Bright Shiny Morning

[poliphilo]

If a folk-song is less than a hundred years old its not going to be a real folk-song (unless it's by Woody Guthrie.) Real folk-song was killed off by the modern mass-media. Cinema, newspapers, commercial pop-music all usurped a function of folk-song and left the form redundant.

The songs of the mid-twentieth century revival are too sentimental to pass as the real thing. Sentimentality is for people with time on their hands. Sentimentality is for aesthetes. Real folk-songs were written by and for people in the grip of economic necessity. They wanted tabloid banner headlines. They wanted to fill their precious down-time with hard, bright emotion. Real folk-song doesn't hang around and mope. It gives us what we really want- fucking and fighting and unquiet graves.

"Where have all the flowers gone?" If you spend your time soldiering or farming or thieving or minding a power loom you don't need to ask that question. You know where all the fucking flowers have gone. No-one picks flowers promiscuously in real folk-song. You pluck a rose and it's a magical act. Out steps Tam Lin and bang goes your maidenhood and the Queen of Faery has got you on her list.

In folk song the weather is always one thing or the other. There's no Celtic twilight, just bright, shiny morning or mirk, mirk night.

Comments

[archyena.livejournal.com]

Oh! Oh! That reminds me of... who was it? Tracy Chapman and "talking about revolution." You can't write a real folk song and drive a new Mercedes at the same time either... it's like... uh.... the Queen doing disco. It's plain wrong.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Agreed. That's why I exclude Woody from my blanket dismissal of twentieth century folkies. He really did tramp the roads and ride the rails. He really did live that life.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

Do you think that certain pop songs have entered the cannon of 'folk song' simply becausr they are almost common property?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'd say pop songs are the folk music of the 20th century. The biggest difference is that the old folk songs were local (though some travelled vast distances, mutating all the time) and pop songs are international.

I'd be interested to know which particular pop songs you are thinking of.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

I was specifically thinking of things like the beatles and Elvis which everyone knows and sings, also things like stairway to heaven which have been covered so many times we almost forget the originals.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Pop is the new folk, but there are differences.

I've been racking my brains to think what they are and I've come up with two (there are probably many more.)

1. The pop song belongs to its copyright holder whereas the folk song belonged to no-one.

2. The pop song has been "fixed" by recorded performance.

These factors mean that in practice pop songs are handled much less freely than folk songs were. A traditional folk singer could do anything s/he liked with "The foggy, foggy dew", but if you rewrote the lyrics to "Yesterday" you'd be receiving letters from Paul MaCartney's lawyers.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting how the individualistic society pays so much attention to the notion of 'the artist'. I think it no co-incidence that the novel only really began to take shape with the massive changes in society in the 17th and 18th centuries.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You've put your finger on it. True folk-song is anonymous. It is without ego. Modern individualism renders that kind of music making all but impossible.

[beentothemoon.livejournal.com]

wrong wrong wrong. The dustbowl, the depression, jim crow...all have great folk songs. Let's not even start talking about gospel and blues.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you're right. In my defence I'd have to point out that I'm writing from a British perspective (though I did glance at Woody Guthrie). I suspect the cut off point for real folk is some 30-40 years later in the USA.

I didn't define folk- but I guess I'm thinking of it as music with European roots (more specifically English-Scottish-Irish.) Gospel and Blues have African roots and form a separate tradition- or do they? Norma Waterson (my favourite contemporary folkie) sings Carribean songs which are clearly related to other songs which started life in England or Scotland. Maybe the Blues represent a similar fusion. "Bright shiny morning" shifts into "Woke up one morning". Whaddyathink?