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Posted: 26-09-2005 07:39 Post subject: Folk Songs

We don't seem to have a thread on this, so for starters:

Things I've learned from British folk ballads

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Don't ignore warnings. If someone tells you to beware of Long Lankin,
friggin' beware of him. If someone tells you not to go by Carterhaugh, stay away. Same goes for your mother asking you not to go out hunting on a particular day. Portents about weather, particularly when delivered by an old sailor who is not currently chatting up a country maid, are always worth heeding.

If someone says that he's planning to kill you, believe him.

If someone says he's going to die, believe him.

Avoid navigable waterways. Don't let yourself be talked into going down by the wild rippling water, the wan water, the salt sea shore, the strand, the lowlands low, the Burning Thames, and any area where the grass grows green on the banks of some pool. Cliffs overlooking navigable waterways aren't safe either.

Broom, as in the plant, should be given a wide berth.

Stay away from the greenwood side, too.

Avoid situations where the obvious rhyme-word is "maidenhead."

If you look at the calendar and discover it's May, stay home.

The flowing bowl is best quaffed at home. Don't drink with strangers. Don't
drink alone. Don't toss the cups or pass the jar about in bars where you
haven't arranged to keep a tab. Drinks of unusual or uncertain provenance should be viewed askance, especially if you're offered them by charming members of the opposite sex. Finally, never get drunk and pass out in a bar called the "Cape Horn."

Members of press gangs seldom tell the truth. Recruiting sergeants will fib
to you shamelessly. They are not your friends, even if they're buying the
drinks. Especially when they're buying the drinks.

If you're drinking toasts, mention your One True Love early and often.

If you're a young lady, dressing yourself in men's array and joining the
army or the navy has all sorts of comic possibilities, but you yourself aren
't going to find it too darned humorous at the time.

If you are an unmarried lady and have sex, you will get pregnant. No good will come of it.

If you are physically unable to get pregnant due to being male, the girl you had sex with will get pregnant. No good will come of it. You'll either kill
her, or she'll kill herself, or her husband/brother/father/uncle/cousin will
kill you both. In any case her Doleful Ghost will make sure everyone finds
out. You will either get hanged, kill yourself, or be carried off bodily by
Satan. Your last words will begin "Come all ye."

Going to sea to avoid marrying your sweetie is an option, but if she hangs
herself after your departure (and it's even money that she's going to) her
Doleful Ghost will arrive on board your ship and the last three stanzas of
your life will purely suck.

If you are a young gentleman who had sex it is possible the girl won't get
pregnant. In those rare instances you will either get Saint Cynthia's Fire
or the Great Pox instead. No good will have come of it.

New York Girls, like Liverpool Judies, like the ladies of Limehouse,
Yarmouth, Portsmouth, Gosport, and/or Baltimore, know how to show sailors a good time, if by "good time" you mean losing all your money, your clothes, and your dignity. Note: All of these places are near navigable waterways. In practical terms this means that if you're a sailor you're screwed (and so are any young ladies you happen to meet). See also: Great Pox; Doleful Ghost.

If you are a young lady do not allow young men into your garden. Or let them steal your thyme. Or agree to handle their ramrods while they're hunting the bonny brown hare. Cuckoo's nests are right out. And never stand sae the back o' yer dress is up agin the wa' (for if ye do ye may safely say yer thing-a-ma-jig's awa').

Never let a stranger teach you a new game. No good will come of it.

Sharing a boyfriend with your sister is a bad plan.

Having more than one True Love at a time is a non-starter.

If you're a brunette, give up.

Not that being a blonde will improve the odds much.

If your name is Janet, change it.

If you are a young lady and an amorous soldier, sailor, ploughboy,
blacksmith, cavalry officer, or other young man fails to stop the first time
you tell him he's being too bold, knock off the maidenly protests and take
more direct measures. If saying "no" the first time didn't stop him, you've
no reason to believe that twice will work any better.

Professions to be particularly wary of: clerks, salty sailors, serving
maids, blacksmiths, highwaymen, gamblers, rank robbers, stonemasons,
soldiers, tinkers, and millers. Anyone described as "jolly," "bold," or
"saucy." Supernatural creatures are best avoided. If they can't be avoided, they should be addressed respectfully. If a supernatural creature sets you a task you're well and truly screwed.

If you are a young lady and a soldier promises to "marry you in the morn," it means he's already married. And has kids. And he's not going to marry you anyway. Even if you're pregnant. Which you will be.

If you're a young unmarried lady with child, and your pregnancy embarrasses or inconveniences someone else, consider yourself a sitting duck. Don't meet with your young gentleman alone, or at odd hours, or in isolated locations, even if he says he's taking you to be married. Next thing you know your Doleful Ghost will be telling your mother all about it. While he may say "Come all ye.." in the last stanza or two this will be small comfort.

Young ladies who feel uneasy should always act on their feelings. If in your good opinion you fear some young man (however handsome, rich, and well-spoken) is some rake, depend upon it: He's a rake. Rakes will protest that you have them all wrong. They'll be fibbing. Never go anywhere with a rake, particularly to isolated spots. See above: Doleful Ghost.

If you are a young lady and someone arrives to tell you that your boyfriend was slain on a foreign battlefield, take it with a grain of salt. Especially if you're carrying a broken token.

If a former significant other turns up unexpectedly after a long absence,
don't throw yourself into his/her arms right away.

That goes double if they refuse to eat anything.

Triple if they turn up at night and want you to leave with them immediately.

Have nothing to do with former boyfriends who turn up and say it's no big
deal that you're now married to someone else and have a child. If their
intentions are legit, that's got to be a problem. If it's not a problem,
their intentions are not legit.

You are justified in cherishing the direst suspicions of a suddenly and
unexpectedly returned significant other who mentions a long journey, a far
shore, or a narrow bed, or who's oddly skittish about the imminent arrival
of cockcrow.

If you are a young lady and you meet a young man who says his name is
"Ramble Away," don't be surprised if, by the time you know you're pregnant, it turns out he's moved and left no forwarding address.

A fellow who's a massively accomplished flirt hasn't been spending his time sitting around waiting for his One True Love to come along. Furthermore, odds are poor that you'll turn out to be his One True Love who will reform him.

If you arrange an assignation with your new sweetie, a little foot page will
be listening in and will carry the news to exactly the last person you'd
want to hear the story.

If your girlfriend insists that you go back to sleep after some odd sound
woke you, it's time to dive out the window and run for the hills right then.

If you're hiding in the hills, don't inform anyone exactly where you're
sleeping, particularly not an attractive member of the opposite sex.

If your girlfriend serves eels in eel broo, make sure you see her eat some
first.

Informing your current significant other that you're about to be wed to
someone else is . risky. Even if you're doing it as a joke, or to test their
love. Especially if you're doing it as a joke or to test their love. Testing
someone's love in general isn't too bright.

Not even sending a talking goshawk to tell your significant other that the
engagement is off will help you. You're going to find yourself at the bottom
of a well full fifty fathoms deep. A Doleful Ghost may get involved.

If, after you inform your current significant other that you're to be wed to
someone else, he or she suggests that the two of you meet in some lonely
spot for one last fling, do not go.

Inviting your old flame to your wedding is a bad idea.

If your old flame invites you to his/her wedding, leave town.

If your old flame shows up uninvited at your wedding, start eyeing the
exits. There's a chance he/she is a Doleful Ghost. Be that as it may, no
good will come of it.

If you're out hunting, make sure of your sight picture before you pull the
trigger/loose your bow. Especially so if you're near a navigable waterway or the greenwoodside.

Do not allow the words "I wish" to pass your lips.

Avoid oaths, particularly when you're near navigable waterways or the
greenwoodside.

If the jailer indicates his willingness to take your gay gold ring to carry
a message to your sweetheart, see if he'll take that same gay gold ring to
leave the door open and look the other way for five minutes while you or the sweetheart (as appropriate) escape.

Always use the buddy system. "Bare is brotherless back," as Grettir the
Strong put it; and if Grettir was worried about going places alone, you'd
better worry too. So bring a friend with you. Friends keep bad things from
happening. If things go badly anyway, you'll need their help. And if things
go well (hey, it could happen), it'll be nice to have a friend along to
share the laughs.

Moving to America for a minute:

Do not, for any reason, mess with a man's Stetson hat or a man who is
wearing a Stetson.

Pop quiz!

You are a beautiful young lady named Janet. On the first of May you meet a man in a patch of broom down by the greenwoodside. He invites you to his home on the far side of the sea, and earnestly entreats you to keep his
invitation secret from your parents. The ship is leaving right away, this
very night!

What should you do?

A) Woo hoo, sounds like fun! You'll go, have a great time, and return home happy, healthy, and with some great gossip for your chums.

B) You blow loudly on a police whistle and run home as if jet-propelled. You tell mom and dad what just went down, put on a Stetson, and load your forty-four caliber revolver with silver bullets.

C) You decide that it would save everyone concerned a great deal of trouble if you skipped ahead a bit and hanged yourself right now. Your Doleful Ghost informs mom of the situation.

D) Rather than go with him you disguise yourself as a man and join the Army. Next time you're marching through the Lowlands Low you seduce a beautiful young lady. She is so amazed to discover that she isn't pregnant that she hangs herself. Her Doleful Ghost gets confused and drives the young man you met down by the greenwoodside mad. He delivers a long speech that begins

"Come all ye wild and roving lads a warning take by me.."

(by email, from over the pond.)

Should bring back a few memories for other gnarly types like me!

Posted: 26-09-2005 08:07 Post subject:

Plenty of Fortean material in old folk songs and sea shanties: talking animals, portents of doom, mermaids, ghosts, magicians.

Like the Victorian attitude to fairy tales, lot of the Child ballads etc seemed to get sanitised in America.

Posted: 26-09-2005 08:44 Post subject:

Posted: 26-09-2005 09:32 Post subject:

Posted: 26-09-2005 09:38 Post subject:

The first time I met her, I met her in white,
All in white, all in white, she gave me such a fright,
Down in the dark valley, where nobody goes.

The next time I met her, I met her in pink,
All in pink, all in pink, she made my fingers think,
Down in the dark valley, where nobody goes.

etc.

This one goes on for many more, increasingly unlikely verses, which I hesitate to bring to the attention of the gentle and parfitt members to be found on this MB.

Posted: 26-09-2005 09:47 Post subject:

Some of the more outright rude ones probably fell victim to Victorian prudery - bawd was common and accepted in the Middle Ages, and right up to the beginning of the 19th Century, when a lot of stuff was bowdlerised: this incidentally strengthened very British art of innuendo, as if an "innocent" meaning could be construed as well as an overtly rude one, it often escaped the wrath of the Chamberlain. Also, a lot of the euphemism was in itself for comic effect - as meanings subtly shift over the centuries, what 200 years ago would have been an obvious, leering double-entendre may well be lost on us today.

Posted: 26-09-2005 09:51 Post subject:

It will be no surprise to some, that many of Rynners 'Rules of British Folk Ballads' seem to apply very well to the tragic love triangle (+1), of Emma, her husband Will 'the sappy gamekeeper' and Edward (his brother, her lover) who was shortly to leave for Australia and the colonies and the baby George, on BBC Radio4 soap, The Archers, at the moment.

For they are of the soil, common country folk, the salt of the earth and live in Thomas Hardy World. Whilst, all the money grubbing, grasping and sophisticated plotlines, about inheritance, modern industrial agriculture and the World of business, are allocated to the middleclass folks, who live up the various hills of Ambridge and Borsetshire.

Posted: 26-09-2005 18:43 Post subject:

My friend lamented to me a while back that the men in folk songs seem to be called Willy a disproportionate amount of the time.

Posted: 26-09-2005 22:03 Post subject:

I guess a few others here will have the Bob Dylan TV bio on at the moment. (BBC2, if you don't!)

Takes me back to the 60s, and that heady mix of folk and pop that we enjoyed then. Bob Dylan drew on many sources for his ideas, and creatively mixed them up in his own distinctive, cross-genre style.

A sort of Fortean synchronicity that I started this thread today, which was only because of the email I received this morning! Very Happy

Posted: 26-09-2005 22:09 Post subject:

The Bob Dylan bio's fascinating stuff. Not just for the stuff about Dylan. The old folk scene's a long, long time ago, the other side of the Sixties. The other side of Dylan gone electric, in fact!

Great stuff, though! Very Happy

Posted: 27-09-2005 22:46 Post subject:

Excellent stuff, Rynner!

Posted: 27-09-2005 23:04 Post subject:

Personally, I can't stand Dylan, or at least I can't stand him as performer. As a writer, yes, I can see the appeal but doing his own stuff, no. In fact, I don't think I've heard a Dylan song that wasn't covered and wasn't better than the original: whether it's the Byrds or someone down my local folk club, which is a testement to his skill as a writer as much as to a detraction of his ability as a performer.

I'm a massive fan of early American folk and country going - I play clawhammer banjo in my spare time amongst other things - and can appreciate both his own influences and his influence, but I just can't listen to his recordings from any period.

Posted: 27-09-2005 23:44 Post subject:

Posted: 27-09-2005 23:48 Post subject:

Posted: 28-09-2005 00:03 Post subject:

Well Don't Look Back, get's a big thumbs up from me as a documentary. Bob Dylan's key formative years, to around 1966/7 interpreted by Martin Scorsese.

Got very interesting indeed, in the second part. It was The King of Comedy all over again. With Dylan surrounded by Pupkins, all trying to hound him into the Messiahood. Bob just refused, pointblank, to climb up onto that cross. So, what other role was there left for him to play, than "Judas"? As several hecklers pointed out to him very loudly.

From the time of fingers in ears and Aran knit sweaters, Dylan and The Band blasted eardrums through to his own personal brand of grungy R&B folk ballads.

We probably owe Bob Zimmerman quite a lot, The Boy Who Survived.