Can you hear the people sing?
The Boston Globe asks if we’re seeing a resurgence in politically active folk music.
Of course we are.
But what gets me is this:
It’s the folk purists who bother him: “They will say, `Oh, don’t be political; you’re supposed to be singing traditional material.’ And I want to say, `This is traditional. The wealthy and the powerful taking advantage of the poor and ignorant. People like us screaming about it, and people like you rolling over and taking it. How much more traditional can you get?’ “
Who are these folk purists, and where can I find them so that I may apply my righteous pimp hand upside their heads for displaying their musical and cultural stupidity?
You want to stick to traditional music only? That’s fine. But anybody who claims that folk music is not supposed to be political knows not whereof they speak. Arlo Guthrie wrote “Alice’s Restaurant” to talk about the draft. Woody Guthrie wrote “The Ludlow Massacre.” Traditional bar song of the British Isles “Sir Patrick Spens” is a song about the readiness of the nobility to sacrifice their people over trivialities. “The Golden Vanity” is a wider variation on an older song about Sir Walter Raleigh that painted the picture of a proud, arrogant, selfish and ungrateful man put in charge of dangerous operations.
Sticking to traditional music only is all well and good – we need that in our society. It’s always best to know where we’ve been on our way to where we’re going. But to imply that acts performing traditional music are the only true folk musicians is to fail to understand folk music and its origins. Folk music is the voice of the people – and when the people are dissatisfied and discontented, the music will reflect that. Folk music is now – and will always be – rebellion.
That’s my word.
May 23rd, 2004 at 9:24 am
I’ll never understand the people who don’t want things “polluted by politics.” If it matters, politics is as much a part of it as oxygen is a part of the air. It’s the process through which people find ways to live with (or in spite of) one another. You can’t have a society without having politics.
May 24th, 2004 at 8:30 am
Political has, in recent years, become a byword for everything your side disagrees with. Honestly, I could very happily live in a soicety in which “politicizing” was not in everyday usage—or, at the very least, one in which it was used correctly. We live in a world in which politicians are daily accused of politicizing issues. What chance do folk musicians have?