Re: December FBOW letters up

"Merlin Haas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>     I think there was a national revival of classic folk music in the
> 1950s that carried over into the early 60s, which may be why we
> Midwesterners were taught songs from other regions. We also got to sing
> "What do we do with the drunken sailor, early in the morning" though
> none of the four versions I found on the web seem to match the one we
> were taught.  I do remember the "throw him in the brig until he's sober"
> verse.
>     I would imagine that was removed from the curriculum a couple of
> decades ago...
>

Your school was sending a punitive message -- the version I've heard is "put
him in the longboat 'til he's sober," which is not only more indulgent of
the overindulgent, but scans better, too.

The folk movement (not really a revival so much as a popularizing) was not
entirely "authentic" -- Harry Belafonte's calypso songs were freshly written
by a guy in New York City and the Kingston Trio's stuff was prettied up to
the point of being more cabaret than folk. Even the Clancy's, who were very
central to the movement in Greenwich Village, gussied up the Irish stuff,
though it was certainly accepted over there.

Well, they also sing "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" over there, so it says
nothing, really. (In an interview, Arlo Guthrie waved away the concept of
"authentic" -- Folk music, he said, is music folks sing. He suggested that
"Yellow Submarine" is already on the road to becoming "authentic folk
music." And it's true enough that Erie Canal, Drill Ye Tarriers Drill and
those other authentic folk songs were written for the musical stage.

In any case, the effect on the music curriculum was extremely positive -- 
not only did we learn to sing more-or-less on key and clap more-or-less on
the beat, but we picked up a little sense of other times and other places. I
not only remember about the Erie Canal, some Appalachian stuff and things
like the building of the railroads, but had a sense of places like Canada,
South Africa, France, etc.

(And before anyone says it turned us into a bunch of liberal Sixties
radicals, let me point out that, while we learned to appreciate other people
from our music teacher, it was Zorro and Robin Hood who taught us to become
heroes by opposing immoral government.)

Mike Peterson
Glens Falls NY