Let me sing for you the songs of my people

[annathepiper]

I’ve mentioned before that something I ardently respond to in both Quebecois and Newfoundland trad music is how many of the bands and singers I’m following have learned their music from their parents, who learned it from their parents, etc. I.e., they grew up with this music, and it was woven into their lives so deeply that it made them who they are. Their love for it shines through brilliantly in their performances.

Devon Léger quite correctly pointed out to me that Americans are not without such traditions–you just need to know where to look for them. Certainly many American Celtic or folk or country performers are fortunate enough to have that same sort of background, too, and classical performers as well. Those of us in the science fiction folk music community, filk, have some small rumblings of this too. Filk hasn’t really quite been around long enough to have songs handed down from one generation to the next, but I have met people who are doing it, and it’s really cool of them. (I am thinking specifically of you, mdlbear!)

In the bigger picture of American society, though, people getting together and making music just for the joy of making music is not so much of a thing. This is why I’m so very delighted to have discovered both Irish and Quebecois sessions, and it’s why I linger on the edges of filk circles as well; it’s all part of the same idea.

I had a delightful little epiphany last night, too: all that Elvis Presley music my dad played for me on the stereo when I was a kid is absolutely generational handing down of music. And I’ve actually done it too–playing Great Big Sea songs for kathrynt and llachglin‘s kid Lillian!

So the next time you hear me say “Let me sing for you the song of my people”, I’ll be about to belt out “Hound Dog”. Or “Ordinary Day”. Or maybe now also “Dans le ville de Paris”, or “Re: Your Brains”.

Because no matter where you’re from, Quebec or Newfoundland or Kentucky or any filk circle in any science fiction convention in the world, if you love music, and you get up and you share it with those around you, you are my people. And I will sing your songs.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Comments

[batyatoon]

A friend of mine is at grad school studying American folk and country and blues, and we have talked a lot about Southern American traditions of "people getting together and making music just for the joy of making music". It is definitely a thing! It's just a thing that doesn't make it into pop culture much.

[annathepiper]

*nodnodnod* From what experience I've had it's more common in the South than elsewhere. In my case though, and I am from the South, I grew up with hardly anybody else musicially inclined in my immediate family. Or, for that matter, in my life outside band classes in school. My dad sharing his Elvis records with me was one of the closest ways my life got to that, and I was really thrilled to remember that last night.

It was also bittersweet to touch on it a bit when I went back to Kentucky for Grandma's funeral this past May, given that the old gentleman who spoke for her during the funeral asked me if I ever found myself singing--and when I told him yes, he said that was the Carey in me coming out. Because Grandma's family were singers.

You could probably make amusing theories about what it says about my psychology that I'm totally latching onto other musical traditions outside those of where I actually grew up. ;) But then, Elvis IS still in heavy rotation on my playlists!

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

*wild applause*

I got Christmas carols from my mum. My dad gave me the Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Zeppelin. I think Led Zeppelin in particular would be tickled at the idea of becoming folk music, given the traditional-music influences in their rock.

Dad also gave me Holst (though that's not "songs" - just music), who was born in the same town as I was. (Gustav Holst. Gee, he sounds English. ;) )

I got a lot of my Scottish songs from weddings, actually - Loch Lomond, of course, and Auld Lang Syne. Mhairi's Wedding, obviously (which sounds fantastic on bagpipes!).

English folk songs, I picked up on my own for the most part, because I went looking and the internet had been invented at last. The only ones I can think of that my parents or grandparents taught me are the ones from the Second World War - "Pack Up Your Troubles" and "White Cliffs of Dover". I'm not sure if "Dover" is a folk song, come to think of it, but it's certainly traditional.

I learned a bunch of Québecois songs in school. My favourite has always been (and probably will always be) "À la claire fontaine". Have you encountered that one?

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

Oh, and "Le Canadien Errant"! I go in for sad songs.

[annathepiper]

This one I don't know either!

[annathepiper]

Elvis was really, really big with both of my parents. More with my father, but I have a very clear memory of my mother crying by the radio not long after Elvis died, and listening to "Suspicious Minds" and murmuring "Bless his heart!"

"À la claire fontaine" is not a title in my collection, but it's apparently on one of the albums on my wishlist--an album by Mauvais Sort! :)