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History and Folk Music
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: GUEST,Stavanger Bill Date: 13 Dec 01 - 04:48 AM Good thread Lots of songs dealing with historical events are written retrospectively. Below I have listed some examples of 'things historical' as explained by children in answer to some short tests - taking these as 'gospel' I would love to hear some of the songs that might be written as a result: 1. Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert. The climate of the Sarah is such that all the inhabitants have to live elsewhere. 2. Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada. 3. Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines. 4. The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth. 5. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline. 6. In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled biscuits, and threw the java. 7. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out: "Tee hee, Brutus." 8. Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was canonized by Bernard Shaw. 9. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted "hurrah." 10. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. Sir Francis Drake circumsized the world with a 100-foot clipper. 11. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couple. Romeo's last wish was to be laid by Juliet. 12. Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained. 13. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backward and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead. 14. Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. They believe the assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career. 15. Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large. 16. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this. 17. The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered the radio. And Karl Marx became one of the MarxBrothers. |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Steve Parkes Date: 13 Dec 01 - 03:48 AM Aha! Just found this account fo the Alabama. (And there are some interseting and pertinent questions at the end.) It was 1864, which just goes to show you shouldn't believe everything you sing! Steve |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Steve Parkes Date: 13 Dec 01 - 03:36 AM I think songs, like novels, can give you a feel for what it was like to live in a particular time or place or situation, like getting a postcard from a far-away friend. It's not necessarily accurate, but it's very atmospheric. "History" is written by academics, but accounts of land and sea battles (before tv and radio) are largely based on the on-the-spot notes written as it happened by officers taking part, even to the point of the exact time of each event; the various accounts would later be combined into the official account. I've been singing "Alabama" for a good many years (without knowing much about the actual events until relatively recently), andf I've always ended with "Off the three-mile limit in 'sixty-five/The Alabama went to her grave". A couple of weeks ago someone said he'd learned it as "Off the three-mile limit in 'sixty-four/The Alabama went to the ocean floor"! (BTW, how should I pronounce "Kearsage"?) Steve |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: marty D Date: 13 Dec 01 - 01:05 AM Well I learned that 'Johnny Yuma was a rebel'. Davey Crockett killed him a 'bar when he was only three. The prettiest girls live in Abilene. And the most startling bit of information about the Green Berets that I could ever imagine. Who would have guessed that they were "Fearless Men who Jump and Die"? History be damned, give those poor guys some parachutes so that SOME of them can land in one piece. marty |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 13 Dec 01 - 12:47 AM On the other side of the water, I guess the English were still calling the Americans rebels. If they hadn't abandoned the 1812 effort ??? (Is Jack from "Over There"?) Only bad historians repeat other historians. Good ones are always looking for new sources. |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: dick greenhaus Date: 12 Dec 01 - 11:44 PM It's been said that folksong is often incorrect, but is always true. Probably more than you can say about history. "history doesn't repeat itself; historians repeat other historians" |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Big Red Date: 12 Dec 01 - 10:56 PM I'm suprised nobody called Jack the Sailor on his comment about :rebels" at the battle of New Orleans. The battle was in the War of 1812 and involved the U.S. and the British. |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 12 Dec 01 - 10:52 PM Aa lot of histories I've looked at ain't histories a tall a tall- they are a string of biographies of the important people that "make" history. Very little is said about the people who either support or hate the "great man." Anecdotal history, old broadsides, diaries, etc. flesh out the story. But evrything is open to argument. I did some bad stuff also, inc. a totally wrong whom. |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: catspaw49 Date: 12 Dec 01 - 10:05 PM Geeziz...I gotta' pruufreed.....Drake is noW a Professor of History Emeritus and the history is of Appalachia, not -ian. Any others forgive me.... Spaw |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: catspaw49 Date: 12 Dec 01 - 10:02 PM Dicho, you're now getting to it. Great post Art BTW... Sandy wrote to me the other day about a new book by a Berea College professor, asking if I'd known him, and indeed I had. Richard Drake was a history prof at Berea (noe emeritus) and has written a history of Appalachian. In talking to Sandy about him, I remembered (and his book seems to reflect the same thing) that history must be seen through as many "lenses" as possible and that many well known books simply approach history from a particular angle. Most are told in terms of politics and wars and economies, but Drake felt that the many aspects of sociological history, such as folklore or geography for instance, could not be ignored as they often were as equally compelling as anything else. We've had many talks here about "history and Hollywood" and frankly you can't learn history there at all....nor can you learn it through folk music. Equally, you cannot learn it through many oft quoted texts because, in the final analysis, all history is philosophy. A folk song contemporary to it's time provides two things. It gives us an additional "lens" and from it we may spark an interest in a thing which leads us to better research and hence, better history. Were it not for the songs, there is much we would never hear about or know about many years later. We cannot accept them as fact as they are simply a view, but an important one. Same as Hollywood, if they trigger further investigation or enhance the awareness.......well friends, that ain't all bad. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 12 Dec 01 - 09:45 PM History is never a matter of a particular book or single historian. It is the interplay of available sources. I think that is why history gets a bad rep in the schools. The survey books used in the primary and secondary schools today are often cobbled together from secondary sources of little merit. I devour folk lyrics, but they must be treated with many grains of salt as far as accuracy is concerned. |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: nosluap57 Date: 12 Dec 01 - 09:35 PM A chronicle of Irish history in song: http://home.t-online.de/home/shamrockshire/ireland/A_History_of_Ireland_in_Song.html BTW- how do I make that link active? Link added - for instructions, see the Mudcat FAQ. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: GUEST,Wyrdsister Date: 12 Dec 01 - 09:33 PM What's interesting about the fact that history often gets distorted in "popular" media such as folk music, it also gets pretty wacky in the hands of the "official chroniclers" as well. Certainly at least until the Reformation, much history was recorded for posterity by clerics, who had their own particular reasons for portraying events and personalities in a particular light (William Rufus in the 11th century comes especially to mind--no great patron of the Church and an essentially irreligious man by the standards of his day, his portrait was pretty unflattering as painted by contemporary chroniclers; ditto King John in the less-than-objective journalistic hands of Matthew Paris 100 years later!). The other major faction of chroniclers tended to be literate Court writers (also with clerical backgrounds; "lay" clergyman) like the brilliant Jean Froissart, who wrote for posterity but also for personal advancement, and even literary geniuses like Chaucer and Boccaccio, writing fiction and verse that paints a vivid picture of their impressions of their times. In any case, how much of the actual facts of any given situation are represented is really anybody's guess. I'd guess that the versions of events recorded in folk music are probably as accurate a reflection of the popular view of events as the chronicles are of the viewpoint of the more literate elements of society. |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Susanne (skw) Date: 12 Dec 01 - 09:20 PM Even though folk songs may not be an accurate source of history (which history book is?), they make history and also sociology come alive. For me they were the starting point for finding more info about events I might never have bothered with otherwise. They did not so much teach me as instil the wish to learn more, which is the basis for any successful teaching. |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 12 Dec 01 - 09:04 PM Yes, a lot depends on point of view; as Gareth says, Arnold is a good example. Afterwards he lived in New Brunswick, among Loyalists who moved north. Of course, they were all renegades to the people south of the border. His plan was not so much betrayed but stopped by dissention among those who were to surrender in the deal. Benjamin Franklin spent time in Montreal trying to get the sympathy of the inhabitants- even set up a press there, but unfortunately the Colonial troops in the region, without real leadership, were a bunch of drunkards and looters, so he left empty-handed. Otherwise, the area of the initial United States might have been larger. I agree with Art Thieme up to a point. The songs reflect the passions and the humor of whoever wrote them, and those whom were like-minded, but may not have reflected any concensus. They may be documents but they must be interpreted within the context of history. Unfortunately, much of our primary school history teaching reflects the current bias of the teacher and the views of the people in the area where the school is located. More considered viewpoints are obtained only at the university level or in individual study. Songs do reflect areas, but only to a certain extent. The area of old songs was, as you say, in the southern mountains, but also in the piedmont and coastal areas, where people settled early and stayed. The cowboys of legend worked from Mexico to the Dakotas and Montana, moving Mexican and Texas cattle to the railheads and to the Indian agency camps (the real area of the buffalo hunters on the old Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho lands mentioned in the "Buffalo Skinners"). Bias and ignorance causes us to overlook the area and songs of the vaqueros in our southwest as well as the early cowboys in Louisiana (Acadian, largely). Mexican beef was regularly supplied to the drives. The earlier lumbering songs would be from the area running NE-SW paralleling the east coast from eastern Canada to Alabama and Mississippi, west to the Ohio River and south to the pines in the sandy soils of east Texas. Nowadays we think only of cutting in the coniferous areas in the northern tier of states and the surviving west coast forests. "The Pinery Boy" is more a song of the raft, barge and boat people of the river and lake systems who moved cut timber among other materials. Our oldest known lumbering songs come largely from New England. The northeastern area, including Ontario and Quebec, remained harvestable for white pine and other timber until about 1900. |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Deckman Date: 12 Dec 01 - 07:42 PM ... right back to you, Art. You are so right. I suspect that you and I are somewhat the same vintage, but i suspect I'm a bit older. Actually, these days I suspect that I'm a bit older than everyone! Anyway, I do enjoy your post so much. As any dedicated folksinger, i too have spent time in the classrooms attempting to connect the songs with the kids, or the kids with the songs. I actually prefer to think that the folk songs we revere (sp?) are perhaps more accurate in the tale telling than that which we observe today on the the history channel. etc. As you might be able to tell, I'm NOT a fan of tv. For example, if you want to really understand what the women went through on the western migration, you only have to read their diarys and learn their songs. Their stories are true ... the decades later tv representations are not. Don't ever forget that ther real purpose of tv is to sell soap! Again, I so appreciate your postings. CHEERS, Bob |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Willa Date: 12 Dec 01 - 07:29 PM Giok, I agree with you, whilst acknowledging that some other comments about 'incorrect history' are true. I've recently learnt'The Testimony of Patience Kershaw', 'Sing John Ball',and 'St.Peter's Field', amongst others, and in each case went to find background information about the events of the song. |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Gareth Date: 12 Dec 01 - 07:12 PM History tends to be distorted. As it happens by way of a little light entertainment I was reading The Oxford History of England Volumn GOK "From Domesday Book to Magna Carta 1087 - 1216" today whilst recovering from the Flu. Different version of history regarding King John and Magna Carta than the simplified version. But that's by the way. With regard to the CSS Alabama click here: ROLL ALABAMA ROLL But at best it is a simplified version of a complex history. On the question of Folk Music and History see this thread Click here
On the subject of Folk Memories - They can be distortion, and grossly inaccurate. The fact is Churchill gave orders that Cavalry was to be used, Haldane the Army minister countermanded those orders and substituted The Somerset Regiment (Infantry) who were told to go and keep the peace. Please see this post for some more background.
A minor point - but it shows how matters have been distorted.
AS Another example (depending upon your point of view) Now which version is correct ???? Gareth (in Inoclastic mood) And what is treason? - Merely a matter of dates! |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Art Thieme Date: 12 Dec 01 - 07:03 PM In some other posts on other threads I've mentioned that for 22 years I did workshops in schools in the six-county area around Northern Illinois. These focused on how folksongs were a time machine that let us hear what the people, all over, might've thought about their spot on the map at a certain point on the timeline. The songs zeroed in on their own geographical area. They were not always accurate history representations but, like tall tales, they made fun of or highlighted aspects of real life while blatantly being obviously outright lies. The songs reflected the way things were as well as the way people WANTED things to be. To reinforce this lesson, I handed out maps of the U.S.A. divided into 5 zones. The students colored in the south (red for heat), West (yellow for arridity), midwest (green for crops), eastern seaboard (blue for the ocean)and the west coastal area (whatever-I can' tremember). Instead of placenames on the land I'd written the names of FOLKSONGS that had been born on or near that location. "The Buffalo Skinners" was over Texas--as were other cowboy songs. "The Pinery Boy" and other lumbecamp songs were written over the Northern tier of states. Old timey songs were generally over the southern mountains. Etc, etc. etc. For me,these songs are REAL DOCUMENTS---not on a textbook page but in the vernacular of the folks that lived through the events. Yes, REAL folk songs and history cannot be separated. Art Thieme
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Crabtree Date: 12 Dec 01 - 05:59 PM re the alligator - i think he was a bit surprised too!!!!! |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 12 Dec 01 - 05:41 PM Lizzie Borden was acquited. Stanley Holloway, the great historian? Folklore ain't history. |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Kim C Date: 12 Dec 01 - 05:01 PM Okay, I might get shot for this, but.... The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. There's also a song somewhere about the Alabama and the Kearsarge. |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: GUEST,Les B. Date: 12 Dec 01 - 04:58 PM Jack the Sailor - just goes to show that learning history from folk songs can sometimes be a crock ! |
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Subject: RE: History and Folk Music From: Jack the Sailor Date: 12 Dec 01 - 04:55 PM I was surprised to learn that the rebels used an alligator for a cannon during the "Battle of New Orleans" |
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Subject: History and Folk Music From: John MacKenzie Date: 12 Dec 01 - 04:47 PM While successfully remembering the answer to a history question on a TV quiz game the other night, I realised that I had garnered the info from a folk-song. It then struck me that I have learnt a lot of history and historical facts from this source, from way back when a song about Lizzy Borden was popular. Recitations of the Stanley Holloway monologue about the signing of Magna Charta, a song about Maria Martin, and various shanties about press gangs,transportation,and the cargoes they carried round the world in the days of sail. Add to these the songs about famous or notorious people, and it all begins to take on the mantle of education, as much as entertainment. I daresay this is not an original conclusion, but I'd like to hear what the Mudcatters think on this theme. Failte.....Jock |
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