Who Gets a Song?

February 13, 2016October 2, 2017 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!

February 7, 2016October 2, 2017 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 11^th 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

January 24, 2016October 2, 2017 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.

Ballad Analysis · Blog Post · Folk Music

Why I hate Barbara Allen

January 5, 2016October 2, 2017 Daniel Kelly3 Comments

Ever since I bought a five CD compilation set of Irish folk music in 1999, I have loved the themes, stories and passion that is alive in this music. From the revival recordings of Ewan MacColl , the field recordings of Diane Hamilton and Catherine Wright to the more recent beautifully sung renditions by Kate Rusby , I am proud that humanity has chosen to maintain this tradition.

I am not a fan of popular music, I feel that unless a tune or song has managed to survive 100 or 200 years of competition, then it will probably (and appropriately) fade from history. If a succession of generations finds enough worth in a song to repeat it to their children and them to their children’s children, then it must hold some essence of the human condition that warrants further study.

This brings me to the subject of this entry, Barbara Allen. Variously called Barbarous Ellen, Barbara Allen’s Cruelty or the Young-man’s Tragedy, this song tells of a jilted lover who, on his death, causes the death of said lover from guilt. In some versions it is not even clear that the affection was ever requited. The ending of most versions of the song is notable for inclusion of the motif of a rose and briar joining over graves in the churchyard.

This article will not make much sense unless you are familiar with the song, you can listen to my YouTube version here, or read various versions of the tune here.

There are many discussion threads on mudcat.org and a good summary of the earliest known performances and publications of the song provided on mainlynorfolk.info. The song has its earliest reported performance in 1666 and some indicate that there are close to 200 different variations spread across England, Scotland, Ireland and America.

So why do I hate this song? My main frustration is not that it lacks the key components of a good ballad, such as a murder or two, a returned lover or a dysfunctional love triangle. I am infuriated that as a disparate set of cultures across over 350 years, we have chosen to immortalise this particular piece of misogynist, spiteful, dribble.

While in some versions of the song, the particulars of Barbara’s rejection of the protagonist are fleshed out a little, they never amount to anything warranting a death wish. We can set aside the suggestion that this song may have been a piece of political satire targeting Charles II because by the 1800’s it would have lost any relevance in this respect. The song was perpetuated and re-invented based on its non-satirical merits alone.

Remember that whoever wrote the song was neither of the protagonists, as both are dead by its conclusion. We could surmise then that the author, or at least the audience psyche that identifies with the song, is a jilted male. Many a male has been spurned by a prospective lover, however, the ideology put forward in this song is that the man who dies of un-fulfilled desire should wish a swift death upon the object of his affection.

This is narrow-minded, childish misogyny. The idea that any girl who rejects a suitor should die of guilt is absurd. Yet here we have an example of an author and many millions of enamoured audience members nodding in agreement over three centuries.

The fact that this song is one of the most popular collected by Francis Child is a sad indictment on humanity. I can only assume that it is a mostly male audience that is to blame for this. There are so many other songs about chivalry, constancy and respect that warrant our praise. In the more recent example of ‘On Raglan Road ’ by Patrick Kavanagh we even have a good example describing how to look back with bittersweet reverence on failed romantic engagements.

I think this song is due for a 2016 re-write by a new generation of folk song authors. Maybe Barbara can go on to wed a man who respects her decisions and our spiteful misogynist will see the error of his ways and find someone to court who appreciates his improved character?