Song meme!
Dec. 18th, 2010 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
galadriel1010Put your playlist on shuffle and, in the duration of a song, tell us what that song is about. Do this ten times (or, you know, as many as you like)
I'm cheating a little, because I'm using it to show what folk music can be about. I'll do it properly with my whole library soon, though.
1) One Last Drink - Enter the Haggis
This song is awesome. I heard it on the BBC's only national folk programme and loved it instantly, but it's taken me ages to track it down and be able to listen. But it's a free download on their website, so you should totally get it!
One Last Drink is about a guy who's on his deathbed and decides that tonight is not the night to die, so he's going to have one last drink and die in the morning. He drinks and dances until five in the morning, and the whole song has an awesome party atmosphere. It's all about celebrating life and clinging to it for as long as possible, but only so that you can enjoy it for longer. You know how you think about what you want to be played at your funeral? This is what I want at my funeral.
2) Beating the Bounds - Jon Boden
This is from a folk opera which is set in a post-apocalyptic world where racism is an everyday thing, because you fear anyone who you're not very very close to, pretty much, and it's all twisted. I've not heard the whole thing, just picked up this one from the Folk Against Fascism album (the whole movement was sparked by the BNP trying to claim folk music. We, on the whole, told them to folk off.)
Beating the Bounds is about an ancient British tradition, that of marching around the borders of a parish to cast the church's protection on it for another year, or something, which has been continued even though no one really knows what it's for. The marchers stop at various points for blessings and racist speeches, but they get laughed at because they look really stupid, and it sort of ruins the atmosphere, but not for the narrator, who sort of fancies the girl who laughed, sitting in a rusted, abandoned car. And the whole time, Abraham Brown is whistling Rule Britania, which is a really dumb song for the modern day anyway, but still lovely.
3) New York Girls - Bellowhead
I love this song. It's another really awesome tune, and has a fatastic story as well. Guy is walking through town, meets a girl who asks him back to her place. They drink, too much in his case, and then they go up to the room.
He falls asleep pretty much straight away, and wakes up very hungover in the morning. The room is empty apart from him, a skirt and an apron, when it should contain the pretty young girl he went to sleep with, his gold watch and money and, you know, his clothes. Oops?
He ends up running down the street in a barrel in this version, and goes back to the captain of the ship he just left, who tells him that he has to be sharper than that if he's not going to get scalped visiting a prostitute.
Polka out.
4) London Town - Bellowhead
This is pretty much the opposite story of New York Girls. The narrator is in London Town, up Cheapside, when he meets a pretty girl. They go drinking and dancing, and he pays for her dinner, and then they go to bed. In this story, however, she falls asleep before he does and he creeps out of bed and finds some treasures (possibly stuff she's stolen from other clients), which he promptly runs off with.
5) Roots - Show of Hands
This is one of the songs that the BNP tried to steal and we got very cross about, because it's too awesome for them to get their grubby hands on. I can see why they might have wanted it - not only is it awesome, it's also about the importance of music as a way of keeping hold of your roots, and why it's important to know where you've come from, and how so many kids these days don't know the old stories and songs about our country. The video for this is just fantastic, because bits were filmed at a folk festival performace, so you can see an entire crowd of mostly young people going mad to it. I've seen them live, and older members of the audience turned up with folding chairs to sit in the middle of the dance floor (they were banned from doing that in future, it's a dance floor for God's sake!) and the younger members stood in front of them, blocking their view and dancing. Because that is what folk music is for.
(I cheated here and shuffled. I had a load of non-songs coming up, so I just refreshed)
6) Captain Ward - The Demon Barbers
The Demon Barbers are pretty heavy rock these days, but all folk based. Captain Ward is one of the Child Ballads, according to Wikipedia, and he might have been a real person. He was the most feared pirate on the seas, and so the King of England built a ship called the Royal Rainbow, crewed by 1300 men, to go after Captain Ward.
The Rainbow finds Captain Ward at 8am, and the fight continues until 12pm. Captain Ward laughs at them and tells them that they're not going to win this one.
And he's right.
66 of the Royal Rainbow's crew are dead by the time they surrender and Captain Ward sends them home with a message for the king - "He may be king of all dry land, but I'll reign king of the sea".
7) Bonny Boy - The Demon Barbers
Here's a proper traditional folk song. It begins with 'As I walked out one morning', so it must be traditional.
Narrator is out a'walking one morning and finds a young girl lamenting her situation. Girl then becomes the narrator (also tradition). Apparently girl has fallen for her father's labouring boy, but father doesn't approve of this match and intends to a) send the boy to join the army and b) arrange a more suitable marriage for his beloved daughter. Girl thinks that this is very annoying, and vows to be single until she marries her bonny boy. She then goes on for a while about how attractive he is, and then the band goes mad and the crowd gets on with pogo-ing, usually.
8) Don't Stop Believin... Wait, that's not a folk song! What's that doing in this playlist?
8) Barrack Street - Blackbeard's Tea Party
Scroll up to New York Girls. Got it? This is the same story, except with more details and set in London (but on the same street). It turns out that our 'hero' had just come back from three years at sea and was planning to take the thirty pounds he'd saved up to Windsor Town, where his friends were waiting for him. Unfortunately, we learn this because he told the girl all about it, so of course she got him drunk and robbed him. He also told her that he couldn't dance, but managed it once she got him drunk.
In this, he does go running down the street in her skirt and apron. But he doesn't make it to Windsor, he just goes back to his captain and signs back on again.
9) Lady Eleanor - Lindisfarne
I think this one is about the Queen of the Fairies, tormenting and testing her mortal lover. There's lots of stories like that, and they're all awesome. She takes him to hell and ties him to the bed and does fun things like that until he admits that he's completely in love with her.
Another one I want to fic, but with Jack and the Queen of the Fairies. Well, I'll use one of the stories, anyway.
10) Three Drunken Maidens - The Demon Barbers
This one is just awesome. It's about three girls who go out and get drunk, spending a whole weekend in the pub, and end up paying for their food and drink in jewels and fine clothes. It would be a cautionary tale, but the Demon Barbers sing it as a sort of folk-ska celebration of drunkeness, which detracts from any message the song might have. Really, FUN!
And that was ten songs. And I didn't even get any of the awesome songs about rebellion or banks or morris dancing. Maybe I'll pick my top ten political folk songs in another post.
I'm cheating a little, because I'm using it to show what folk music can be about. I'll do it properly with my whole library soon, though.
1) One Last Drink - Enter the Haggis
This song is awesome. I heard it on the BBC's only national folk programme and loved it instantly, but it's taken me ages to track it down and be able to listen. But it's a free download on their website, so you should totally get it!
One Last Drink is about a guy who's on his deathbed and decides that tonight is not the night to die, so he's going to have one last drink and die in the morning. He drinks and dances until five in the morning, and the whole song has an awesome party atmosphere. It's all about celebrating life and clinging to it for as long as possible, but only so that you can enjoy it for longer. You know how you think about what you want to be played at your funeral? This is what I want at my funeral.
2) Beating the Bounds - Jon Boden
This is from a folk opera which is set in a post-apocalyptic world where racism is an everyday thing, because you fear anyone who you're not very very close to, pretty much, and it's all twisted. I've not heard the whole thing, just picked up this one from the Folk Against Fascism album (the whole movement was sparked by the BNP trying to claim folk music. We, on the whole, told them to folk off.)
Beating the Bounds is about an ancient British tradition, that of marching around the borders of a parish to cast the church's protection on it for another year, or something, which has been continued even though no one really knows what it's for. The marchers stop at various points for blessings and racist speeches, but they get laughed at because they look really stupid, and it sort of ruins the atmosphere, but not for the narrator, who sort of fancies the girl who laughed, sitting in a rusted, abandoned car. And the whole time, Abraham Brown is whistling Rule Britania, which is a really dumb song for the modern day anyway, but still lovely.
3) New York Girls - Bellowhead
I love this song. It's another really awesome tune, and has a fatastic story as well. Guy is walking through town, meets a girl who asks him back to her place. They drink, too much in his case, and then they go up to the room.
He falls asleep pretty much straight away, and wakes up very hungover in the morning. The room is empty apart from him, a skirt and an apron, when it should contain the pretty young girl he went to sleep with, his gold watch and money and, you know, his clothes. Oops?
He ends up running down the street in a barrel in this version, and goes back to the captain of the ship he just left, who tells him that he has to be sharper than that if he's not going to get scalped visiting a prostitute.
Polka out.
4) London Town - Bellowhead
This is pretty much the opposite story of New York Girls. The narrator is in London Town, up Cheapside, when he meets a pretty girl. They go drinking and dancing, and he pays for her dinner, and then they go to bed. In this story, however, she falls asleep before he does and he creeps out of bed and finds some treasures (possibly stuff she's stolen from other clients), which he promptly runs off with.
5) Roots - Show of Hands
This is one of the songs that the BNP tried to steal and we got very cross about, because it's too awesome for them to get their grubby hands on. I can see why they might have wanted it - not only is it awesome, it's also about the importance of music as a way of keeping hold of your roots, and why it's important to know where you've come from, and how so many kids these days don't know the old stories and songs about our country. The video for this is just fantastic, because bits were filmed at a folk festival performace, so you can see an entire crowd of mostly young people going mad to it. I've seen them live, and older members of the audience turned up with folding chairs to sit in the middle of the dance floor (they were banned from doing that in future, it's a dance floor for God's sake!) and the younger members stood in front of them, blocking their view and dancing. Because that is what folk music is for.
(I cheated here and shuffled. I had a load of non-songs coming up, so I just refreshed)
6) Captain Ward - The Demon Barbers
The Demon Barbers are pretty heavy rock these days, but all folk based. Captain Ward is one of the Child Ballads, according to Wikipedia, and he might have been a real person. He was the most feared pirate on the seas, and so the King of England built a ship called the Royal Rainbow, crewed by 1300 men, to go after Captain Ward.
The Rainbow finds Captain Ward at 8am, and the fight continues until 12pm. Captain Ward laughs at them and tells them that they're not going to win this one.
And he's right.
66 of the Royal Rainbow's crew are dead by the time they surrender and Captain Ward sends them home with a message for the king - "He may be king of all dry land, but I'll reign king of the sea".
7) Bonny Boy - The Demon Barbers
Here's a proper traditional folk song. It begins with 'As I walked out one morning', so it must be traditional.
Narrator is out a'walking one morning and finds a young girl lamenting her situation. Girl then becomes the narrator (also tradition). Apparently girl has fallen for her father's labouring boy, but father doesn't approve of this match and intends to a) send the boy to join the army and b) arrange a more suitable marriage for his beloved daughter. Girl thinks that this is very annoying, and vows to be single until she marries her bonny boy. She then goes on for a while about how attractive he is, and then the band goes mad and the crowd gets on with pogo-ing, usually.
8) Barrack Street - Blackbeard's Tea Party
Scroll up to New York Girls. Got it? This is the same story, except with more details and set in London (but on the same street). It turns out that our 'hero' had just come back from three years at sea and was planning to take the thirty pounds he'd saved up to Windsor Town, where his friends were waiting for him. Unfortunately, we learn this because he told the girl all about it, so of course she got him drunk and robbed him. He also told her that he couldn't dance, but managed it once she got him drunk.
In this, he does go running down the street in her skirt and apron. But he doesn't make it to Windsor, he just goes back to his captain and signs back on again.
9) Lady Eleanor - Lindisfarne
I think this one is about the Queen of the Fairies, tormenting and testing her mortal lover. There's lots of stories like that, and they're all awesome. She takes him to hell and ties him to the bed and does fun things like that until he admits that he's completely in love with her.
Another one I want to fic, but with Jack and the Queen of the Fairies. Well, I'll use one of the stories, anyway.
10) Three Drunken Maidens - The Demon Barbers
This one is just awesome. It's about three girls who go out and get drunk, spending a whole weekend in the pub, and end up paying for their food and drink in jewels and fine clothes. It would be a cautionary tale, but the Demon Barbers sing it as a sort of folk-ska celebration of drunkeness, which detracts from any message the song might have. Really, FUN!
And that was ten songs. And I didn't even get any of the awesome songs about rebellion or banks or morris dancing. Maybe I'll pick my top ten political folk songs in another post.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-19 01:50 am (UTC)