Author: Daniel Kelly

Daniel Kelly is a singer/songwriter from Yass in Australia.
The Death of Mí Xìn
Blog Post · Spirituality and Philosophy

The Death of Mí Xìn

Daniel KellyLeave a comment

I am not sure what it was about my upbringing that led me to question everything, trust no-one and expect the worst of people. It probably has something to do with the religion shopping that I witnessed my parents go through when I was a toddler. The types of religions they sampled were full of Amway sales-people and predators of every sort. My paranoia could also be related to the string of incidents that I witnessed in my later childhood, both personally and in the public media, that caused me to quickly realise that not everyone was what they presented themselves to be.

The trigger for this post was listening to the very poignant song Daisy, by Karine Polwart. A particular Facebook war involving some Pentecostal Christians brought this song to mind, I recorded my own cover here. The message in the song is a very sad one, it was apparently written by Karine to her unborn niece (who turned out to be a boy).

To crudely summarise Karine’s beautiful lyrics, “the world is full of horrible people”. I wouldn’t say the message is entirely depressing, because there is also a subtext about using your judgement to measure people by their actions and face the complicated world with self-worth rather than the worth rented to you by others, in exchange for their love, respect, money or just not hurting you.

This led me to the subject of this post, mí xìn (??). This Chinese phrase is now widely translated as superstition or superstitious belief; however, this translation is largely a result of the Cultural Revolution and its efforts to stamp out the Four Olds (Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, Old Ideas). The more finessed translation is one of faith, trust, or unquestioning loyalty.

I love looking into the origins of Chinese characters as the meaning is often much richer than that found in our non-pictographic language. The first character, mí, is made up of a character for walking/movement and another one showing lots of directions. The second character, xìn, is made of the characters for person and word, meaning trust, i.e. “A person’s word”. So putting this together we can get “following a person’s word whatever direction they send you in”. I’m sure many scholars of Mandarin will dispute my interpretation, but it makes sense to me.

So is this blind faith, that was so much a part of countless pre-modern societies, always a bad thing? Was Another Brick in the Wall, really a step forward for society? Many young people (and old) no longer respect their parents, teachers, policeman, doctors or anyone else in society with traditional authority. The respect seems to have shifted to winners of reality TV, pop-stars and actors.

This didn’t happen by accident. My year 6 teacher, who I never got on with, was jailed for abusing his wife and daughter. The incidents of corrupt politicians, negligent doctors, child abusing priests, corrupt policemen, judges and public servants are on a 24-hour repeat news reel. We live in a society where, just like in Communist China, we have torn down the traditional towers of respect.

I wonder if this is because the statistical likelihood of striking a bad apple in these fields has drastically changed, or because the global news cycle means that we now hear about them more often.

There are situations in society where this mí xìn is very valuable, if not critical, to stability. How can children learn without trust in their teachers? How can you do well at your job without learning from more experienced co-workers and supervisors? How can a government function if the populace has no faith in their elected officials? Unfortunately, the very people in these positions are failing us, and have been exposed as failing us for so long that their institutions no longer have credibility.

Obviously I don’t expect to provide the answer for a utopian society here, but I can say that the Chinese Communist approach of abolishing everything has had terrible consequences. The American reality-TV experiment has resulted in a farcical Presidential election campaign. There must be a way for a society to institute a process of rational judgement to decide who deserves respect, who is best placed to exercise authority and who can be trusted.

It is probably Orientalist nostalgia which makes me look at the Native American, Celtic and Aboriginal Australian societies and think that they seemed to have better ways of finding the right contributing role for each person and ejecting those who weren’t good for the society. In the west we seem to pick the people who are the worst and appoint them to rule us. Thank you Karine, for telling it like it is, I wish there were more people that thought about things.

 

 

 

 

Lyrical Philosophy
Blog Post

Lyrical Philosophy

Daniel KellyLeave a comment

In the many songs collected by Francis Child that I have sung or heard, I have never had the feeling that the writer of the ballad was attempting to convey a higher spiritual truth, or seeking to unveil the eyes of the listener through clever juxtaposition of images and ideas. We could assume that Child’s collection of works represents the thinking of the previous 300-400 years.

The devices utilised in the ballads, such as the ‘unmasked villain’ or the ‘returned lover’ are largely transparent to a modern listener and the moral lesson (if there is one) is relatively easy to decode.

When it comes to the work of the great thinking writers of the 1800’s, Dostoevsky, Hugo and Harriet Stowe, for example, they have gone to great effort painting a vast canvas in order to bring into focus, or at least into question, some truths about our existence. In many cases the effort involves an abstraction of the human condition, to give the reader a new insight, as expertly used in Animal Farm by George Orwell. Unfortunately, these books take weeks or months to read (if you read slowly like me) and much of humanity would rather watch The Voice or whatever soap opera is popular in their country rather than spend the effort it takes to benefit from the work of these great authors.

This week past I decided to do some recordings of my favourite Leonard Cohen songs. I’m not intending to make this post about Cohen; there are plenty of other resources on the internet dissecting his life and his music. One thing I will say, is that Mr Cohen has been very generous to his listening public by frankly speaking about the inspiration and meaning of his lyrics, as documented in this fantastic website which catalogues his concert prologues relevant to each song. There are some poets who disown their work at birth and refuse to acknowledge it, or worse, provide misleading guidance to their faithful. I have great respect for the kindness that Cohen has shown his listeners in this regard.

Now to the topic of this post, Leonard Cohen has the ability to use three or four lines of a song to bring into sharp focus a universal aspect of humanity or unmask feelings and emotions fettered through thousands of years of conditioning. To me this is the mark of a true master poet.

I will pick one example from some of the six songs that I recorded this week to elaborate.

Anthem

“There is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the lights gets in.”
                (Leonard Cohen, Anthem,1992)

 In this line Cohen roles up several hundred scrolls of Buddhist scripture to describe the broken nature of our human existence, but at the same time highlights the hope and perfection that resides within this reality. This single line is then reflected in the facets of each verse urging humanity to “start again” despite the war, corruption and lack of compassion we see.

Suzanne

While this song is about the magic of a young platonic (semi) love (not made-up but biographical), the part that interests me is this:

And Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water,
And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower,
And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him,
He said all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them
          (Leonard Cohen, Suzanne, 1967)

Here we have a discussion of the concept that spiritual salvation is only a possibility for the desperate (drowning). This seems to be an explanation of the suffering in the world through a few lines in a romantic pop song. This section in the song is quickly followed by an implication that this very cruel and selfish view of the divine-human relationship was ‘sunk’ with wisdom, possibly that of Suzanne.

If It Be Your Will

All your children here, In their rags of light
                (Leonard Cohen, If It Be Your Will, 1984)

At the same time that this song is a prayer of submission to the will of a divine other, it raises the concept that we, as humans, are existing in a dimension through projected photons. ‘Rags of Light’ which are no more part of ourselves than the shirt we wear each day. I think my assertion that people were not inclined to grand allegory before the 1800’s at the start of this post has me thinking back to Solomon. Divested from its religious shackles and flimsy historical evidence, much of the writings of whichever poet actually penned (or chiselled) the lines attributed to Solomon do seem to echo in  Cohen’s work.

Night Comes On

We were locked in this kitchen, I took to religion
And I wondered how long she would stay
I needed so much, To have nothing to touch
I’ve always been greedy that way
                (Leonard Cohen, Night Comes On, 1984)

I love this whole song, the yearning for a primal mother to take us back in her embrace and protect us from the world. The subtle wisdom I gained from the small section quoted above is the warning that religion can be used as a defence against true immersion in the experience of life. The assertion that this behaviour is inherently greedy, is one that can jar the listener into altering their perception. The idea of seeing piety as selfishness or abstinence as weakness is a challenging one.

It is precisely because of these sorts of snippets of verse, challenging common perception, that I enjoy listening to Leonard Cohen’s work so much. I lament the introduction of music with a repetitive nonsense message to modern culture; it has taken over so much of what is played in the public sphere and seems to breed so quickly. It gives me relief to see that the new poets, like John Craigie and Mike Rosenburg are there making sure that this generation can listen to people who have something worthwhile to say through their music.

Sisters of Yass
Blog Post · Folk Music · My Own Music · Spirituality and Philosophy

Sisters of Yass

Daniel Kelly3 Comments

I was asked to write an Irish song for an upcoming music festival. Often my song-writing requires a specific catalyst and the songs tend to come out fully-formed in a few minutes. In searching for a suitable subject for a song, I remembered one of the key Irish connections to our small town in Australia; that being, the Sisters of Mercy who came here in 1875 to set up a school.

My children go/have gone to the primary school that a group of Sisters from Rochfortbridge in County Meath, Ireland, started when they arrived in the town in 1857.

I should caveat my post with the statement that I am sceptical of the capacity for closed religious orders of monks or nuns to maintain a healthy lifestyle in the long term. Victor Hugo dedicates a significant part of Les Misérables to describing the dangers associated with these groups. As a society we have been doing some painful looking into the past on this issue, the Magdalene Sisters in Ireland being a key relevant example. That said, I have great respect and admiration for the courage of these nuns who travelled, on request, to Australia with the intention of doing some good through education.

The song that I wrote is a fanciful re-imagining of brave young(ish; Eliza Fielding was 41) women leaving their native home in Ireland and coming to this dry, brown, land with its mix of recently displaced native peoples, rough settlers and wealthy sheep-station owners. I chose to present the emotion of longing for their (much) greener home but also their desire to share a message of love (and mercy). I have chosen one anecdote from a historical website[i] article that describes how the sisters allowed the local aboriginal children into their classes, but were later forbidden to do so by the State Department for Education. In response, the sisters set up a separate classroom until the classes were eventually integrated.

I also know that the lives of the founder of the Sisters of Mercy order, Catherine McAuley, and one of the key sisters who came to Yass, Mary Paul Fielding, are still remembered at the Mt Carmel School through the naming of their school houses and the annual events that the children are engaged in. The buildings that the sisters built and later lived and taught in are still standing. St Augustine’s Chapel, in particular, has recently be renovated and used as one of the most beautiful venues for the Turning Wave Festival held here in September.

A more in-depth biography of Mary Paul Fielding is provided on the Sisters of Mercy website[ii], including the names of all the sisters who came to Yass. Mother Fielding, in particular, is buried in Wilcannia, far inland New South Wales, definitely qualifying as ‘under a sunburnt sky’.

I do wonder whether my song reflects the feelings in the hearts of the women that came here, especially the young postulants and sisters. Maureen Healy writes in Life out West, her article in the Australasian Catholic Record[iii] in June 2015,

“We pray with our Pope Francis that the Spirit of joy will return to our world, that we will recognise through the eyes of mercy that our children will benefit from the care and the concern of others, and that our elders will be honoured.”

With the way the world seems to be going at the moment, I admire her optimism. The history of the Sisters of Mercy in Australia and the economic and social circumstances that caused young women to leave Ireland and live a life of hardship and service all over Australia are fascinating. Sophia McGrath’s case study of the Parramatta Sisters of Mercy[iv], published in 1995 gives significant insight into this world.

A quote from the above article:

“In 1906 Sister M.Alphonsus Shelly, a pioneer Sister, wrote to Moran: ‘Father Murray CSSR has given a beautiful retreat to the Children of Mary in Surry Hills. It will, please God, be productive of great good. There is a true nursery of vocations there.”

The phrase ‘nursery of vocations’ gives some idea of how young girls were considered (or groomed) for entry into the vocational life. I wonder how many entered because of religious fervour which had been intentionally fanned, how many entered because of the challenges created by their social class and how many entered because, at the time, there were few other opportunities for women in the world other than being a servant-wife.

Sisters of Mercy at the Aboriginal Reserve in Yass
Sisters of Mercy at the Aboriginal Reserve in Yass [i]
[i] http://yass.cathzone.com/Media/Default/Page/history/mercynuns.pdf

[ii] http://www.mercyworld.org/heritage/tmplt-foundressstory.cfm?loadref=182

[iii] Healy, Maureen. Life out west [online]. Australasian Catholic Record, The, Vol. 92, No. 2, Jun 2015: 148-153

[iv] McGrath, Sophie. Women religious in the history of Australia 1888/ 1950: a case study, the Sisters of Mercy, Parramatta [online]. Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 81, No. 2, Dec 1995: 195-212

Stand Up, Sing Out
Blog Post · Folk Music

Stand Up, Sing Out

Daniel KellyLeave a comment

I’m not sure why it took me so long to record a version of Siúil A Rún for my folk channel on YouTube. This song has a particular personal meaning for me, which I think it is worthwhile sharing.

Setting aside the controversy over how badly the Irish language was treated through English oppression and the inevitable loss that comes with emigration, I first heard this song as Buttermilk Hill. There is a fantastic discussion of the Folk Process as it relates to this song in John Cowan’s 2005 blog post, Recycled Knowledge. Looking back and realising that the ‘bibble in the boo’ gibberish I was sold as a child, was actually the trampled remains of someone else’s language, makes me both sad and angry. However, I set this aside for the purpose of this post.

Buttermilk Hill was a song taught to me by the school music teacher in year 7. I was only twelve at the time and had just moved from a different school. I cannot remember the name of this vibrant woman, who belted out Little Boxes and I wish I was a Fishy in the Sea with such enthusiasm that most of the class ended up doing their best to sing along.

In addition to singing sessions with each class, this teacher also ran the choir. During one of the weekly class music sessions she asked if anyone wanted to be in the choir, and said they could sing a verse of one of the songs on their own.  This was obviously before the days of mass participation and minimal public scrutiny of talent.

As an insecure twelve year old, in a new school and in front of the whole class, this seemed an unreasonably high hurdle to set for joining a school choir. I put my hand up, drawing a few sniggers from my male classmates, and said I would sing a verse of Buttermilk Hill.

In that instance of fear and excitement, I found my voice. I’m not sure if something still left in this song called to an Irish heritage in me that wanted a way out, or if it could have been any old melody, but it was a pivotal moment for me. Through the subsequent 28 years I have always found a way to be in a choir, sing at a cafe or music festival or even just post folk videos to YouTube. It also means I have had the pleasure of singing all five of my children to sleep (or not sleep, as the case may be).

More than just being about the singing, this simple act of stepping over fear of what others might think of my voice, has been critical to many other choices in life. Making a bold presentation at a job interview, asking the stupid questions at university, taking a shot at a beautiful woman despite my knees shaking, all of these seem to have had something in common with the decision to sing.

I don’t know what happened to this ilk of music teacher, or what happened to the Australian school music curriculum. From a distance it seems to be about mass rock dance events, mass participation and very little true love for the joy of singing. I am grateful for the experience I had, and the good that it continued to do throughout my life.

Ballad Analysis · Blog Post · Folk Music

No Politics Please, We’re Folk Singers

Daniel KellyLeave a comment

A large number of the folk songs I collect and record for YouTube are political in nature. Whether they are bemoaning the unfair life of a coal miner in the 1800s, a dam builder in Scotland in the 1950’s or a conscripted soldier in the Napoleonic wars, the political theme is clear. There are others that take a more philosophical approach and advocate or denounce a particular political view, Alastair Hulett’s, Dictatorship of Capital is a good example, as was the thieving of My Love’s in Germany by Robert Burns to make a point about Jacobites.

I knew about Bob Dylan from a young age, mostly because my parents followed him into his Pentecostal Christian phase. I think the 2007 biographical movie I’m Not There did a fantastic job of showing Dylan’s immense capacity to change his image to fit the times, and probably fit his interests as an artist. As I looked into Dylan later in life, I noticed his distinct move from folk Messiah to electric narcissist rocker. When I was in New York in 2014, I spent some time walking through Greenwich village pondering what went down there in the 1960’s. I tried to imagine what was going through the minds of Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and Dave Van Ronk as they witnessed Dylan’s chameleon act.

Someone who was every bit the 60’s folk musician that Dylan was, but never made it through the 1970’s was Phil Ochs. It took me much longer to learn about Phil as he died the year I was born and his work largely fell from view as Dylan’s flourished. I mention Ochs and Dylan in the context of this article because I wonder whether these two can be looked at in terms of the true believer and the salesman. Was it Ochs’ status as a true believer that caused his breakdown when the perceived wave of socialism, freedom and equality fell flat? And is there an argument to be made about the quality of each as a person? Do we care if our artists genuinely believe what they sing, write or paint?

I write songs about things that I care about. I have written about the treatment of refugees by Australia, the horse racing industry, a local road that claims a few lives each year and the lack gender equality in our society. I have also written a number of songs about the banning and subsequent imprisonment, torture and execution of Falun Gong adherents in China since 1999. This subject is close to me as I learned this peaceful meditation and exercise system myself in 1998. I knew first hand that the global propaganda campaign run by the Chinese Communist Party was a lie. It has taken 16 years, but most governments of the western world have now acknowledged this. My most recently published song, Spring Comes, highlights the stories of a handful of people caught up in this saga.

For me, folk music is a way to share what we have seen and experienced with other humans. In sharing we seek a mirror, a nod of understanding, a smile or even a tear. It is disconcerting to think that some on the other side of the microphone might not necessarily be sincere in their sentiment.

I do know, and have met, many folk musicians who are sincere about what they sing. They sing not just to record, but also to influence. The story of Alistair Hulett’s efforts to keep a local swimming pool in Glasgow open, as documented here by Gavin Livingstone is just one example. I’m sure we have lost many like Phil Ochs when advocacy fails, but I cannot resign myself to the idea that we should stop trying to change the world for the better through song.

Blog Post · Folk Music

One Day in a Perfect World

Daniel KellyLeave a comment

It was probably in 2006 when I first heard Colum Sands play at the National Folk Festival here in Australia. His carefully crafted and insightful song about the troubles in Ireland, Last House in Our Street, was a trigger to collect all of his albums. It was a good investment.

I wasn’t intending to go to the National this year as juggling five young children has made it a challenge. However, when I heard Colum on the radio in the weeks beforehand, promoting the festival, it suddenly became a much more attractive option.

My wife and I and three of our sons (12, 4 and 1) went along for the Friday. Hearing Colum play some songs from his new album along with Buskers and the funny song about the donkey was worth every cent of the ticket. My wife was also brave enough to meet Colum and get the newly purchased copy of Turn the Corner signed.

This post isn’t intended to be a report from our day at the festival, but more about the nature of this particular festival. Every year that I have attended, it has felt like stepping into Diagon Alley. A world where socially conscious people sit and listen to well-crafted music by everyone from the 10yr old with their first ukulele, to masters of the art. People are patient, generous and friendly.

Sometimes the odd ‘normal’ Canberran buys a ticket by accident and can be spotted wandering in a daze, like a muggle at a Quiddich match. I don’t know if this phenomena is common to all folk festivals, I haven’t been to many others but the ones I have been to don’t compare to the National. The slogan for the 50th anniversary, “5 days in a perfect world”, certainly rings true for me.

Despite living in Canberra since 1994, it was not until I was asked to help teach some morning Qi Gong exercises and coordinate a Chinese Dance display in 2006 that I discovered this incredible alternate universe. As one who has dabbled in the magic arts, I do wonder whether it is the concentration of so many people of a certain type, performers, organisers, volunteers and general attendees that creates the otherwise unexplainable vibe.

I’m sure that any one of the performers could put on a great concert, but I doubt if people would walk away with the same feeling that comes from spending some time at the National.

My son lost his Ukulele within the first 15 minutes of being at the festival. On Tuesday I had a phone call from the lost-property folks letting me know that it had been returned. As I said to my wife after my son noticed it was missing, “don’t worry, this is the National, these people don’t steal stuff”.

I should mention a few new performers that we enjoyed listening to. The harmonies provided by the three lads from The Young’uns were superb. It is great to have acts of this calibre come over from the UK and their selection of left-leaning songs was brilliant. I had to record my own version of John Ball, after hearing them perform it.

Co-cheòl also impressed.  Unfortunately the venue (Lyric) was probably half the size of the audience trying to get in. Fortunately my son and I had pre-positioned. With success on their Pozible campaign, they should have a debut album out in the near future. Multi-instrumentalists and with a solid choral background, their songs were heavenly to listen to.

We made sure to catch up with past festival favourites of ours, Cloudstreet and The Roaring Forties who put on a Cicely Fox Smith special that I was very pleased to sing along loudly to. The downside of a single day ticket is that you inevitably miss some performers, so it was a great disappointment to miss the Wheeze and Suck Band and also the Fiddle Chicks.

An important event that didn’t occur until the end of the festival was the presentation to Tony Eardley of the Alistair Hulett social justice songwriting award. You can see Tony’s excellent song “Sally Cross The Water” here. I first heard Tony sing Portugal Beach at the 2008 National and had it stuck in my head for 7 years until I finally met him in the Blue Mountains last year and purchased a copy of his album Desire Lines.

Maybe this feeling is unique to me, but I suspect others feel similarly about this event. It is only sad that every other day is now just one which isn’t spent at the National.

Women’s Day (Men stop being Bastards)
Blog Post · Folk Music · My Own Music

Women’s Day (Men stop being Bastards)

Daniel KellyLeave a comment

I wrote a song to express my sentiments on Women’s Day this year. I have included the lyrics below:

Women’s Day (by Daniel Kelly, 2016)

You pulled her hair in primary school,
Teased her ‘caus you thought it made you cool,
Laughed at her when she knew more than you

Girls can’t run, girls are weak,
Make them cry, don’t let them speak,
It’s really no surprise how we got here

Chorus:

It’s women’s day, it’s women’s day,
There has to be a better way,
To say the things still in my head
Let’s call it ‘Men don’t be Bastards’ day instead.

Took her on a date when you were fifteen,
Tried to squeeze her into your shallow dreams,
She was never gonna be the one you loved

It’s hard to know how to relate,
When all you’re ever taught is hate,
I wish I hadn’t lived with it so long

Chorus

When the children came, she stayed at home,
No women’s wage could pay those bills,
In a market made by men you’ll never win

They say you can always start again,
But only if you pay the price,
Your family, your dignitary and soul.

Chorus

More than a thousand years to prove,
The truth that we already knew,
There’s nothing that a woman cannot do

I wrote the song reflecting on the strong women I have known during my 39 years, and especially in relation to the treatment of women that I grew up observing as a child in Queensland during the 1980’s. Treatment which, to my shame, I emulated. It was not until I left home at seventeen and was exposed to the work of Tori Amos and a broader range of movies and television that I started to re-think the ideology that I had been raised in.

This blog post is about dissecting the origins of my behaviour and, hopefully, to let women know that there are men in society who value their contribution as complete people, rather than trophies, servants or sex toys. I’m also writing to encourage men to think about their attitudes towards women; where those attitudes come from and whether they are your own or imposed.

Why do we, Crucify ourselves
Every day, I crucify myself
Nothing I do is good enough for you
Crucify myself, Every day
And my heart is sick of being in chains
(crucify, from Little Earthquakes, Tori Amos)

The Little Earthquakes album, released by Tori Amos in 1992, had a magical property for me. It took an arrogant, selfish and condescending young male mind and rubbed my face in a thousand years of women’s suffering. I’m not ashamed to admit that I would often be reduced to a sobbing mess after listening properly to some of the songs on this album.

I’m not for a second suggesting that forcing every 17yr old male to listen to Tori Amos is going to solve the problem of gender imbalance, but for me it was a transcendent experience.

The social experiment, done by fanpage in Italy demonstrated with boys 6 to 11, that the tendency towards violence against women must be developed after this age. I’m not just talking about physical violence here, much of the violence against women is verbal and focused on how they look, how they feel and express feelings or how their interests and skills are trivial. Excluding someone from opportunity in society on the basis of their sex is violence.

The lyrics in the song above are all biographical. There were many beautiful young girls in my classes during school that I would tease relentlessly. Not playful teasing, but cruel verbal abuse. Even in my first years of university I would ridicule girls that social norms labelled overweight or unattractive. Girls who were considered attractive would be assumed to be sexually available and subject to a different form of abuse. How had society instilled such a shallow value system in me? I guess I could blame the fact that every storybook, television advertisement, movie and sitcom I was exposed to had the male hero exclusively pursuing a certain type of willing, beautiful, girl whose main purpose was to gush over said hero and fall helplessly into his arms. In my defence, I do not believe that very many young boys could resist an onslaught of this type if it is not countered by an alternate view in the adults and other children they are exposed to. This does not in any way excuse my behaviour or change the harm that was caused.

By the time I was finishing high-school, I ended up inviting a girl to the school formal that I had barely said five words to. My interest purely stemming from the fact that she looked like a singer who I had become infatuated with. As expected, things did not go well, and I was left confused when life did not imitate what I had seen on television and read in books.

I am angry at the way in which this attitude towards women sits at the core of Australian society. Unless a women chooses to forgo having children and is willing to endure harassment, it is unlikely that she will rise very far within her profession. This is evidenced by the average 18% pay gap [i] and means that when selecting top scientists, top doctors, top lawmakers, we are excluding between 5-15% of the available population, purely based on an antiquated idea that men are superior.

Other nations have moved on, providing in-workplace child care, flexible work arrangements and paternal leave. There is no logical reason for this absurd situation, yet in every field that women have fought to become part of, they have faced, and still face, a mountain of resistance.

If anything, celebrating Women’s Day in Australia is really just pointing to our failure. I encourage you to read the story of Rosmary Folett, the first female chief minister in the Australian Capital Territory. It is a story of triumph; her succeeding in doing a job she was highly qualified to do despite a wall of male ignorance and prejudice. However, the point is that she should not have had to, and how much better could she have done if time had not been wasted combating said prejudice? Enough is enough, it is time for balance to be returned.

He said you’re really an ugly girl
But I like the way you play
And I died
But I thanked him
Can you believe that
Sick, sick, holding on to his picture
Dressing up every day
I wanna smash the faces of those beautiful boys
Those Christian boys
So you can made me come
That doesn’t make you Jesus

(Precious Things, from Little Earthquakes, Tory Amos)

[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap_in_Australia

Who Gets a Song?
Ballad Analysis · Blog Post · Folk Music

Who Gets a Song?

Daniel KellyLeave a comment

What is the relationship between a folk song and its genesis? How important is it to the worth of a song that there is a personal connection of some sort between the author, subject and audience? It could be argued that ever since the popularisation of the broadsheet, around 1712, this connection has been broken. With songs copied from one region and spread all over the country (and globe) to be sung by singers to audiences, neither of whom have any tangible connection to the subject matter.

Thinking back to the time of the bards, their songs were closely linked to the living memory of a specific region, clan or tribe. The audience could often trace their lineage to the heroes of a song, or even have eyewitnesses to the events amongst the living population.

We could be sceptical and assume that the bard was the equivalent of Fox News or a Murdoch tabloid, with truth in reporting highly dependent on who is paying their salary (or threatening to kill them). A brief research into the Fili of Ireland would suggest otherwise. It is because of the Fili and Bards of Wales and Scotland that such well preserved stories as those retold in Coll the Storyteller’s Tales of Enchantment or in Padrig Colum’s Treasury of Irish Folklore are still available to us, much as they would have been performed and told 500 years ago. Prior to the introduction of Christianity, the storyteller held a very high place in Celtic society, even at the same level as the chief or king.

This ramble was prompted by my reading of a book that details close to 300 years of linen manufacture in Maghera, Ireland. The book, Linen on the Green, was written by Wallace Clark, my great-great uncle. In the book is a story of one Jackson Clark (1762-1788), who had married the daughter of a local General (James Patterson). Jackson dies after falling from a horse while racing back from work to try and catch his young wife in bed with his uncle. To me, this had the makings of a good folk song, so I wrote one.

This got me thinking, why does the story of a young girl pushed into the river by her elder sister (Twa Sisters), or the tale of a young girl dying for her criminal lover (The Highwayman) warrant selection and perpetuation by society through immortalisation in song. Any folk researcher will know the process of evolution these songs go through, where the town, villain, trade or names get changed for whatever will better connect with a local culture, or serve a particular political agenda. A good example being the Recruited Ploughboy who becomes a Recruited Collier in the time when ploughing has been given over to machines. In some cases we know that the song (or poem), as for The Highwayman, has no link to real events and is purely from the imagination of the author.

So why was it that the death of my great-great-great-great-grandfather was never made into a popular song? Someone who died after riding to his love across the river Annan got a song. Could we assume, like Carl Jung, that there are archetypes of human existence that are frames upon which a particular folk song will stick because they align with these sub-conscious memes? Is this why many millions of other stories and the songs written about them fade into oblivion? Or instead, is it the writers of songs and poems that shape new archetypes from human experience which rise of fall on their merits.

This capturing of snapshots of human existence is one of the many reasons why I love folk music. There is a local singer/songwriter here in Australia, John Warner, who wrote about the experience of a group of convicts in Victoria. Anderson’s Coast, performed here by Nancy and James Fagan, captures the story of people that would otherwise never have been told. Hearing John sing the song himself is an experience worth tracking down, unfortunately there isn’t one on YouTube.

Ballad Analysis · Blog Post · Folk Music

That’s Women’s Work!

Daniel KellyLeave a comment

I have been listening to Alistair Hulett’s version of The Weaver and the Factory Maid since purchasing the album In Sleepy Scotland from the UK back in 2010. I always thought of it as an upstairs/downstairs style of love story between a wealthy man and the woman forced into his embrace through her station. A bit of knowledge has caused me to re-think the meaning of the song, and wonder about the way that a little bit of context can change the meaning of a folk song so much.

You can listen to my own recording here, or the Steelye Span version here. It is a great disappointment that there is no version of Alistair’s up on YouTube.

Recently I was sent a book about the history of the linen trade in Ireland. I come from a branch of the Clark family that has been manufacturing linen in the Upperlands area of Northern Ireland since the mid 1700s. The book, Linen on the Green, was written by Wallace Clark (my great-great-uncle) and first published in 1983. Reading this book and doing a bit of research on weaving has given me cause to rethink my understanding of the song.

The song is written from the perspective of a hand-weaver and speaks of his love for a factory girl. If you are already familiar with hand weaving and the various technological advances that started in 1733 with the invention (or maybe just patenting of an Asian invention dating back 500 years) of the flying shuttle by John Kay, then these next paragraphs will be a bit dull.

The handloom appeared in Europe in the 11th century and by the likely time of this song (the 1800s), there were around 250,000 hand-weavers in the UK [1], from a population of around 10 million[2]. Hand weaving was a skilled task and a good weaver could make a reasonable living for themselves. These hand-weavers would most likely have been young men (25-35), and the male subject of our song was probably one of them.

Industrialisation of the loom meant that the skills of the hand-weaver were no longer required and a young, unskilled, girl or woman could now do seven times the work for lower pay in a factory with steam driven looms.

One of the perks of being a hand-weaver was that young male weavers would travel from farm to farm with their loom to weave the flax or cotton thread spun by local farmers. This would give the weaver easy access to many a young lass, being the daughters of the farmer or land owner (the Jolly Beggar comes to mind). A young weaver who had a regular seasonal trip between farms could have had the weaver’s equivalent of a sailor’s girl in every port.

With the advent of the factory, these women now went to work early in the morning for their own money and had no time or need of a hand-weaver. This might account for the verse where the protagonist goes to the girl’s bedroom door but cannot find his way into her pleasant bed, without a job he would have had no access to the property.

I should add that it wasn’t all money and status for the women in the factories. With the guaranteed deafness, loss of finger in machinery and eyes from loose shuttles it was a miserable life. Carcinogenic chemicals on the cotton that they would thread after wetting in their mouth meant and early grave for the factory workers.

So is this song really a lament for a firm breasted young girl, or a lament for the job and the status that the hand-weaver had before the arrival of the factory? Or is the author instead longing to be let into the factory and continue to ply his trade, is his actual lament for the loom and her charms?

I may be drawing a long bow with the last suggestion, but I know I will never think of the song in the same way given this small amount of context. I wonder how many other songs are similarly misunderstood for want of a little knowledge?

[1] Guest, R, 1823, A Compendious History of Cotton-Manufacture.

[2] http://chartsbin.com/view/28k

Ballad Analysis · Blog Post · Folk Music

Nationalism and Song

Daniel Kelly5 Comments

It is probably La Marseillaise that comes to the minds of most when they think about the role of song in politics. No doubt song played a significant role in politics prior to 1792, and certainly went on to be a significant feature of many other social upheavals, from Dixie in the American Civil war or We Shall Overcome in a number of civil rights movements in America, but its use in France in the revolution(s) seems pivotal. Certainly the advent of the wireless (yes a radio) and print media have allowed fast dissemination of song in a way that the travelling bard could only dream of.

As a young New Zealand émigré to Australia, I took some solace in singing God Defend New Zealand under my breath whenever the poorly-written, and usually poorly sung, Australian anthem was played. The song allowed me to still feel part of something that I had been taken physically away from, while feeling an outsider in the culture I had been taken to.

What is it about knowing a song that forms such a strong psycho-social bond in humans? Whether in college fraternities, football teams or religions, song is often used to separate those inside from those outside. It could be argued that this type of tool in the hands of the unscrupulous and powerful has led many a young person to a pointless death. I’m not sure that arguing against nationalism as the anarchists do is necessarily the answer, but it warrants some thought.

The particular song I wanted to focus on in this post is Flower of Scotland, written by one of my favourite folk singers, Roy Williamson, in 1965. The Corries (Roy Williamson and Ronnie Browne) could be credited with causing a significant change in the way Scots viewed themselves in the context of Great Britain. It was sad that Roy did not live to see the independence referendum held in September 2014 with a 55.3% to 44.7% narrow loss. I made my own small call for the yes vote here. Who knows what the outcome would have been if Roy and Ronnie had continued to sing their songs re-telling the glory of Prince Charlie or the treachery of the English.

The song itself commemorates the 1314 defeat of Edward II at Bannockburn, you can listen to my version here. Interestingly, one of my ancestors, Humphrey de Bohun, was on the losing side. In the sweep of conflict between Scotland and England, there were many other battles to choose from, however, it is always better to recall the wins rather than the losses when you are drumming up national fervour.

The song includes a warning to keep the violence against England in the past, but ‘still rise now, and be a nation again’. In this sense the song can be seen as an encouragement for Scotland to be the best it can be. This theme is repeated in a number of other Corries songs, Scotland Will Flourish being a key example.

Personally, while the lyrics ‘Let Scots be a nation proud of their heritage, with an eye to the future and a heart to forgive’ are very noble, I wonder how well this has worked when other nations play by very different rules. There were many suggestions of underhanded influence by England in the 2014 referendum.

As a folk music form, I love these songs, whether Four Green Fields, The Foggy Dew or these Corries songs. There is something in the writing, or the heart of the writer that triggers the sense of belonging that I felt singing my New Zealand anthem in defiance. Even without any personal relationship to the country or issue, these songs seem to have the capacity to capture the listener. Maybe it is a trick of the rhythm, the chord sequence or the intonation (something for some musical theory PhD students to look at), but the effect on the human psyche cannot be denied.

Tuesday is Australia Day, and no doubt the Australian national anthem, exhorting us to ‘ring Joyce for she is young and free‘, will be on repeat. I know what I will be singing.