick, more power to your educational elbows. Why do some people think that the more widespread stupidity is the more it approaches wisdom?

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Tootler
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 06:54 PM

I nominate "D-Day Dodgers" as a 20th century folk song.

Created spontaneously by British troops fighting in Italy in WWII in response to a comment by Lady Astor, the song reputedly circulated widely among the troops gathering verses as it went. A version was finally "collected" by Hamish Henderson, himself a participant in the Italian campaign so a member of the "community".

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: The Mole Catcher's Apprentice (inactive)
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 05:14 PM

99 Bottles of Beer is high on my list of nominations for a 20th Century folk song *LOL*

Charlotte (only sings about beer)

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 02:44 PM

Just to add a quote from the late Peter Kennedy:
" In fact the importance of the tradition was not so much what he sang but the way he sang it"

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 06:31 AM

Just like to add a few things -

I don't go with Gene Burton's definition of folk song.

I would like to nominate "The Wheels on the Bus" as a 20th century folk song.

Peggy decided to have a 'wild garden' To claim this as a decision is a piece of delusional self-justification.

Beckenham is not high on my "Must See" list.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 03:40 AM

Michael, Bryan, Kent,
Thanks for loads to think about - will go off and think but - I'LL BE BACK.
In the meantime, I have to say your question about Ewan singing to the people of Beckenham raised a smile Bryan - have you ever been to Beckenham?
In his lifetime Ewan was a fanatical gardener (a real fine-comb-and-nail-scissors nut) and the gardens surrounding their house in Stanley Avenue were pretty much of the same ilk. In return for using the library and tape collection (and being bedded and fed) it was expected that if you had any spare time during your visit you helped out in the garden.
When Ewan died Peggy decided to have a 'wild garden' of only plants which grew naturally. In no time it abounded with Rose Bay Willow herb, Ragwort, Bindweed, Russian Vine, Japanese Knotweed as well as receiving regular visits from foxes, badgers, fieldmice, rats.... etc - the good people of Beckenham were..... not happy.
Would love to have seen Ewan's reaction.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Kent Davis
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 10:09 PM

Jim,

The part about "there were none written" was someone else, not me. That's why I put it in quotes. The whole point of my post was to demonstrate that folk songs (by the 1954 definition) WERE written in the 20th century. That is why I listed those 15 songs. They meet the 1954 definition and were written (I believe) in the 20th century.

Kent

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 08:25 PM

Jim Carroll

Damn - the Cap'n pipped me on my Magic Roundabout joke.

I suppose that, given that my name is Bryan and I have given myself the nickname TheSnail, I should really have seen the Magic Roundabout jokes coming. Silly of me. Not sure where the magic mushrooms come in although they might go nicely with a packet of frozen fish fingers.

The stuff about the Travellers' song making sounds fascinating but my point is that, at the time they were first sung, they were not folk songs according to the 1954 definition because they had not then been passed down through the oral tradition and altered by it. They were still being sung by the same people, in the same environment as the "real" folk songs so what were they?

Ewan was never a deep-sea fisherman, miner, roadworker, Traveller, railway worker, boxer....

So what? Were Tam Lin or Matty Groves written from personal experience?

he [MacColl] was not writing for his community, but for the folk song revival. As far as I know, the people of Beckenham never took the songs up and made them their own.

Arguably, his community was the folk song revival. Did he sing to the good people of Beckenham?

My community, where the vast majority of my friends live, consists of the folk clubs and song and tune sessions where I spend a lot of my time. I am not a singer but I learn tunes from others, perhaps with a little help from printed music and recordings but they are part of the extended community in modern times.

My point about the LAFC not crashing in flames was that an aeroplane that is not designed according to the laws of aerodynamics is doomed; a folk club which takes no notice of the Sao Paulo definition can carry on with no trouble.

I do not in any way object to newly written songs being sung at folk clubs; using the traditional forms to make new songs was what it was all about for me

I am glad we can agree on something. I think that most people involved in the current folk scene are happy to call those new songs folk songs. What do you call them?

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Goose Gander
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 03:07 PM

"The death-knell of the tradition came when we became passive recipients of, rather than participants in our culture."

Have 'we' become so? It seems that everywhere I look, I see young people learning to play instruments and making their own music. But this in and of itself does not make it folk music (by the 1954 definition, which I more or lesss agree with). My opinion: to make it 'folk' we need . . .

a. settled (or travelling) communities
b. time

The dislocations of modern life make both of these variables difficult, but not impossible, to establish. Add to this electronic communication and it is obvious that folk music (in the 'west') will not exist now and in the future the way it has in the past. But somehow this music continues to exist organically. Who reading this hasn't recently showed a song or melody to someone else, or learned a bit from someone else? Working as a teacher, I've played traditional music for kids and later heard them singing it or humming the tune. Who knows where all this music will end up?