|
The songs in this section are my selections from various sources.
There are songs included from various British traditions, south, north and some from
lowland Scotland. Songs from the Celtic areas of Highland Scotland and Ireland
are listed in the Celtic section.
Traditional songs are usually divided into two general categories: narrative ballads and lyric songs. These categories represent the extremes of content: ballads stress action and lyrics feature emotions. There are, however, instances where the content is a combination of both ballad and lyric elements. The narrative ballads are, as you would expect, story songs that are often very similar in content and presentation to the folk tales sometimes called "fairy tales". They have originated primarily in Germanic areas of Europe: Germany, Scandinavia and the British Isles from where they migrated to this country. Ideally these stories would be told by a third person narrator detailing one action after another. There are a number of ballads that follow this pattern including " The Golden Vanity" (Child #286) and " King Henry" (Child #32). The lyric songs are more expressive of emotions and feelings. These include everything from love songs (successful and unrequited) like " The False Bride" to sporting songs (often about hunting) such as " The Innocent Hare" and everything in between, including songs usually sung for, or by, children like " The Tailor and the Mouse". Ideally these songs would stress private emotion with very little physical action. Between these two extremes is a spectrum of styles with most songs containing various combinations of emotional dialog and narrative. Some scholars include a third category of "dialog songs" midway between the ballad and the lyric song. A good example of this type of song is " Soldier, Soldier, Will You Marry Me?" which is often called a ballad by some but is considered a lyric song by many others. Some of these songs are very old, particularly the narrative ballads. These were documented in William Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time as well as in Francis J. Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, published in five volumes in the late 19th century. Child's numbering system is a standard reference for the ballads that are often refered to as Child #xx. Another source for ballads is the "broadside" tradition where lyrics would be composed by an anonymous author with a well known tune in mind. The lyrics would be printed on cheap paper broad sheets with a notation "To be sung to the tune of _____" . These sheets would be clipped together and sold on the streets. Songs that caught on with singers would pass into oral tradition and are often indistinguishable from traditional ballads. In England several significant figures chose to collect broadside, including Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) and Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer (1661–1724), in what became the Roxburghe Ballads. In the eighteenth century there were several printed collections, including Thomas D'Urfey's Wit and Mirth: or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719–20) and Bishop Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). In modern times, ballads and lyric songs were collected by Cecil Sharp both in England and America and published in One Hundred English Folksongs (1916), English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (1917) and other publications. Another good source is Bertrand Harris Bronson's The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads (1959-1972). Specialized categories of songs are not included in this section. Hymns and Spirituals, Christmas Songs, Contemporary Singer/Songwriter's Songs, Legacy Songs (songs based on traditional models by Woody Guthrie, The Carter Family, etc.) and Sea Chanties have been placed in their own sections. Bawdy Songs are, of course, also a very specialized subject and so are placed in another separate section. Some songs I learned from recordings and performances by Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, the New Lost City Ramblers, the Beers Family, Ewan McColl, Peggy Seeger and other modern singers and the older (mostly 78 rpm) recordings of Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, Buell Kazee, Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers, The Carolina Tar Heels, The Carter Family, Mississippi John Hurt, Clarence Ashley, Dock Boggs, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Uncle Dave Macon and others. Other songs were learned from print. |