In the days when things were less mechanized work songs helped to synchronize the activity of the workers. Cadences to sea shanties and work songs helped to alleviate boredom and helped to provide a pace to activities. With radios to relieve boredom and machines taking over many of the repetitive tasks that relied on human muscle I wonder how long this form of music will last.
Even if people record the lyrics and perform the music, this form of music use to have a living quality that needs people to modify it to the task and time period. Without that the music is dead. The last place I know of that these songs truly survive is in different sporting events.
When hiking I remember hearing a song that started
A yellow bird with a yellow bill
Was perched upon my window sill…
The work song.
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I.D.10-t
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The work song.
"Be not deceived by the sweet words of proverbial philosophy. Sugar of lead is a poison."
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Nanohedron
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Joseph E. Smith
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scottielvr
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Nanohedron
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Oh, yeah: also a mod here, not a spammer. A matter of opinion, perhaps. - Location: Lefse country
Re: The work song.
Mary Jane Lamond recorded some Cape Breton weaving songs, andI.D.10-t wrote:Even if people record the lyrics and perform the music, this form of music use to have a living quality that needs people to modify it to the task and time period. Without that the music is dead.
she put the sound of the loom heddles in the background. Really
brings it home.
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Nanohedron
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Oh, yeah: also a mod here, not a spammer. A matter of opinion, perhaps. - Location: Lefse country
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Wombat
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There's a CD of waulking songs in the Scottish Tradition series that is great. From memory, I think they were collected on Barra. Lomax collected a few even earlier (late '40s) which are very funky. A modern group called Bannal, I think, have a CD out of rather stilted 'concert' versions of waulking songs which are OK but nowhere near as good as the real thing.Nanohedron wrote:I really like the old Scots waulking songs, what little I've heard of them. Very antediluvian.
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Wombat
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Here's an exercise for your imagination, Em. First, imagine Nano singing. Now imagine he is singing 'S i Tir Ruin-sa Ghaidhealtachd in Gaelic rather than the English. Now choose a chorus of your favourite singing chiffsters; this is a call and response thing. Imagine a steady rhythmic thumping on the table. OK? Let us begin.emmline wrote:Sing one Nano. Go ahead.Nanohedron wrote:I really like the old Scots waulking songs, what little I've heard of them. Very antediluvian.
The Ghaidhealtachd is the land that I love, where the cows and calves are in shielings among the glens; the milkmaid goes under them, a large pail in each hand; you will get plenty of it to drink and will not pay a groat for it. The women spin and the young girls card the wool for them. One man sows, another reaps, another fishes in his boat. There you will get salmon, venison and fish to your desire; you will get oat and barley bread. I was reared on it when young. You would not feel the nights long in Bernera. The girls would be waulking and pleasant to me was the sound of their laughter. I will go at Fair time and see all that I would wish there.
When I worked in the gardens at Wash Park in Denver,
I taught my colleagues chain gang songs. We were
pulling weeds; there were twenty flower beds,
and when we got through weeding them we
would start again. We were going kinda nuts.
So imagine you're walking through the park one day,
you pass a flower bed, and there are four or five
people on their knees in it, weeding. As you approach
you hear them singing:
(Single voice):
Jack O' Diamonds was that grizzly...
(Everybody together loud):
Grizzly Bear!
Jack 0' Diamonds was that grizzly...
Grizzly Bear!
He came a huffin and a puffin like a...
Grizzly Bear!
He came a huffin and a puffin like a...
Grizzly Bear!
I taught my colleagues chain gang songs. We were
pulling weeds; there were twenty flower beds,
and when we got through weeding them we
would start again. We were going kinda nuts.
So imagine you're walking through the park one day,
you pass a flower bed, and there are four or five
people on their knees in it, weeding. As you approach
you hear them singing:
(Single voice):
Jack O' Diamonds was that grizzly...
(Everybody together loud):
Grizzly Bear!
Jack 0' Diamonds was that grizzly...
Grizzly Bear!
He came a huffin and a puffin like a...
Grizzly Bear!
He came a huffin and a puffin like a...
Grizzly Bear!
