What is a Folk Song?

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 02:50 PM

"What makes them folk songs any more than a Ewan MacColl song? MacColl was surely a participant and no passive recipient."
Snail
Damn - the Cap'n pipped me on my Magic Roundabout joke.
Up to the mid-seventies the song tradition among Travellers was very much alive. We were present at a couple of open-air sessions.
Songs about members of the Travelling community were being made by people who were non-literate and passed on by word of mouth. They were absorbed by members of the community and turned up in numerous versions. More often than not the names of the makers were forgotten.
Usually they were no more than two or three verses long, with one notable exception.
We were given one about an arranged marriage (by at least four different singers) each of whom asked us not to make it public. Mary Delaney sang a six verse version and asked us not to make it public as "it's about my cousin and he'll murder me if he knew I'd sung it to you".
Independently of the singers we recorded, it is included on the John Reilly Topic album as 'Old Caravee' with the names altered completely.
Ewan was never a deep-sea fisherman, miner, roadworker, Traveller, railway worker, boxer....etc, he 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.
Meant to respond to your point earlier.
Glad your club hasn't crashed in flames - I heard it is a good one.
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 dug out my old repertoire book recently and found that around a quarter of the songs I know and sang (around 100) are non traditional.
This argument; and others on this forum, is basically what we mean by folk song, - definition, not preference (important to some, not to others).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: The Mole Catcher's Apprentice (inactive)
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 11:29 AM

"by the 1954 definition.etc..etc there were none written"

that was my reading of the 1954 definition of folk folk song..my personal opinion is that yes indeed there have been folk songs written in the 20th and early 21st centuries, mind you what I consider folk and what others consider folk might have some differences in them, but if we were all the same, things would be exceedingly boring.

Charloote (refreshed after a day off)

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 10:38 AM

Meanwhile The Snail arrived by the magic roundabout.
what are you on Snail,not magic mushrooms I hope.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 09:01 AM

I guess the travellers just travelled - Ewan had to buy a ticket.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 06:12 AM

Jim Carroll

Travellers were still making songs up to the mid seventies,

What makes them folk songs any more than a Ewan MacColl song? MacColl was surely a participant and no passive recipient.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Banjiman
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 05:33 AM

Jim,

I think we will try and make it over there to some of the festivals at some point (2 young children allowing!), I have absolutely no doubt we would enjoy ourselves immensely. Though I'm not convinced that my 5 stringer would be universally popular (what's new?) I am sure people would enjoy my other half's singing, a pretty equal mixture of Trad mainly Scottish (like her), self penned(...have you heard The Visitor? about a ship rescue off Robin Hood's Bay in N. Yorks.... you should, it's starting to be sung by other people...might be a "folk" song one day ....LoL) and a few carefully chosen songs from other "known" authors.

Please re-read my posts...I love a lot of old songs (I think I've made that pretty clear)....I just love a lot of new songs to and I don't like the false divisions that some seek to put between them.

I'll repeat my mantra.....a good song is a good song, I'm completely agnostic as to its source.

"otherwise the current generation would ritually burn everything 'old' (as you appear to be proposing with folk song)." ....I can only assume you have mixed my posts up with someone else's.

I invite you you to come to one of the KFFC weekend bashes and partake in the singarounds.....you will hear massed, communal, harmonious singing of old (& new) songs that will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up....assuming you have (and I'm pretty sure you do) a soul. This is not any kind of challenge, just a genuine offer.

Paul (not tired and grumpy anymore!)

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 03:24 AM

Banjiman;,
Come to some of the festivals and singing week-ends here in Ireland.
The standard of singing can range from good to superb (in English and Irish) and (believe it or not) people actually enjoy the (old and new) songs, !!!!
Relevance; I was brought up with the idea that good culture (song, music, literature, theatre, art) was timeless, otherwise the current generation would ritually burn everything 'old' (as you appear to be proposing with folk song).
Now where did I put my Shakespeare - there's a bit of a nip in the air this morning!
Kent
"by the 1954 definition.etc..etc there were none written"
Not strictly true; Travellers were still making songs up to the mid seventies, until portable television came along and stopped the open-air singing sessions.
Children continued to make songs for the playground - don't know if they still do, or if this has been replaced by text messages and interactive software games.
In the first half of the 20th century there was still a fairly strong songmaking tradition in rural Ireland, mainly about the major issue here - emigration.
One of the peculiarities of the ones we recorded was that even though they must have been written well within the lifetimes of the singers, we hardly ever managed to find out who had written them.
The death-knell of the tradition came when we became passive recipients of, rather than participants in our culture.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Kent Davis
Date: 19 Feb 08 - 12:23 AM

The Mole Catcher's Apprentice, on Feb. 14, said:

"how do we explain to future generations why no folksongs were created in the 20th century?"

by the 1954 definition.etc..etc there were none written"

But even using the 1954 definition, there were many folk songs written in the 20th century. Consider these:

"Kumbaya"
"I Have Decided to Follow Jesus"
"God Is So Good"
"I'm Happy Today"
"Love, Love"
"I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy"
"Deep and Wide"
"The B-I-B-L-E"
"The Wise Man Built his House upon the Rock"
"I'm in the Lord's Army"
"If You're Happy and You Know It"
"Miss Lucy Had a Baby"
"O Mary Mack"
"Great Big Gobs of Greasy, Grimy, Gopher Guts"
"Bringing Home My Baby Bumblebee"

All of the above are, I believe, products of the 20th century and all are products "of a musical tradition that has been evolved through the process of oral transmission." All are characterized by
"(i) continuity which links the present with the past; (ii) variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or the group; and (iii) selection by the community, which determines the form or forms in which the music survives." All have been "absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community."

I am not an expert, yet I've listed 15 songs from my personal tradition that are from the 20th century and fit the 1954 definition. What songs can others add?

Kent

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Banjiman
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 05:17 PM

Nigel,

I'm tired...sorry, it's been a long weekend of organising a non-folk bash which believe me, I did seriously enjoy along with a few others. It was vibrant, alive, stimulating, communal....well you know it was OK!

Jim,

What is the point?....we're not ever going to agree...you appear to have a completely closed mind to anything that doesn't fit into a box that was defined in a previous era that can't possibly exist (or have any relevance)in the modern world. Please enjoy your museum.

Grump over!!!! enjoy your thread, I've had enough now.

Cheers

Paul

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 04:42 PM

Still no alternative definition I see Paul - just snide sniping - ah well!!!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Giant Folk Eyeball (inactive)
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 04:39 PM

Paul, man, you're starting to sound a little bitter there and bitter doesn't suit you! You're usually such a good natured poster. You're not about to go postal on us are you?!

Enjoy what you enjoy, right or wrong, and don't worry about what anyone else, right or wrong, thinks. Including me!

Cheers,

Nigel

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Banjiman
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 04:25 PM

I've spent all weekend at The Kirkby Fleetham Folk Club Winter Warmer Weekend......it sounded like folk, it felt like folk, it even smelt like folk at times....there were folk there to hear folk music and song.....were we all deluded? According to the archaic definitions on here of what some people would like folk music to be, we were at least 99% of the time. Even the trad stuff (and there was plenty of it sung sung unaccompanied as often as not)wasn't folky enough to be folk...... someone might have first heard it on a recording (horror of horrors).

Still without at least 50 years history of academic study of what folk music is and being too young to remember what it was like before it was all spoiled, what do I know?

Paul

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 04:12 PM

Cheers, Jim, will do! I'd say wake me up when you've all come to an agreement on The Definition, but..........!!! :)

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 12:01 PM

Jim-
If I had my druthers, the word "folk" would never have been used for the commercial outpourings of the 60s and on. It's too late now. A definition is only worthwhile if the people using the word agree on what it means. MacColl certainly tried to expand the definition to include industrial songs (though he was diligent about distinguishing between his own compositions and folksongs); Lomax certainly broadened the definition to include the country music of Woody Guthrie; the Harry Smith Collection brought American country music into the fold.

As I said, I have no problem with the 1954 definition, but I recognize that only a small portion of what I sing consists of what I consider to be "folk"; I've spent a half-century or so being labled a "folksinger", though.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 05:42 AM

Jim Carroll

I've been using planes for as long as you've been listening to folk music, even longer, and have managed without understanding the laws of aerodynamics, but I know they are available to me should I wish to research them.

The Lewes Arms Folk Club has never crashed in flames because someone sang a Ewan MacColl song.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 03:57 AM

Dick
"If it's accepted in any discussion, though, you have to come up with a new classification for the music of Woody Guthrie, Martin Carthy, Pete Seeger"
No I don't - I don't have a problem with the old one. It is the job of those who have problems to re-define.
To my knowledge, MacColl at no time attempted to re-define the word, and my understanding of Lomax's work on Cantrometrics makes my think that neither did he. MacColl was always at pains to point out that his own compositions were not 'folk songs' (we have recordings of him saying as much. He referred to the singing tradition in the early stages of the revival as 'moribund', and later as having died (ie; ceasing to function for communities). Our own field-work among Travellers, in rural England and in the West of Ireland would pretty much bear this out.
MacColl and Lloyd did attempt to include industrial songs in the definition, with limited success.
If we agree that there is an identifiable group of songs which we label 'folk' what are the defining and uniting characteristics? Surely that is the crux of all these discussions. If the old one doesn't work-provide a new one - simple as that.
In the relatively recent past I purchased the last volume of 'The Greig Duncan Folk Song Collection', four years ago I got 'Folk Song: Tradition, Revival and Re-creation', I'm now onto my fifth copy of 'The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs' - (need I go on?). Do you envisage a dual (or even multi - the revivalists don't seem to have arrived at a single one) definition of the term; one for the collectors, anthologists, researchers, writers and lexicographers, and one for the clubs?
We appear not to be discussing the re-labeling of the product, but rather, the ripping off of all the labels.
Snail:
I've been using planes for as long as you've been listening to folk music, even longer, and have managed without understanding the laws of aerodynamics, but I know they are available to me should I wish to research them.
Sue,
If we're keeping you awake - please feel free to go back to sleep.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 08:08 PM

Jim-
I'm familiar with the "official" 1954 definition and, frankly, I don't have a problem with it. If it's accepted in any discussion, though, you have to come up with a new classification for the music of Woody Guthrie, Martin Carthy, Pete Seeger and just about everyone who now fill the folkies' notion of what folk is. Earlier definitions required a rural background, or isolated communities or whatever. I remember this argument back in the 1940s and 50s, when people like MacColl and Lomax were attempting to expand the meaning of the word.

I still feel that there can be a multiplicity of definitions: Stylistic,
taxonomic, sociological etc. All that's necessary is that people agree on which they're using before they set out to demolish each other.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 06:58 PM

*yawn*

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 06:57 PM

Been aware of it quite some time, myself, just don't recognise it as relevant, valid or true- sorry!

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: TheSnail
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 06:51 PM

Jim Carroll

Why don't people on this thread know about it? your guess is as good as mine.
If we accept that there is such a thing as 'folk song' and it's not this - what is it?

I've been in and around the folk scene for about thirty five years, mainly on the traditional side and I'd never heard of the 1954 definition until I saw it mentioned on Mudcat a few months ago. I seemed to manage without it.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 06:36 PM

Dick:
International Folk Music Council 1954.
"Folk music is the product of a musical tradition that has been evolved through the process of oral transmission. The factors that shape the tradition are: (i) continuity which links the present with the past; (ii) variation which springs from the creative impulse of the individual or the group; and (iii) selection by the community, which determines the form or forms in which the music survives.
The term can be applied to music that has been evolved from rudimentary beginnings by a community uninfluenced by popular and art music and it can likewise be applied to music which has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten living tradition of a community."
Not perfect, but close enough for me. It certainly covers all the material on my shelves labeled 'folk song'.
You might want to look at the 16 page definition in Funk ans Wagnall, but this one covers all the major points.
It's the door came through forty years ago.
Why don't people on this thread know about it? your guess is as good as mine.
If we accept that there is such a thing as 'folk song' and it's not this - what is it?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 01:37 PM

Jim Carroll-
OK. If there is a single accepted definition for "folk'", what is it? And if it's accepted, why doesn't this thread seem to be aware of that fact?

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 12:47 PM

>> ...how many people ....... could sing a single verse of any of those - particularly 'American Pie'...

You could say the same thing about Mattie Groves, The Nutting Girl and even Lincolnshire Poacher. <<

You could indeed, if we were talking about 2008. However, to take one of your examples, "Mattie Groves" was collected at least eighty times by song collectors in the twentieth century, with informants (many of them North American) regularly recalling twenty or more verses. Bearing in mind the extremely patchy nature of song collecting, and the fact that by this point traditional singing was already in decline in industrial Britain and North America, it seems reasonable to assume that at some earlier point, rather a lot of people knew rather more than one verse of "Mattie Groves". Which I think is what I was trying to say before.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 04:54 PM

My last post was kind of a test to see if you possessed a sense of humour, Shimmers, and I'm pleased to say you have passed...though I still think some degree of data selection is necessary in order to formulate an informed view on anything; one has to evaluate each piece of evidence, weigh all available information up before reaching a considered conclusion.

I'm never wrong, Sue, just that every now and then I'm differently right. Then again there's such a thing as the right kind of wrong, and, conversely, the wrong kind of right. A lot of the contributors here, IMHO, are the wrong kind of right.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: GUEST,Suegorgeous
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 04:30 PM

Gene - ahah! gotcha! knew I'd catch you out! Mick did his spouting in '98, not '38!! u gonna admit you're wrong now? :))

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 03:16 PM

Me thinks that Louis Armstrong, who may or may not have originated the remark about horses and singing, was being a tad facetious at the time

Charlotte (horse is a horse, of course)

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 03:03 PM

I can assure you, Gene, that no threat was intended! The bit about my ex-boss getting fired could be seen as being irrelevant to this argument - except to note that, for him, being selective with the data turned out to be a non-viable strategy in the long term.

Also, I hated the bastard (he was an evil sod) and, even though it was years ago, I still gloat over his downfall!! And, for your information, I've hated very few people in my life and you can rest assured I certainly don't hate you or any other Mudcatter!

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:46 PM

"Every so often, some new member with a guitar and an idea of what folk music is, based on the industry's version of what that is, comes in an spouts off that folk music is music sung by folks."

I've never said that, Mick. Nor have I endorsed the horse definition (though I do think the horse definitioners have every bit as much right as the 1954 people to state their case without being branded "imbeciles"). My own definition is based on nothing but my own observations of folk music as performed in a variety of settings here in the UK, my own musical ear and common sense- not on the projections of music industry types, who are no friends of mine.
I always listen to everybody, provided they're genuinely expressing a view and not a pretext for a personal attack. However, with respect, I really don't think I have to serve a 70 year apprenticeship before I'm entitled to a voice.

(I assumed your post was aimed at me- if not then obviously disregard this)

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:42 PM

"There's NO single accepted definition for "folk'"
Yes there is Dick, the non-recognition of that definition by vested interests doesn't change that fact.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Big Mick
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:30 PM

With all due respect, this is but the circle swinging around again. Every so often, some new member with a guitar and an idea of what folk music is, based on the industry's version of what that is, comes in an spouts off that folk music is music sung by folks. I know this to be the case, because way back '98 when I first came here, I did the same thing. Over the years, I came to understand the depth of knowledge and experience here (Sandy Paton, Art Theime, Frank Hamilton, Dan Milner, Dick Greenhaus, et al) and realized that my interests were better served by listening to them, rather than trying to tell them about something they have spent their whole lives evolving with, and singing. And I am a better singer, performer, and evolving musicologist for it. Learning from them, and adding it to my own life's experiences, has given a depth to my performances that I would have otherwise probably never gained. So, what they think is folk music, I think is folk music. Now if I could just figure out what that is...... ***chuckle***

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:17 PM

"preconceived ideas"? Here on Mudcat? Never!

Look, Shimrod, matey, me old mucker, the fact is that a timeless melody (for example) is far more specific to a folk song than, say, a tail is to a cat. Not many of the songs in today's top 40 have tunes you could hum back to yourself; whereas the vast majority of animals have tails.

"...he eventually got fired - I wonder why?"

Taken in context, this looks a little like a veiled threat. Who do you know then? Have the assembled forces of the F*** Police been dispatched to my door??

(tut, tut; that's just typical of the way these nefarious types use nefarious means to bring about their nefarious objectives. Infamy!)

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 01:16 PM

If, for the sake of argument, you wish to define folk music as song with a guitar accompaniment played in D with no amplification, that's OK. As long as you state your definition before you enter an argument. One can define folk (or any other kind of music) in terms of musical style, historic context, time period or whatever. There's NO single accepted definition for "folk'.
    Some people feel that if a song is traditional, it matters not in what style it's played or sung (Steeleye Span, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, whatever)--it's folk. Others feel that if the music is sung or played in a traditional style, it matters not whether it's recently composed or not (Fiddler's Green, Shoals of Herring). Sill others feel that if they like it, it must be folk. And some imbeciles still blather about singing horses.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 12:57 PM

"I was picking out salient features (actually identified by Brian) SPECIFIC to folk songs; very distinct identifying features IMO a good deal more unique to folk songs than having four legs and a tail is to a cat."

I can't help thinking that this is similar to the way you picked songs that you liked or approved of to put in your big "Folk Songs" box, Gene. This is not logic as we know it - it is selection. You remind me of a boss I had once, in my 'working-in-a-laboratory' days, who thought that it was OK to pick out the data which supported his preconceived ideas and to discard the rest (he eventually got fired - I wonder why?).

And what does happen to those features that you don't believe are "salient"?

I was going to go on and labour the analogy by rambling about Tasmanian Tigers and Marsupial Lions ... bit I think I'd better stop there ...

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Bert
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 12:42 PM

...how many people ....... could sing a single verse of any of those - particularly 'American Pie'...

You could say the same thing about Mattie Groves, The Nutting Girl and even Lincolnshire Poacher.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 12:36 PM

Well, I've often wished I could be wrong about something for a change, just to relieve the monotony; sadly though I'm still waiting...

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: GUEST,Suegorgeous
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 12:17 PM

(on brother's comp)

Gene - ah of course! why didn't I think of that? silly silly me!! :)

(you've got your work cut out then!) tee hee

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 11:39 AM

""songs that folks sing...right? Charlotte (one of the folks)"
Pavarotti (one of the folks)???"

never mind James, go back to sleep... I was being somewhat less than serious..

Charlotte (memo to self..no humour allowed here)

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 06:43 AM

Sorry, guys, but after a nights sleep I've figured out why it isn't. I was picking out salient features (actually identified by Brian) SPECIFIC to folk songs; very distinct identifying features IMO a good deal more unique to folk songs than having four legs and a tail is to a cat. If I'd just said everything with words and a tune was a folk song, maybe the cat analogy holds. As it is, what I said was more akin to saying, "my cat has pointed ears, says miaow, purrs when content; therefore anything exhibiting these specific features is highly likely to be a cat."

(And no, a cat doesn't necessarily have to have four legs. My aunt had one with only three legs for several years which displayed remarkable agility and often brought mice, birds etc. back to the house)

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 06:29 AM

"Not ignoring your other point about dogs and cats, Brian, just scratching my head and trying to figure out whether the analogy is accurate or meaningful-it could take me a while, and I'm off out in a minute."

Sorry to have to point this out, Gene, but Brian's analogy is very accurate and meaningful. It's your logic which is flawed!

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 03:57 AM

"songs that folks sing...right? Charlotte (one of the folks)"
Pavarotti (one of the folks)???
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 01:58 PM

(Not ignoring your other point about dogs and cats, Brian, just scratching my head and trying to figure out whether the analogy is accurate or meaningful-it could take me a while, and I'm off out in a minute).

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 01:53 PM

I heard it was Big Bill Broonzy. Whoever it was, I don't agree with them...

...no problem with the use of "Traditional" to differentiate between older folk songs with no known author and more contemporary folk songs, if it's REALLY necessary, though I tend to think the sonic difference between the two has been exaggerated. This would mean that Traditional would be a sub-genre of the genre Folk rather than Folk in its entirety.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: GUEST,The Mole Carcher's Apprentice
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 01:18 PM

"Neigh!"

I said what I said pretty much, in think, in the same vein that Louis Armstrong said what he said, about never hearing a horse sing

Charlotte(nay, I say nay, in ever decreasing circles)

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 01:04 PM

>> If the distinctive characteristics of a folk song are a beautiful melody, poetic lyrics, realism and emotional resonance, it follows that all songs displaying these characteristics are folk songs. It really is that simple.... it's called logic! <<

There is a basic logical flaw in the above. It's like saying that, because a cat has four legs and a tail, it follows that all creatures with four legs and a tail are cats. My neighbour's dog, however, still goes bow-wow and prefers bones to fish. Those characteristics are not the whole story.

At the risk of repeating what others have pointed out on various previous Mudcat threads, the word 'folksong' has changed its meaning substantially since 1954. It *used to* describe the 'songs of the folk', which were the result of certain definable processes of transmission and evolution. From the 1960s onwards, it became used commonly to describe the compositions of songwriters (Dylan, Seeger, Paxton, insert your choice of name here) writing in a genre approximating to a particular kind of North American tradition-based style. Through common usage, the term 'folksong' and 'folksinger' became so associated with what we now call 'singer-songwriters' that its definition became forever blurred, if not changed out of all recognition. Nothing intrinsically wrong about that - popular usage the way language evolves. But it did make it more difficult to talk about the thing which had previously owned exclusive rights to the term 'folksong' - which is why people started calling *that* kind of song 'traditional' instead. Just so other people would know what they were talking about.

>> We define all other musical genres primarily by what they sound like <<

Even if we are to ignore the importance of 'folk process', the songs of Dylan, of Ewan MacColl, of Jez Lowe, of George Papavgeris and all the other talented writers out there, don't actually sound very much like the songs that (for example) Cecil Sharp collected in either Somerset or the Appalachian Mountains, if you listen to them at all carefully. New and old songs can both have beautiful melodies or engaging lyrics, but they're different kinds of melodies and lyrics. Two different things, that by historical accident have co-existed (often quite happily) on the stages of folk clubs for fifty years. And to differentiate between them is not to pronounce a value judgement.

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 12:56 PM

Neigh!

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's Apprentice
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 12:53 PM

songs that folks sing...right?

Charlotte (one of the folks)

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 12:49 PM

Well, it's obvious...I say what is and isn't, and everybody else follows...(chortle)

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: GUEST,Suegorgeous
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 12:04 PM

... and yet....one tiny problem with that, Gene.....how we all gonna agree on what's beautiful, poetic, and what resonates emotionally? those things are subjective, thus different for everyone...I can see yet more endless threads!! :)

Sue
(on me work comp)

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 11:52 AM

"...the only proper reason for singing the old songs is because they're great songs. They have beautiful melodies and simple yet poetic lyrics, they speak of real life (give or take the odd dragon), they can move us to tears or laughter, and they can make the hairs rise on our necks."

I'm in 100 % agreement with this statement. It can also equally be applied to the very best of those songs written here in recent years, be they popular or even not-so-popular. If the distinctive characteristics of a folk song are a beautiful melody, poetic lyrics, realism and emotional resonance, it follows that all songs displaying these characteristics are folk songs. It really is that simple. We define all other musical genres primarily by what they sound like, not by what some guy SAID they were and weren't some time in the middle of the last century; and it is reasonable to do the same with folk. This isn't dilution or adulteration, it's called logic!

I still can't believe anybody really thinks that no folk songs were created in the twentieth century...and yet here I am, taking the bait- doh!

Subject: RE: What is a Folk Song?
From: GUEST,Suegorgeous
Date: 15 Feb 08 - 09:50 AM

Dragons are not real life??!! :0 Are we inhabiting different worlds? :)