OK occupations for folksingers.

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: DoctorJug
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 10:15 AM

Grave digger.

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 25 Sep 06 - 06:37 AM

But in one of his songs, he was "going to give up barging and take a farm"! Bit of a Hobson's choice, seeing what's happened to both industries!
And Davy Steele had the same idea in "Farewell to the Haven" - "the drifters I'm leaving to work on the land".

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Barry Finn
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 05:05 PM

Bob Roberts was a reporter, I believe, before he became the "singing bargeman". I guess he wanted to be a folksinger & went for an occupation that fitted his calling. Now, will someone just please buy me a sailing barge?

Barry

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Barry Finn
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 04:59 PM

Ya Chance, when the job gets in the way of music, give up the job.

Barry

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 04:20 PM

Who cares anyway? One of the great things about folk music is that it's a great leveller and classless, and probably the last thing anyone talks about is what their day job is. My profession has only been mentioned once above, and I usually keep quiet about it as I'm off duty when I'm folking. It sometimes features in my songs, which may give the game away.
I also do some song-writing but don't have the background that some folk have to write a cutting edge song - miners, ship-builders, oil-riggers, shepherds, etc. My Dad was an insurance man, but I've still managed to write a song about it!

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 04:02 PM

Folksingers work?

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Scoville
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 04:01 PM

besides it takes time away from my guitar playing...

Sigh. I know.

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Fortunato
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 11:27 AM

what's all this about occupation? I'm against it on principle.

besides it takes time away from my guitar playing...

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: skipy
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 10:36 AM

Bra fitter !
Skipy

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Uncle Phil
Date: 22 Sep 06 - 09:44 AM

A landsman, a pinsman, a tinker or a tailor,
A doctor, a lawyer, a soldier or a sailor,
A rich man, a poor man, a fool or a witty...

but no gamblers, no crap shooters, no midnight ramblers.

On second thought, midnight rambler sounds like a pretty good job.
- Phil

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: growler
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 05:46 PM

Weelittledrummer, no I havn't written any songs, I was too busy being shat upon

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 11:41 AM

Bearing in mind the recent revelations about cowboys, I would humbly suggest that women are probably far safer out on the range with a few wranglers than anywhere near a bailiff, a poacher or taxidermist...

LTS

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Scoville
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 11:01 AM

Yeah, you can laugh at those librarians until you need some reference help to track down variants of Child ballads. I also have a friend who, while not a librarian, works for a library and has made friends with the people who select the music acquisitions. Power where it counts, my friends.

Most of the traditionally-acceptable folksinger occupations--cowboy, lumberjack, miner, engineer, hobo, convict--are either pretty outdated or are particularly hazardous for women, so I've had to settle for being one of those derided librarians. Well, sort of. I work in an archive (but I have to carry heavy boxes around, if that makes it more acceptable). I could probably take up one of the female folksong trades but most of them seem to be arrestable offenses. I've been a dishwasher and vet tech in the past and actually did come up with some song parodies about those.

I know one guy who's a lawyer and another who's a judge. I think they're more folksingers and heart; the J.D.'s just the meal tickets.

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: GUEST,Japanese Research Ship Owner
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 09:17 AM

whaler

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: GUEST,squeezeme
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 09:15 AM

Rag and Bone man....

Any one remember Harry H Corbett???

MC

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Willie-O
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 09:10 AM

OK, so a quantity surveyor is a faintly anachronistic title for what we in North America would refer to as a construction estimator/project manager. Or a general contractor. Depending on scale.

To get back to the thread topic, it's ironic that it's so difficult to combine most traditional-song-occupations with a musical career.

Cause basically you want a day job that pays well and doesn't take too much out of you, located in a fairly densely populated area but without a high cost of living.

Cowboying, sailoring, lumbering, etc don't really make the grade although they are well worth doing on their own merits.

I guess we're stuck with the 21st century despite ourselves.

W-O

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Crystal
Date: 21 Sep 06 - 05:37 AM

Flash girl
Flash Lad
Salt Sea Sailor
Female Drummer boy
Queen (of either sex)
Lady fair/gay

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Sep 06 - 10:23 AM

Prison officer sounds interesting Growler, did you write any songs about it?

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Betsy
Date: 20 Sep 06 - 10:07 AM

Derek Brimstone has been a Taxi Driver, Vin Garbutt an Apprentice Fitter and Turner , but worked mostly in fashioning steel in a Lathe . Someone once told me that Dave Burland was a copper ( policeman ) Mike harding was, I believe, a teacher and did Martin Carthy start out as an actor?.A couple of the Original Dubliners had been municipal gardeners in Middlesbrough

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: frogprince
Date: 19 Sep 06 - 02:03 PM

Maybe it's the woman's own damn fault, if she's foolish enough to be in a folk song!

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Vixen
Date: 19 Sep 06 - 09:06 AM

For women, along with Vielleuse's list of "pretty fair maid, single mother, nagging wife or prostitute" and going in drag after one's lover, there's also:

Lady Mary, "so cold and so strange"
Reilly's daughter (sweetheart of the battalion)
Molly Malone (fishmonger)
Darlin' Cory (moonshiner and gunslinger)
Darlin' Nellie Gray (the beloved taken against her will)
John Reilly's beloved (faithful beyond all reason)

Unfortunately, an awful lot of women, regardless of occupation, end up murder victims in folksongs...
V

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: GUEST,Ruston Hornsby
Date: 19 Sep 06 - 05:15 AM

Recalling what somebody said in another thread, the most important thing regarding jobs as far as professional folk singers are concerned is that they have a partner who has a well paid one....

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Paul Burke
Date: 19 Sep 06 - 03:47 AM

A quantity surveyor was a specialist in estimating the size of the 1960s supermodel Mary Quant's breasts, or Quant titties. As you will see from the picture, this was a highly skilled occupation.

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 19 Sep 06 - 12:50 AM

Anyone remember singer and banjo player John Hasted ? he was Brittains leading nuclear phycisist.

eric

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: growler
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 05:38 PM

I was a prison officer for 26 years, and a folk singer formost of them

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 01:24 PM

Vielilleuse:

Thanks for the Intelligence. Me and 't whippets 'll bear it in mind if we come down to 't Smoke for a grand day out.

Do you know the queen?

Me and 't whippets has been watching that Folk Brittanial thing and it looks like them pinko b*****s has taken over the whole World of Folk whatever that is. When we come down to Londeon I think we'll call in at MI5 and ask for a job suitable for a folk singer like me, catching pinkos and the like. Perhaps you could call round at MI5's place and let him know I'll be coming.

Isn't it funny how spies have codenames like that. I wonder if MI6 is his brother.

Provincially yours

Jim

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: pdq
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 12:12 PM

Sam Hinton is a marine biologist, now retired.

John Jackson was a grave digger and a true craftsman, the corners and sides of the grave were always sharp and straight.

Dave Van Ronk was once employed to paint the eye spots on Mickey Mouse dolls!

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 11:57 AM

Pensioner.

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Betsy
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 11:57 AM

For Quantity Surveyor - Google - George Corderoy - Q.S.-ing has been around a long time.

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Partridge
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 11:33 AM

Honest Labourer

pat x

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Scrump
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 11:30 AM

Merry Ploughboy, Blackleg Miner, Four Loom Weaver, Shurat Weaver, House Carpenter, Little Beggarman, Drunken Maiden, Drunken Tackler, Champion Dung Spreader, Poor Poor Farmer, Rochdale Masher, Manchester Rambler, Wild Rover, Rambling Rover, Jolly Undertaker.

(I made one of those up - can you tell which it was?)

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: JennyO
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 11:23 AM

The Shiny Bum Singers have turned their jobs as public servants into a very successful folk act. All their songs, which they write themselves, are about aspects of the public service.

The Shiny Bum Singers are a vocally inspiring and visually entertaining group of mostly public servants (some have been outsourced), who sing their own wicked parodies about the Australian Public Service. Founded in the a capella tradition - guitars, keyboards, bouzoukis, ukuleles and even guitar cases are now strummed, picked, plucked, beaten and stroked to accompany inspired lyrics, brilliant humour and shambolic choreography. Based in Canberra, the Australian bush capital, they have performed to packed houses at the Australian National Folk Festival in recent years. They have toured extensively around Canberra, regional New South Wales and Victoria, and played to enthusiastic audiences in Sydney's top folk venues.

These days their act has been getting more visual, with one song involving them doing a little morris-type dance while whacking keyboards across each other. What a perfect blending of occupations!

They will be appearing with John Dengate this Saturday night - "Songs of Sedition" at Sydney's Loaded Dog Folk Club. I'll be there, with bells on, as they say!

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Flash Company
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 10:23 AM

Am I the only one to make the connection Quantity Surveyor/Richard Stilgoe?
RS wrote a folk song parody which went (from memory) something like this :-

A Quantity surveyor in a public bar did sit,
He wore an Arran sweater, a great big chunky (k)nit,
He supped a nervous pint of ale because he knew e'er long,
He had to sing the Folk Club in the public bar a song!

Hi me roo collapsum roarem,
Hi me roo fa lay oh,
Fol dol riddle diddle, diddle iddle I doh,
Diddlin all the day oh!

Just then two more Surveyors came walking in the bar,
One pulled a banjo from a case, the other a guitar,
They sang a brisk sea shanty, each Arran sweatered man,
As only three town dwelling Quantity Surveyors can!

Hi me roo collapsum roarem,
Hi me roo fa lay oh,
Fol dol Riddle diddle, sea sick in a row boat,
Keep the waves away oh.

That night they made a solemn vow to go full time a-playing,
To travel round the folk clubs and go no more surveying,
They played a score of choruses, they drank too many beers,
And they sang in funny voices with their hands behind their ears!

Hi me roo collapsum roarem,
Hi me roo fa lay oh,
Fol dol riddle diddle nine pints tiddly,
Real ale rules OK oh

The moral of this little song, if moral there be any,
Is men who go folk-singing always sing one verse too many,
The reason is, we're all afraid that someone might betray us,
And make us all go back to being Quantity Surveyors!

Hi me roo collapsum roarem,
Hi me roo fa lay oh,
Fol dol riddle diddle, Fothergill and Harvey,
Quantity Survey-OH!

I did sing it once, people threw things at me!
FC

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Effsee
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 10:17 AM

W-O, from Wikipaedia:- A Quantity Surveyor (QS) is a professional person working within the construction industry. The role of the QS is, in general terms, to manage and control costs within construction projects and may involve the use of a range of management procedures and technical tools to achieve this goal.

The profession developed during the 19th century from the earlier "Measurer", a specialist tradesman (often a guild member), who prepared standardised schedules for a building project in which all of the construction materials, labour activities and the like were quantified and against which competing builders could submit priced tenders. Because the tenders were each based on the same schedule of information, they would be easily compared to find the most suitable candidate.

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Genie
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 10:06 AM

Based on the lyrics and number of verses to many "folk songs," I'd say:

navel contemplator
autobiographical journalist
and
natural insomnia cure(r)

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Willie-O
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 09:39 AM

Um, so is a quantity surveyor a construction estimator then? Or some kind of forensic follow-up who determines what became of the materials ordered?

W-O
Still baffled, and there's no sport in that

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Mooh
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 09:34 AM

Gravedigger, janitor, the wrongly convicted, Peter Amberley (sp?)...

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Ross
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 08:49 AM

Quantity Surveyor - it's like being an accountant but you only ever get to work with building related items - counting bricks to earn money, pleaing for money, refusing to pay money, falling out with people over money, making fancy diagrams to illustrate if there is any money/where there night be money/if it's spent wisely (or foolishly)/or where the money has gone, explaining why every thing is late and you need more money, demanding money with menaces (I'll sing at you), bathing in money, being nice to people who are never nice to you in case there is money in it and trying to avoid money with sexual malice aforethought

That's why I go to folk clubs - it's the same

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: GUEST,Folkie.
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 08:16 AM

Quantity surveyors, Social workers, Failed musicians, Drunks, Lepers, Half wits, Billy no mates'es, Social pariahs etc.

Good god!! I fit the bill to a tee...!!!

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: HuwG
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 06:17 AM

roughyed and suzanne (skw), Stuart Thompson has indeed been a rat-catcher, in Lancashire.

I last saw Stuart last week, showing off a mandola he had made himself. The sound board came from an old chest of drawers, the neck from a table leg, and so on. It sounded magnificent.

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: GUEST,jOhn
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 05:37 AM

Taxi driver

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Paul Burke
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 04:24 AM

Weaver, preferably with four looms.
Coalminer (preferably dead).
Ploughboy (jovial or whistling).
Poteen distiller.
Doffer, or mistress of one.
Jolly Jack Tar or sailor come from sea.
Carters have to be jolly too.


You can only be an engine driver (engineer) in the USA, and punching poor defenceless cows has been struck off the list. You can also drive steel, whatever that means, over that side.

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 03:55 AM

Now that we're all one jolly Government Department, I could say that in the old parlance, I'm now one of the Preventivemen.

So none of this Watching the Wall me darlings....

LTS

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Seaking
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 01:44 AM

Saucy sailor

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: JedMarum
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 12:02 AM

this IS my profession - I think it's OK.

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: GUEST,Chubby Wamba
Date: 17 Sep 06 - 11:54 PM

Anarchist

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: GUEST,Cole Porter
Date: 17 Sep 06 - 11:53 PM

miner

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: GUEST,Will Youmarryme
Date: 17 Sep 06 - 11:52 PM

soldier

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: Genie
Date: 17 Sep 06 - 11:50 PM

beer taster
hit man (or woman)
rake (does that pay well?)
moonshiner

Subject: RE: OK occupations for folksingers.
From: frogprince
Date: 17 Sep 06 - 11:33 PM

Poet, picker, prophet, pusher, pilgrim, preacher