Songs We're Too Cool To Sing

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 09:34 AM

I'm with you, Bob:

I can still enjoy singing Froggie Went A Courtin' and the Fox. What great lines in those songs.. Old Blue, too.

Uncool comes in many flavors. Sometimes, if you approach a song that may be generally thought of as "un-cool" as if you'd never heard it before, you can give it a fresh start and breathe new life into it. As an example, I must admit that I am terminally bored with Burl Ives version of Froggie Went A Courtin', yet Almeda Riddle's version is as whimsical and charming as the day I first heard it. Same song, some different verses and for me, a much fresher approach by Almeda. I still find myself singing King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-meo without warning, driving in the car.

Another example: Wade Mainer's version of John Henry... another chestnut roasted too long. Just the line "When the people out West heard of John Henry's Death, they couldn't hardly stay in bed," makes that song a perennial favorite of mine.

Now there's an idea for a workshop... Resuscitating old standards. I'm not quite sure how you could do that with Michael Row the Boat Ashore (Maybe a bluegrass version?) but we all could give examples of worn-out songs that sound brand new because of a different version someone came up with.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Leadfingers
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 09:49 AM

Like Jacqui c I am too old to be cool - In fact even more so 'cos she's but a slip of a girl - So I dont give a damn about what I should or shouldnt sing ! Last weekend we 'did' Wild Rover at a farmers market and someone dropped a Fiver in the case !!

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: GUEST,cluthabloke
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 10:04 AM

It's now uncool to be cool...so my daughters tell me then in the same breath say I can say "cool" but not their Mum...she doesn't say it right! Anyway, enough of that rubbish. Some of my favourite songs are listed. Many have put a coin in my pocket! Streets of London though ...well mibbe sometime in the faaar future. Never say never.
A Pizza Hut A Pizza Hut Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut...with actions of course then make up your own verses:-)

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: JulieF
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 10:04 AM

I do very well received version of the hippopotamus song.   Great fun to sing when you are in the right mood, especially if people don't know that you do it.   In keeping with my usual repotoire I introduce it as one of the few happy love songs that I sing !

J

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 10:26 AM

My mum-in-law and I have conspired to develop a playlist for my next amateur CD production, of all sloppy sentimental numbers. The CD will be called Hoke Springs Eternal.

A

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 10:29 AM

Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight-----originally inspired by the Chicago Fire of 1872.

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 10:59 AM

Me and Bobbie McGee
The Unicorn Song
Song Sung Blue
Ay! Calypso
Que Sera, Sera
Blue Velvet (and anything else by Bobby Vinton with "blue" in the title! Aaargggh!)

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Sorcha
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 12:26 PM

You Are My Sunshine
Red Wing
Arrrggghh!!! I hate them, but have to do them!

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 01:12 PM

Let's talk about the psychology of why we don't want or are uncomfortable with singing some of these "uncool" songs.

Some that work with my psyche are these:
1. I want a song I sing to come across as my own, without too great preconceptions on the listener's part--"That's not the way Joe Blow does it," or "That's not the way I learned that, back in the 60s, from PP&M. How can I sing along with you when you don't do the 'standard' version I know?" Frankly, I don't want the listener, Joe Blow, or PP&M singing in the listener's head when I'm singing.

2. The song may seem infantile, or at least juvenile, and thus my presentation dismissed. Various examples might be "Eentsy Weentsy Spider" on the one hand, or some song which was adopted (and sometimes adapted out of recognition) by the writers of grade school song books.
Recently I sang "Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill", and my wife, a school teacher, dismissed it, saying, "Oh, that's a junior high school song!"

3. Singing such a song as "Eentsy Weentsy Spider" to an adult audience, because it's such a simplistic, babyhood song, is likely to seem a put-down to the adult listener.

I am assuming in the above that the given song was originally, in its own terms, a good song, "cool" enough in its own time and to its intended audience. If it's a lousy song to begin with, the concept of coolitude doesn't even apply, seems to me.

I expect others can track some other mental/emotional reactions that make for discomfort in singing certain songs.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 01:32 PM

ego, Dave

Jerry

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 01:51 PM

Some songs I plain don't like, Kumbaya, for instance.

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 02:12 PM

And there are songs that might be thought of in some situations as "cool" but are decidely un-cool in other situations. At the workshop, I did Lone Star Trail as close as I could to the original recording on the Folkways Anthology by Ken Maynard. Even though this was at a folk festival, singing very nasaly, and playing a simple, clunky guitar accompaniment for many folks was "un-cool." But, I just like the way that Ken Maynard sang it, and it was a song I'd originally learned in Grade School as a kid. Doubly un-cool.

That's why I did it..

And I still like doing it..

singing that song, that is..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: GLoux
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 02:43 PM

59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy)

-Greg

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: kendall
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 02:54 PM

If I like it, I'm secure enough to sing it.

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 03:20 PM

If everyone is singing a song and it seems to be overdone, you might want to shelve it for awhile, but don't fall in with the "everything is disposable" mentality that modern society seems to be lumbered with. No matter how many times a good song has been sung, it's still a good song. It's not like a worn-out ball point pen. There is an infinite number of performances left in it.

When I first started singing folk songs in the early Fifties, it took awhile to find sources of songs. The first song book I picked up was a copy of A Treasury of Folk Songs compiled by John and Sylvia Kolb (drug store paperback), a nice collection of about ninety songs, including Barbara Allen, Lord Randal, Careless Love, Streets of Laredo, Froggie Went a-Courtin'—you get the idea. All old war-horses that you don't hear sung much anymore, of if you do (say, the ballads in particular), they're usually sung in some far-out, exotic version. Next was Lomax's Folk Song U.S.A., Sandburg's American Song Bag, and Dick and Beth Best's Song Fest. That was about all that was available, unless one started to dig in the local library, which I did.

Back in the Mists of Antiquity (in the early Fifties, well before the 1958 Kingston Trio recording of Tom Dooley kicked off the Great Folk Scare), in this area, a couple of folk music nuts like Sandy Paton and Walt Robertson, plus three or four others like me—whom other folks regarded as a bit weird—were constantly grubbing around trying to find songs to learn. One of our main sources was the folk music bin at Campus Music and Gallery. It contained about a dozen records, all 10" LPs:   mostly Burl Ives, one or two by Susan Reed, a Josh White or two, a couple by Richard Dyer-Bennet, one by Cynthia Gooding (wow!!), Pete Seeger's Darling Corey album on Folkways, and one by Kathleen Ferrier (opera singer) with piano accompaniment. That was what one had to draw upon for building a repertoire of songs.

I would say that about 80 or 90 percent of the songs that were being sung back then, I never hear anymore. Most of the better known ballads back then (the aforementioned Barbara Allen, for example) just aren't done anymore and a lot of the younger singers don't know them at all, and may have never even heard them (except maybe if they saw "Songcatcher").

This declaring songs "uncool" is really kinda dumb! Some time back, I came to the conclusion that, "uncool" or not, if I like a song and feel impelled to learn it and sing it, I'll go right ahead. The principles I operate on are to use my own arrangements but don't do anything freaky or cute with the song to try to make it "new and interesting;"   just sing the standard version and try to do it the best I can. Put it across as is. Just sing it well.

I got all five of the Mudcat "Blue Plate Special" CDs some time back, and, among other things, I took special note of Sandy Paton's beautiful, straight-forward rendition of When You and I Were Young, Maggie—which is an old "parlor song." And it got me noticing other songs of that general type, such as Home, Sweet Home. I also started taking a good look into Stephen Foster songs. Good stuff, really. And although there have been threads here trashing such songs as The Fields of Athenry, as far as I know, nobody around here does it, so I learned it and I sing it. And people ask me to sing it. So there!!

Declaring songs "uncool"—now that's really uncool! If a few self-styled super-sophisticated snobs sit there and roll their eyes, that's their hang-up.

If you like it, sing it!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 04:07 PM

Jerry Rasmussen said:

ego, Dave

Jerry, I'm not really sure what you meant by that, but if you're suggesting that my ego involvement is showing, you're pretty damn close to right.

Singing for an audience is life's-blood to me, and there's no question that it's an exercise of the ego. I make no apologies for it.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Hamish
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 04:35 PM

Johnny Silvo does loads of "uncool", but, because he means it, it's great!

And, hey, Poppagator, I've done Michael Row the Boat Ashore lots of times. And recently. It works. Just about. Usually.

I did a phase of Seekers kitsch, but I'm cured now, although they used to go down well. But they were definitely camped up and not meant.

I did Don't it Make my Brown Eyes Blue (great song!) and Stand by your Man last night. But only in the break. I don't think that counts.

I hate "cool". There were those of my generation who were too cool to like The Sweet's Ballroom Blitz. And then there were those who transcended cool to know a good song when it smacked them around the place!

Now I'm old enough to not care if I'm cool. Does that count as cool? (And I don't want any replies from people who actually know me!)

Hamish

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 06:08 PM

To my ageing and often irrational way of thinking, there are few musical joys more worthwhile than sneaking a version of an "uncool" song up on people, when they´re not looking (or listening, more correctly). It´s a question of shifting the angle of the prism slightly so that the light comes from a different direction. Good parodies of great songs are one way of doing it - but often, in fact, its just a matter of tune, time or voice selection. Hearing the silence develop is the reward.

Regards.

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 06:12 PM

hmmmm.. maybe "Done Laid Around" and "Home on the Range" and "Banks of the Ohio" and "Katie Cruel" and "Farther Along" and........ ahem..."Managua, Nicaragua".......no doubt 40 more.

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 06:33 PM

Matt R:

Cast's version of "Auld Lang Syne" UNcool? No, no, no. (Although their rendetion of "Kilkenny" can get tiresome.) Guy Lombardo's version is the uncool one, although as I get older, I'm a lot more inclined to cut old Guy a little slack.

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 07:01 PM

My choice for burnt fingers uncool?

Tommy Steel's   "Little White Bull"


No contest.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: mandoleer
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 07:03 PM

Saints was regarded as cool by a bunch of young Liverpool girls playing it on recorders (two playing tambourines at the same time!) and a snare drum when they brought the house down at St George's Hall in a BBC Music Live concert. The other schools taking part didn't know you could SWING with recorders... (Another fond memory of that concert is asking the bus driver for 'One and eleven halves' on the way down...). Apart from which, I regularly join in with Athenry and don't care. In my opinion (very far from humble), those who worry about being cool aren't. Those that just don't care what people think are far cooler. Cool is what you can get away with. Cool is being a leader not a follower. Cool is doing what seems cool to you at the time - and not worrying about it. (My bike has been described as 'cool' by kids with very modern shiny machines - it's of uncertain age, is lime green and day-glo orange and has a grey and purple luggage compartment at the rear - which amuses me somewhat.)

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 07:58 PM

No, no, no, no,no,no,no Dave. You asked what others reasons there are that people don't do "uncool" songs. Ego is certainly one of them. I didn't mean you. 'SFar as I know you are not at all an egotistical person. There was a time in my life when I would have avoided certain songs because I thought that I wouldn't look good performing them. My ego. When most of us start out as a performers, we're insecure enough that we don't do songs that we feel might make us look bad. Some of that is healthy... a recognition of the audience and their taste. But some of it is fragile ego. As the years go by, most of us realize that we are pretty much who we are, and there's no need to try to impress anyone, our present ourselves as someone we aren't. The "cool" becomes irrelevant.

A reminder... I started this thread because of a workshop I was in. I thought it was a good reminder that a good song is a good song, and there's no sense in trying to appear cool.

Either you got it or you don't got it, baby!

Jerry

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Snuffy
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 08:29 PM

I do lots of "uncool" stuff, just because I like the songs and it feels good to sing them:
Wild Rover
Athenry
Black & White
Nobody's Child
She Wears Red Feathers
Barbara Allen
Where Have All The Flowers Gone
I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen

etc, etc ad nauseam

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Hamish
Date: 23 Jun 05 - 02:21 AM

Oh, and Nellie the Elephant. That works!

But who said Katy Cruel? That's a staple of mine and others of greater renown. It never occurred to me that that might be uncool   ~8^?

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 23 Jun 05 - 06:24 AM

Listen pal, if you sing ' Little White Bull ' I shall be forced to kill you.

eric

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Snuffy
Date: 23 Jun 05 - 09:20 AM

Oh yes, Nellie The Elephant. And what about Lily The Pink?

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 23 Jun 05 - 09:31 AM

Recorder and tambourine, is that like a modern pipe and tabor?

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: GUEST,Huw Richards
Date: 23 Jun 05 - 11:02 AM

In one of Terry Prachett's Discworld books he describes the final test for Novices to become fully fledged 'Monks of Cool". They are taken into a place with all possible types of clothing and to say which is the coolest. The correct answer is "Whatever I choose to wear".

Mind you, I refuse to sing "swallowed a peanut" and one or two other songs - but generally it is because for me they are linked with some unpleasant memory.

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Janice in NJ
Date: 23 Jun 05 - 12:08 PM

Almost all the songs made the "uncool" list because they have been done over and over again so many times, and for a very good reason: they are good songs!

I am not afraid to say that among the songs I often perform are...
Long Black Veil
The Midnight Special
Sloop John B.
Charley on the MTA
Irene, Good Night
If I Had a Hammer
Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
Blowing in the Wind
The House of the Rising Sun
and horror of horrors...
This Land is Your Land.
I guess that makes me very uncool.

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 23 Jun 05 - 12:31 PM

Yes, Kumbaya and Michael Row the Boat Ashore are real challenges. I happen to like "Michael" very much. Not easy to sing though. I go back to the Bahamian original and it's still hard to fight the rompin', trompin' Pete Seeger-led cliche. I like Pete a lot and it's not his fault, but everyone has imitated him and it's very difficult to subtract the banjo swing from the song. A capella is one way into it, but I still have to get the arrangement out of my mind. Which for me means I must sing it differently. Not easy.

Sometimes it's possible to break a song arrangement cliche by using an unfamiliar instrument such as thumb piano, bodhran, or hell, sweet potato. Or just banging on a bucket or a salad bowl upside down. (Gee maybe I should try "Michael" on a slide whistle.)

Kumbaya: first time I heard it, it was no cliche. It's hard to remember now, but I was entranced by the mysterious syllables and the tune I'd never heard before. It quickly became cheesy and drippy-sounding to me (largely through really bad monotone group-singing, which causes the song to sag like a Dali watch). But though I admit I don't sing this one, really never did, still I can partly recapture the initial feeling.

Every song---yes, EVERY song, no matter how banal---has a mystery at its core. If you can penetrate to that mystery, that song will sing itself for, and through, you. Or at least that's my experience.

Hey you guys, great discussion of an intriguing topic, and harpgirl, thanks... it's getting more fun to be uncool every minute.

Bob

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 23 Jun 05 - 12:47 PM

One related thought...

I have, I'm sure we all have, felt the sag in spirits when the clamor arises for some song everybody dotes on and it's pretty unworthy. Especially if it's off my personal song map.

I used to hate people saying "Sing Tell Me Why" (as in "the ivy twines"). Of course the perverse comeback is to sing the Stoneman Family version of "Spanish Merchant's Daughter" (Oh No John variant), which starts with the same three li'l wordz.

It can be unbearable, as noted above, when "Tom Dooley" is all the rage, to be asked to sing that. Ugh ugh ugh, drags me down just to think of it. I love Tom Dooley, without the cutesies...I sing it in the Grayson and Whitter version. But to be asked to blat out what everyone else is blatting out at this very moment is just degrading to any singer.

Maybe that's why it's so great that folk just now is the farthest thing from pop exposure, and the better for it.

That is nothing, though, against the song. "Tom Dooley" survived the Kingston Trio, and "The Fox" will survive Nickel Creek, and so on and on.

So maybe the real question isn't necessarily "Songs we're too cool to sing," but "How to elude getting trapped in a song craze while it's going on, so you can survive to sing the very same song in a new context after the hoopla dies down."

Um...having said all those brave words in previous messages, I gotta admit "Scarlet Ribbons" makes me ill. But that may be because a college roomie played it to death and I couldn't get away from it. (In other words, it's tied to a bad experience, to quote a comment above.)

La la la la.

Bob

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: Pseudolus
Date: 23 Jun 05 - 02:33 PM

Exactly right celtaddict, it even took me two days to respond to the welcome back!! HA!

Frank

Subject: RE: Songs We're Too Cool To Sing
From: GUEST,Clutha
Date: 23 Jun 05 - 03:19 PM

The "Tom Dooley" post is most un-cool ; listen to Doc Watson's version & description of the original.