On Folk Music
Call me corny, but I really do like folk music. ...Right, now that I've been summarily pelted with corn, let me explain myself. Unless anyone reading this is a folk and protest music aficionado, or even has a passing interest (which I guess is very few of you), you probably think of folk music as someone strumming three out-of-tune chords and making a mockery of singing, while wailing about some lost woman or cow. Let me disabuse you of these illusions. Yes, there are some folk singers who can't sing or play - a terrible recording of bagpipe music comes to mind. But folk traditions are rich and the repertoire is varied, with much room for personal interpretation and improvisation. Some of my favourite folk songs aren't the ones you might hear bawled out a couple of painful times a year, but the ones that few people hear - ones about rakes in debt, or people leaving their loved ones, or sailors abandoning beautiful women, or cautionary tales about getting pregnant. Folk ...