Season 331. It's Folk Jim but not as we know it!

I've been a busy boy working all week but think I managed to chip away at the surface of this arrangement in the short time I did have. You may need to whack the volume up a little, cheers Geoff.

 
I have to admit, I'm a little surprised, that one song is conspicuously absent: Streets of London by Ralph McTell.
Or is this song so well-known only in Germany?
1974 appeared a German version sung by Jasmine Bonnin that has turned into a campfire classic: Strassen unserer Stadt.
 
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I have to admit, I'm a little surprised, that one song is conspicuously absent: Streets of London by Ralph McTell.
Or is this song so well-known only in Germany?
It was a big hit in the UK back in the seventies - probably the only reason I haven’t done it here is because it was one of my songs in season 328. :)
 
Great theme! Here is my first song, Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen, which is a song I've been meaning to learn for a while now. I actually wasn't sure if it was folk or not, (I was going to look that up before I posted it), but then saw that mythinformed beat me to it, so I guess it's all good! :) Hope you enjoy.
 
End of another day for me and I've caught up to here.

This is turning out to be a fabulous season with a great variety of songs and a great variety of styles of playing. You are really capturing that 'folky' sound with all the finger picking that you're all doing.

Up to 69 in the playlist. Keep them coming.
 
And my second song, A Boat Like Gideon Brown, by Great Big Sea. I've always liked the story the song tells - it reminds me of my own father. Here's my take on it: a stripped-down version (obviously), without the rock band and penny whistle part! Hope you like it. :)
 
On this side of the pond, it's still the solstice and it's Ray Davies' 74th birthday!

So here's an early Kinks song that's kinda folky, if our host would indulge ...

 
My third and last one this week - ‘The Last Farewell’ by Roger Whittaker - a song I remember hearing and loving as a child. Something quite moving about it.

 
This week gives me another chance to dredge through the songs in my songbook that I had not yet gotten around to recording and putting on YouTube.

Here is the first.

In this one, the narrator has bumped into an old school friend he used to fancy, but she ignored him, because he was obviously not into a permanent relationship at a tender age and she was desperate to be the first girl in their year to get married. Her desire seemed socially driven, emerging from peer pressure, rather than a thing she really wanted. Something that the narrator confirms when sometime later he sees her dancing sensually at a local hop.

However, he learns that "our heroine" did achieve her dream and, as you might imagine, it was an unmitigated disaster. Not least because the hunk she chose was impotent. So it goes.

Anyway, that's a little background to the song.... which I hope you enjoy.

 
I guess I'm a day late, but here's a bonus song. I think this song could be considered a neo-pagan contemporary folk song, as well.

 
This was my song for yesterday, and it was only this morning that I went "Doh!" - surely Loudon Wainwright III is a folkie.

 
a song I wrote tonight while joojoo was in the shower.
started strumming the bari, a melody said hello
and, as the words unfolded I couldn't help thinking Brizz would dig it;
but I hope y'all do too.
this is about as folky as I get.
i despise political correctness.
thanks again for the super week, Geoff.
by my reckoning that's 3 for me. over & out.



MILK & COOKIES

They say that all the bad things we do will come back biting
That light will shine into the darkest places where we hide em
Now I don't know if those stories told are true
Cause words are only syllables and once the sky was blue

And I've made people cry and people made me cry
But at least we didn't substitute our truth for balding lies
Give me facts any day over feigned PC affection
At least we'll know we've all been walking in the same direction

Birth and death and school and work and play
Today tomorrow yesterday

If the sky is grey or if the sky is blue
If it's yellow, brown or black or white to thine own self be true
Then when karma comes like a thief upon the night
Leave the milk & cookies out and everything will be alright
 
I think this song is more in line with what Geoff wanted from me. A contemporary song written in an obvious folk idiom.

This is a song from my Semi-Pro Folk Singing Days (the end credit should read 1982 not 1992).

it is part of a four song suite that I wrote after reading John Prebble's marvellous books about Culloden and The Highland Clearances

This one tells the tale of how the lackeys of the Scottish Aristocracy (backed by English gold) forced thousands of people off their mountain crofts so as to turn over the land to the more profitable sheep (wool was powering the Industrial Revolution). As we see refugees today forced to flee their countries due to war and/or brutal regimes, we need look only as far back as the 18th C. to see the same thing being carried out by the powerful against the poor in part of so-called Great Britain.

 
This one tells the tale of how the lackeys of the Scottish Aristocracy (backed by English gold) forced thousands of people off their mountain crofts so as to turn over the land to the more profitable sheep (wool was powering the Industrial Revolution). As we see refugees today forced to flee their countries due to war and/or brutal regimes, we need look only as far back as the 18th C. to see the same thing being carried out by the powerful against the poor in part of so-called Great Britain.

Have you watch the play "The Stag, the Cheviot, and the black black oil" your song would fit right in.
 
Greetings,

I don't think anyone has done Bob Seger yet, and he has come up on my contemporary folk list so here goes. The song is Night Moves, and it was easy to play but without Seger's vocals it surely is not the same. However, once I make a vid, I have to post it. So here goes.....



Ciao

 
Third entry, with some local flavor. Fiction writer Clyde Edgerton wrote this nearly 30 years ago about a small town in my home county. The town's grown a bit more sophisticated since then. I hope. Your basic I,V,IV progression. This version's in C. Play along!



"Quiche Woman in a Barbecue Town" by Clyde Edgerton

1)Social worker from Boston on a trip to Caroline
Stopped in Apex for Beaujolais wine
It was a hasty decision but she liked the little town
She met the mayor … and settled down.

CHORUS)She’s a quiche woman in a barbecue town
There’s trucks and ticks and tobacco all around
She was Vassar cum laude several years ago
The adjustment … will be slow.

2)Her next-door neighbor Mrs. Billy Ray Burch
Shackled and chained her and dragged her to church
She found the town council related
And the local swimming pool … segregated.

CHORUS

3)She found that her husband liked to hunt quail
Deer, duck, and the little cotton tail
She said: Hey, where you been? What’s the reason?
He said: Hey, what do ya think? It’s huntin’ season!

CHORUS

4)They had a little girl, daddy taught her to hunt,
And plow, and fish, and chew tobacca once a month,
Things worked together for the good I hear tell
She went to school … at Cornell.

2nd CHORUS)She’s a barbecue woman in a quiche town
There’s city slickers, and yankees, and bankers all around
She just left Apex a couple days ago
The adjustment … will be slow.

1st CHORUS
 
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Cool theme! I kept my ears open for folk music all week, and I heard a lovely version of this song from the amazing, prolific songwriter Robb Johnson (who's new to me this week) sung by a very talented woman. But I didn't catch her name.



Thanks for a Season that led me to this great song and to Johnson's music, Geoff!
 
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