Songs you thought were trad

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 10:48 AM

I haven't read all here and it may have been said, but someone who wrote very well in the trad style was Cyril Tawney.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: GUEST,Gordon Schofield.
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 10:47 AM

Hi there,

I have always loved the melody from 'Women of Ireland' and recently recorded my own version as a guitar instrumental. Would I be breaking the law if I now posted this recording onto a guitar player's forum or would I need permission off someone first? If so, who?

Thanks, Gordon.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 10:35 AM

Hi there,

I have an instrumental version based on the song, 'Women of Ireland' which I recorded myself as a guitar piece. I know this is not traditional but would I be allowed to post this on a guitar player's forum without being illegal?

Thanks, Gordon.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 07:49 AM

Soodlum actually claim there books contain songs sung in Ireland a minor distinction that is assumed Trad because of the lack of creditation. And then they wait for the likes of John Connolly to claim back royalties on unspecified print runs.

Still one can understand (not forgive) the assumption that Great Gran's song call Alice mumble mumble ( try Blue Gown) has at last been found (now bleached White) in a folk club, the great granchild is happy and ingorant. That doesn't stop a lot of people.

Hands up those who haven't made such a mistake, however humble when they realise?

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Sailor Ron
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 06:17 AM

Alan Bell was once in a folk club in West Yorkshire when a floorsinger announced that he got his next song from his grandfather whose own father had known the women, and then sang 'Alice White'. When it was pointed out that the author was in the audience,the singer accused Alan of being a plagurist! Also of course 'Bread and fishes' has joined Dirty old Town & Fiddlers Green in being well known Irish Traditional!

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 03:55 AM

When I went to a Canadian Folklore evening and the songsheets came out - I was amazed at the lack of credit for living authors - let alone dead ones. In the oral (aural?) tradition that situation would be de facto. But there are one or two Folk nights (on my lists) that have communal songsheets printed by themselves and nere a credit to Paxton, Hardin, Lightfoot, Donovan or even Ray Davies (yup). Dylan? Who he?

Plus ca change.

Mind you there are those that happily sing songs wot they wrote, and don't let on - hoping to score a point. Some of us come clean pretty quick though.
Now how much of the Rochester Recruiting Sargeant is conflated/composed/researched. Should we ask Pete Coe?

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: GUEST,Hellene
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 08:44 PM

At least it didn't turn out to have been written by Brendan Behan! Caught me out a few times, he has.

Interesting thought Bert. I'd have said a 'traditional' song is one that is now or has been propagated by 'folk methods' - learned in the pub, or from yer mam, or featured in a collection of popular ballads, etc - *and* which isn't also propagated by the "official" music industry process (copyright sheet music in the past, these days, recorded by the author).

This would mean that songs like Fiddlers Green, which have detatched themselves from their author, still aren't trad, because they are also propagated by the author's recordings and performances. John Dowland's Madrigals aren't trad, even though they were sung for amusement in private houses for a hundred years, and were probably often propagated by one person teaching another, because he published them in books complete with the tablature for lute accompaniment - the 'official' process of the day.

It would also mean that Brendan Behan's contributions to Irish folk music (did he write the third verse of *everything*?) ARE trad, because he never published them in anthologies like he did his poetry, he just 'let it be known' that he had - or might have - added a bit to Carrickfergus, or The Eniskillin Fusiliers, or whatever.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Bert
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 01:34 AM

Years ago Windsinger said

...It certainly begs the question of how LONG something must be in circulation (and unassociated with a known author) to be considered "traditional"...

Actually probably the opposite is closer to the truth. How SOON can a song be so assimilated by the population that it is considered traditional?

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 11:11 PM

So far as we can tell, it was written by Joseph B Geoghegan, a Lancashire music hall performer, in c.1866; though not, apparently, to the tune used nowadays. Immediately pirated by the broadside press, it achieved some currency in Ireland; where, within a few short years, it was confidently being claimed that it was an old song written there long ago. See thread  Johnny I hardly knew ya [sic].

The fact that we know (with reasonable, though not absolute, certainty) who wrote it doesn't mean that it oughtn't to be described as traditional now; but the original author ought to be credited at the same time. Geoghegan died in 1889.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: GUEST,Hellene
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 08:07 PM

Someone in this thread (Jim) said that they couldn't recall an "anti-war" trad song.

How about "Johnny I hardly knew you"

"You haven't an arm and you haven't a leg
You're an eyeless, limbless, chickenless egg
You'll have to be put in a bowl to beg
Johnny I hardly knew you"

Or does that have an author?

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: GUEST,Timo_Tuokkola
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 12:43 PM

March of Cambreadth
Kilkelly, although I believe this one is based on a stack of letters dating back to the 1800's.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 04:27 AM

This is more like one of those songs you didn't think were trad, but wished that were. "Im Pokrig Navag", by Rouben Hakhvredyan, an Armenian troubador.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: GUEST,Trev
Date: 10 Jun 08 - 09:14 AM

ooops, I stand corrected on Spancill Hill (and a nice view it is too).

Perhaps I should start a thread on songs you didn't think were trad but are...

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: trevek
Date: 10 Jun 08 - 07:59 AM

Spancill Hill, although I forget who wrote it.

I think the whole bsuiness of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" should be mentioned. Not trad at all, not about dead cheiftains and not "wimoweh".

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 08:47 PM

It looks as though the thread about the origins of the Bear Dance reached the same conclusion I did: There is no evidence that the tune existed before the 1970s.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: GUEST,Dave MacKenzie
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 08:26 PM

I'm glad I usually sing Jeannie's version of Braes of Balquidder ("The Fair of Balnafannon")

One story I like is of Christie Moore adding the Irish chorus to "Curragh of Kildare" in the early 60s, believing it was Burns song, then some time later finding out it maybe wasn't - I think it's one of the ones in Johnson's Musical Museum that crops up in Burns antholgies, so was probably one of the ones that Burns collected, and may have edited for publication. (and yes, I did think Curragh was traditional in my youth).

I never thought that "Fiddler's Green" was a traditional song, but I always saw it as sitting squarely in the "Unfortunate Rake" tradition, via "The Dying Stockman".

And I don't think I've ever heard Mr Happy sing a tradtional song.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Tootler
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 06:15 PM

Blue clicky for thread referred to above.

Origins Bear Dance

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: GUEST,Yeah
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 02:02 PM

"Subject: Origins: Bear Dance
From: Crowdercref
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 05:03 AM"

Ya might wanna check that thread.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: topical tom
Date: 09 Jun 08 - 01:56 PM

For some time I thought that "Darcy Farrow" was a traditional song.I subsequently heard Steve Gillette perform it live and learned that he had written it.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 04:45 PM

I have a CD of mostly medieval and renaissance music, titled Music to make Merrie, (English Heritage EHCD29, 2004), that includes one track called The Bear Dance. This is the air in question. The CD styles this dance "traditional", but I think it dates from the 1970s.

On the other hand, I have The Most Dulcimer, (Greehays CR70714) a CD of Jean Ritchie's (a.k.a. kytrad) which has a song called Mourning Tears. The melody is William Billings's (1746-1800) When Jesus wept, first published in The New England Psalm Singer (Boston, 1770) page 56 (in the lower right hand corner--a convenient space filler!) Yet the name of Billings nowhere appears in the sleeve notes or the disk. Possibly the reason was space. The label wanted to get everything on a single sleeve sheet, folded once, so there may have been insufficient room for detail about the origins of all the songs. But it is easy to see how someone would be misled by the scanty sleeve-notes into thinking that the air was a southern folk-air (rather than of New English origin), or was original to Jean, rather than to Billings.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 17 Mar 06 - 12:19 AM

KTRAd = Jean Ritchie? OMIGOD.

Picture me bowing down and doing the Wayn'es World "I'm Not Worthy" Routine. I worshipped Jean Ritchie as a teen in the 1980s. I pestered all my older relatives follwing them around with tape recorders and notepads making them recite lyrics.

Man oh Man - the people you see on Mudcat.


Someday I might even find that guy that used to date my older sister who wrote a song I pinched from him before his memory even faded. He played it for me in Newton Falls in 1974 or 75 and I'll be darned if I can remember his first or last name. My sister denies all memory of that summer. I recorded that song twice. I have faith I'll come across him someday because he was a solid muscian and songwriter even at the age of 17. It was a nice sad little melody with a lilt and muadlin teenage lyrics but everyone loves it when I sing it.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 16 Mar 06 - 05:35 PM

Anne - You're in good company - Brahms is reported to have been thoroughly tickled to hear a busker playing one of his pieces -

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Anne Lister
Date: 16 Mar 06 - 05:13 PM

I've been told that one of my songs (ie one of the songs that I've written) has been "collected" .... quite like that idea. I think I'll go and "collect" some of Paul McCartney's songs myself.
And I'm always fascinated to trace versions of my song "Icarus", because there are always little clues as to which performer has provided the source version.   So tradition can still work, despite all our modern technology.

Anne (Lister)

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: sharyn
Date: 16 Mar 06 - 12:37 PM

Someone above mentioned "Ned of the Hill." When I was studying Irish with a native speaker in 1976 she gave me the words to this song in Irish to learn, starting with "Ce he sin amuigh." She never gave an author. so I have always assumed that this was a traditional Irish song and "Ned of the Hill" a translation. The tune is the same. Does anyone know any differently.

The one that caught me was "Watercress O." I was disappointed that it wasn't trad.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: EBarnacle
Date: 16 Mar 06 - 12:00 PM

When Schooner Fare brought out an album including Fiddler's Green, I brought it to their attention that the author was known and still alive. I do not know whether they sent him royalty money.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 16 Mar 06 - 10:56 AM

A result of last year's server crash. Presumably you've been away for a while. If you select the "printer friendly" view option, the posts will show in the right order; though you'll lose the internal links.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Haruo
Date: 16 Mar 06 - 04:50 AM

What's with the weird dating in some of these threads? In this one Jean Ritchie posts about the melody "Nonesuch" on 23 Jan 06 but MMario replies on 23 Nov 04 (apparently to Jean's 2006 posting) "I'm ashamed to admit I don't know what lyrics you sing for 'Nonesuch'". Makes it very hard to follow the thread.

Haruo

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 16 Mar 06 - 03:12 AM

The Easter Tree

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 03:37 PM

Further muddying the waters ( & therefore, theoretically making them more attractive to Mudcats.)
Some of the best loved "Traditional" songs of my own region were the work of one named author.His name was Joe Wilson .
We still associate his songs with his name though he has been dead for over 130 years.
Contrariwise a football chant is usually the work of an unknown author(s) & in effect is passed on via the oral traditionbut may have only been written last weekend.
When does "Habit" beome "Tradition"? who decides?

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Windsinger
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 02:25 PM

Hmmm...

It certainly begs the question of how LONG something must be in circulation (and unassociated with a known author) to be considered "traditional".

Slán,

~Fionn

www.geocities.com/children_of_lir

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 02:20 PM

I recently put a lyric request on this site for "Ovingham Goose Fair"
A song which was almost certainly not written any earlier than the 70's.
In response to a point raised by BillD in an earlier post would a distinction between "Traditional" and "Long- Term popular" be helpful?
Or divisive?

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Windsinger
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 02:11 PM

People, some of them working musicians even, routinely seem to think that "Queen of Argyll" and "Ramblin' Rover" are both traditional songs.

However, Andy M. Stewart from Silly Wizard wrote both of them.

(But then, I guess it must be easier to plead ignorance than arrange to pay royalties, eh?)

Slán,

~Fionn

www.geocities.com/children_of_lir

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Barry Finn
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 02:03 PM

Thanks BB
Barry

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: BB
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 10:50 AM

Barry, the name is Martin Graebe - strange, but true! I agree, as are many other of his songs.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Barry Finn
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 01:43 AM

Years ago I used to sing "Jack in the Green" thinking it was traditional. When I started singing I did some looking into & found it had written by Martin Graeme (words & tune) but what I had known was a slightly different version than his original. A song hat's probaly on it's way into the tradition, already with different versions, way to go Martin. Graet song.
Barry

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: GUEST,Gary Satterfield, Lubbock, Texas
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 12:19 AM

I would like to find out if Arkie knows Damon Black. Some of my Satterfield's are in the Mountain View, Arkansas area. We named my grandson Jacob "Jake" Satterfield. Does anyone have the lyrics to "Jake Satterfied?" I just today received a copy of Bill & James Monroe's "Together Again" LP with the song "Jake Satterfield" on it. I was surprised to find that it's a very good song with a good beat and great lyrics.

Gary Satterfield - [e-mail]

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Nick
Date: 24 Jan 06 - 10:51 AM

Many people appear to think Dick Gaughan's Both Sides The Tweed is partially or wholly trad to judge from the comments on his website about the song.

He mentions a few others there.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: IanC
Date: 24 Jan 06 - 09:31 AM

Breezy

Shakespeare Day is April 23rd.

;-)

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 06:00 PM

Joe or whoever: I meant to indent the second four lines of the second verse. If you use these lyrics anywhere, would you please do this for me?   Thanks,   Jean

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 05:53 PM

MMario- I just reread this interesting thread, and realize that I never answered your question about my lyrics for, "None But One," which I set to the melody of, "Nonesuch," for the two stanzas and added four melody lines of my own for the refrain. The song is probably in digitrad by now, but here's my original poem. For an explanation of the turn-of-the-year "Sway," please read the liner notes on the back of the album about the time we spent at the Haxey Hood games in Lincolnshire in 1952.My poem comes from that experience:

Across the plain there moves a sway
It moves with human sound,
And some do walk and some do run-
Some crawl upon the ground;
And some do stop to help the weak,
Some trample on the others;
And some do laugh and some do weep
And all of them are brothers.

Refrain: And sounding all around the sound,
          Around and everywhere-
          And none but one can understand,
          And none but one can hear:

          I mine and I thine-
          Father, mother, son.
          I me and I thee
          And all of us are one.

I saw four travelers in a dream
All in the wind and weather;
The chain they carried in their hand
It bound them all together.
And one was yellow, one was red
And older than the others;
And one was black and one was white
And all of them were brothers.    (Repeat refrain)
© 1977 Jean Ritchie Geordie Music Publishing Co.
(lyrics by Jean Ritchie, melody trad. English, arr., wih additional
   music, by Jean Ritchie)

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Fidjit
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 04:27 PM

Joseph Baker, by Pete Coe. An idea from a 1890's broaside.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: quantock
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 03:54 PM

Tavistock Goosey Fair is one that I thought was trad for a long time. I eventually found out that it was written for a Pantomime in Plymouth in the 1920's. Does anyone know who wrote it?

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: GUEST,J.C.
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 03:17 PM

(And in case you did not know, or care, Ewan MacColl used to be Jimmy Miller.)

And Judy Garland used to be Ethel Gumm - but as you say, who cares, he was still one of the greatest singers and songwriters ever.
JC

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 11:45 AM

we are now approaching the point I have been making for 10 years here....we need to save SOME word for a certain kind of 'trad'...."Yellow Submarine" may be, indeed, learned in oral tradition by kids who were not born when everyone knew who The Beatles were, but the records and copyrights and information is stored and available. It is unlikely that the origins of Beatles songs will be lost. In this century, the mechanisms for keeping track of such things has been developed to a very high degree.

    OLD trad, however, was not like that...we know of early references to "Barbry Allen", but no absolute record of an author....and we are unlikely to even find out who 'composed' "False Knight on the Road"....Those early songs, and some other songs that came out of 'front porch singing', and not from commercial sources, often were not 'written' as much as they were shared, compared, developed, improved, lost, found, carried away in memories and reborn in new disguises. They were never copyrighted, never printed by the 'author', and there is no definitive record of the 'original' version. Beatles songs may BE learned orally and changed a bit by various singers, but it will ALWAYS be possible to look up how they were first done.

Some of us...(like me)...have a special interest in those older songs, done before sound recording was available and before anyone made official records of aothorship....so what do we CALL that genré? "Folk" music was used briefly, but the word was too useful, and was co-opted to refer to anything acoustic and vaguely not 'pop'...and now even those labels are fuzzy. If 'folk' can mean almost anything, it means nothing...and if 'trad' is to ALSO mean "anything not directly learned from the source", what must I do to refer to the body of stuff that will forever remain 'anon' (or maybe connected to a name in a footnote in some scholarly text with no other information?).

"Songs you thought were TRAD" is a useful topic, as it refers to the fact that there IS a TRAD that we can mistakenly assign songs with known authors to....we ought to preserve that distinction.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: John Hernandez
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 07:46 AM

All traditional songs started out with an author, even if that person's name is unknown today. My kids learned "We All Live in a Yellow Submarine" in day camp, along with "Polly Wolly Do All Day" and "Bingo Was His Name-O," and I think that's how most kids learn it today, not from a Beatles record and certainly not from the sheet music. Does that make "We All Live in a Yellow Submarine" a traditional song? Maybe not yet, but it's more than halfway there.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: breezy
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 06:16 AM

all songs were written by someone surely, its just that as even today some 'performers' fail to acknowledge the writers by failing to research the song properly.

Isnt that just plain rude? or ignorance?

The style of writing which has been going on for a time maybe classed as 'traditional' in style.

Tradition is only repeating something continually for a however length of time and it becoming estabbalished. - I like that , byawn again

Therefore I dont believe a 'song' can be called 'traditional', you just dont know who wrote it , but the singing of it is another matter.

We sing songs written in a traditional way in an ethnic style, i.e down our noses, nyaa !

have fun

I'm at the Anchor Byfleet on Thursday for a Burn's neet

btw, When is Shakespeare's Day ?

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 03:21 AM

Allan S must have his dates mixed up. Joan Baez recorded "Geordie" in 1962.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: cptsnapper
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 11:49 PM

I seem to remember having a conversation with Bonnie Shaljean about her hearing someone sing " Billy Reilly " & who said that it was traditional.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 10:59 PM

(about the months old question on the usual air for "Braes"...it is quite similar, but not identical, to what the McPeake family sang for "Thyme". It seems likely that they just tweaked the tune as well as the words. Their version is different enough to be able to claim 'ownership' of that version, though I have no idea what the state of copyright is on the matter.

Subject: RE: Songs you thought were trad
From: Stephen L. Rich
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 08:19 PM

Sandy Andina and I recorded a parody of "My Grandfather's Clock". We were AMAZED to find that the original had an active copyright on it!!!

Stephen Lee