NationStates Jolt Archive

Any takers? ;)

This might not seem like the most dynamic thread ever conceived, and it probably isn't, but think for a moment about how much folk music you've been exposed to in your lifetime. It's everywhere. It's the musical backdrop of not just traditional but modern entertainment, and not just as parody (although folk music is commonly parodied of course). It's how past generations told their stories to later generations, and how we tell stories to the next, while entertaining ourselves.

Anyone who grew up (like I did) playing music in a school band has played hundreds of folk songs from around the world. Everything from "Mary Had A Little Lamb" to "The House of the Rising Sun" to "99 Bottles of Beer" count as folk music.

They're used to teach because everyone knows them already (making them helpful in learning music theory) and because they're so easy to play in most cases. When you learned the quadratic formula, you may have learned it to the tune of "Pop Goes the Weasel," just as you did when you learned your prepositions in English class.

Folk music is wonderful for the way it captures the heart of an age, place, person or thing, and tends to preserve history in an unadulterated way - for better or for worse. On a whim this morning, after finding myself whistling it, I looked up the lyrics of a song we've all heard - The Year of Jubilo - only to find them a bit racist:

http://www.ezfolk.com/lyrics/uvwx/y/year-of-jubilo/year-of-jubilo.html

...which made me think of how I, and perhaps many of us, have sort of absorbed folk music over the years without ever thinking of its origin and purpose, which lead me to post this thread. :)

So, I ask: what are the popular folk songs of your country, and what are your favorite/most hated examples?

Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder
Doc Watson
Flatt & Scruggs
The Tannahill Weavers
And especially all the local bands that can be heard at folk music festivals!

I love folk music. It's real, not some over-processed audience-targeted market-analyzed crap that will sound outdated in less than a year like most popular music mass-produced nowadays. Lest you get the impression I'm a geezer, I assure you that I'm under 25 and I also listen to rock.

*edit* read the lyrics of the song, and they seem to me to be more poking fun at the southern plantation owner than the black slaves - unless you think it's offensive to write to portray a dialect.

'Home on the Range'
I'ts clearly racist towards the buffalo...and guess which animal was almost hunted to extinction.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WNDh_tFIHn4
Folk music?

I'll be going to Paganfest next Thursday. Ensiferum, Eluveitie, Tyr, Moonsorrow and Korpiklaani all in a single night. I believe the new Heidevolk album is coming out around that time too. A good week for folk metal:D

Wouldn't those songs be more along the lines of 'traditionals'? Whereas folk musicians like James Keelaghan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Keelaghan) write music that doesn't suck. :D

Interesting fact: According to Wikipedia, the American "99 Bottles of Beer" is derived from the British "10 Green Bottles". So not only do Americans do things at (almost) 10 times the scale of the British, they do them with alcohol! ;)

'Home on the Range'
I'ts clearly racist towards the buffalo...and guess which animal was almost hunted to extinction.

Well, at least we still have the deer and the antelope. :p

I don't know if they count as modern folk music but I really got into the Animal Collective a year or so ago, in switching laptops I managed to delete all their songs:

Who could win a Rabbit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTbd0Ncsyus&feature=related)

Grass (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgCmMnTdZuQ&feature=related)

Wouldn't those songs be more along the lines of 'traditionals'? Whereas folk musicians like James Keelaghan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Keelaghan) write music that doesn't suck. :D

Interesting fact: According to Wikipedia, the American "99 Bottles of Beer" is derived from the British "10 Green Bottles". So not only do Americans do things at (almost) 10 times the scale of the British, they do them with alcohol! ;)

That's a good point, about traditionals. Folk music which is remembered long enough are probably best called traditional, to distinguish from modern folk music. However, since the traditional folk songs don't ever seem to die, and are still played by modern musicians of all kinds, it's still okay to talk about folk music in general terms, especially since so many of us cut our teeth on the traditionals before forming our own musical style. :)

Well, at least we still have the deer and the antelope. :p

*sigh* I suppose.. those blasted elitists of the plains.

I happen to be a fan of folk music, from various cultures. I tend not to stop and think about what they actually mean, sometimes because I don't know the language, but mainly because I am sort of a lazy fellow.

One of my favorites is A Paper of Pins I learned it when I was about 9 or 10 years old. We had to learn this song as a duet. The boys sang the 'give' part and the girls sang the response. The boys hated this song. :p It is the first I remember learning about music history/appreciation.


http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/12/paperpins.htm


A great movie about Appalachian folk songs is The Songcatcher.

The songs in the movie are English but were brought over with settlers.

One of my favorites is A Paper of Pins I learned it when I was about 9 or 10 years old. We had to learn this song as a duet. The boys sang the 'give' part and the girls sang the response. The boys hated this song. :p It is the first I remember learning about music history/appreciation.

http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/12/paperpins.htm


Pretty hilarious song. :p

…especially since so many of us cut our teeth on the traditionals before forming our own musical style. :)

True.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU (http://youtube.com/watch?v=WNDh_tFIHn4)
Folk music?

I hereby grant you a :mad: for bringing this meme to my attention. ;)

Bob Dylan was brilliant. I wish he had a better singing voice though.

Bob Dylan was brilliant. I wish he had a better singing voice though.

Ah, but would anyone know him today if he didn't have that distinctive voice? Possibly, but I wouldn't count on it.

One of my favourite artists is a folk musician- David Francey (he did "Skating Rink", featured on "Hockey Day in Canada" in 2004 prior to a Montreal-Toronto game). I don't generally listen to a lot of folk because I'm not exposed to it much, but I do like it.

Ah, but would anyone know him today if he didn't have that distinctive voice? Possibly, but I wouldn't count on it.Yes, they would. He's the guy who made folk popular again. His songs sound like they where passed down through a dozen generations, but they weren't, because he wrote them.

I don't want to sound whiny but his harmonica playing is also bad.

Yes, they would. He's the guy who made folk popular again. His songs sound like they where passed down through a dozen generations, but they weren't, because he wrote them.

I don't want to sound whiny but his harmonica playing is also bad.

I'm not trying to belittle his songwriting talent. I'm just wondering whether he'd be remembered the same if his voice had been bland or generic rather than distinctive. Great songwriting is often overlooked, after all - you have to sell it with your style most of the time.

I'm not trying to belittle his songwriting talent. I'm just wondering whether he'd be remembered the same if his voice had been bland or generic rather than distinctive. Great songwriting is often overlooked, after all - you have to sell it with your style most of the time.

See Phil Ochs. ;)

I'm not trying to belittle his songwriting talent. I'm just wondering whether he'd be remembered the same if his voice had been bland or generic rather than distinctive. Great songwriting is often overlooked, after all - you have to sell it with your style most of the time.Yeah, his personality helped to sell his songs, but I think he could have had a distinctive voice that also sounded good, like Leonard Cohen.

See Phil Ochs. ;)

Who?

I know who he is...but I'm sure there are a lot who don't

Dylan certainly doesn't, and never did, have the most euphonious singing voice, but he sings every word as if he truly means it, with power, with passion, with genuine feeling. And, he can make each performance of the same song sound like an entirely new song. His talent as a songwriter was apparent even to my mother, but it does take a while to get used to that voice. Time well spent, IMHO.

"You breathed on me and made my life a richer one to live;
When I was deep in poverty, you taught me how to give."

Wedding Song

Folk music is nice.

See Phil Ochs. ;)

The best of them all.

Of course, I only really like political folk music. (Shut up, Tom Lehrer.)

Folk music's probably my most-listened-to genre nowadays... I'm going to Fairport Convention's Cropredy festival this summer, seeing Dick Gaughan in my hometown in December... I listen to a feckload of Dylan, Silly Wizard, and various other folk-rock acts... yeah. Why you'd describe it as "funny/entertaining" I'm not sure though... Folk music encompasses every emotion; "Banks of the Lee", for example, is one of the saddest and most beautiful songs I've ever heard...

Folk music's probably my most-listened-to genre nowadays... I'm going to Fairport Convention's Cropredy festival this summer, seeing Dick Gaughan in my hometown in December... I listen to a feckload of Dylan, Silly Wizard, and various other folk-rock acts... yeah. Why you'd describe it as "funny/entertaining" I'm not sure though... Folk music encompasses every emotion; "Banks of the Lee", for example, is one of the saddest and most beautiful songs I've ever heard...

There's some regional variation at work here, it seems. Folk music isn't too popular here, outside certain circles, and is basically nowhere in terms of music sales. In many parts of the country, you can't even find a folk music show or festival. It's interesting to see that folk songs are popular in other parts of the world, though. That's neat. :)

As to the bolded part: I say "funny" because folk music, at least American folk music, is often used to relate absurd stories or unbelievable tall tales, which are often quite funny.

I’m a bit nutty about folk, and love quite a lot of different stuff labelled under ‘folk’. Everything from the traditional British and American, especially the Appalachian bluegrass/folk tradition, through the 60s and 70s revival, and up to the modern ‘anti-folk’ and ‘weird Americana’ scenes. Not forgetting, of course, folk music outside of English-speaking world.

A few artists:

Woody Guthrie
African Head Charge
John Martyn
Mouldy Peaches
Iron & Wine
Sandy Denny
Joanna Newsom
Pete Seeger
Leadbelly
Justin Sane
Alasdair Roberts
Ali Farka Touré
Billy Bragg
Heron
Fairport Convention
Davy Graham
Amalgamated Sons Of Rest
Bonny Prince Billy
Devendra Banhart
Jeffrey Lewis

a few Artists

A L "Bert" Lloyd
Martin Carthy
Ewan MacColl
Ian Campbell
Bob Hart
Louis Killen
John Tams
The Copper Family
Eliza Carthy
Kate Rusby

The Copper Family
Ace stuff!

I kind of like 'freak folk', but I don't know if that counts as real folk. Listen to devendra banhart or joanna newsom for instance

Ever notice how some folk music is very similar to traditional Irish music. Even the instruments used are the same. Guess a lot of Irish immigrants went into the hills in the South. Am I right?