Folk House
How do you write a new folk-song? In particular, how do you write a folk-song for an area of South Lincolnshire which (so far as anybody knows) doesn't have a folk tradition of its own?
Greg Russell and Danny Pedler went round the village of South Holland and made recordings of local people talking and the sounds of some of the factories where they are employed. The factory sounds became the rhythms of the songs; the stories became the lyrics. This resulted in a new album which is performed in its entirety tonight. The music is acoustic, but some of the oral history and industrial sounds are incorporated into the performance. This becomes a source of jokes during the evening -- Greg is as good at gently making fun of Danny as he is of his regular partner Ciaran Algar. ("He would phone me up and say 'I've recorded a boxing plant, and it's a perfect twelve eight waltz'. I had to find lots of different ways of saying 'I don't care'.")
The idea of basing songs on the sounds of industrial machinery isn't as far-fetched as it may sound. The only traditional song of the evening, Poverty Knock, is thought to have been composed in precisely that way.
South Holland has always relied on migrant labour; and many of the people who work in the factories are Eastern Europeans who have been horribly exploited by gang-masters. So a lot of the songs grow beyond their narrow subject matter and become about immigration and modern Britain. "We've recorded the voices of a lot of lovely people and one or two racists" says Greg. The anthemic title song is written from the point of view of an immigrant.
a man gave me work and I thought him kind
paid me more than I hoped for
but wages became a deadly bind
fields how I miss thee
ten to a room and I can't get out
the bus comes at five every morning
taking us to the dreary old drive
fields how I miss thee
There is a convincingly cod-traditional song based on a folk-tale about a boggart and a farmer which turns out to be about how "the new met the old and the new it prevailed". There is a wonderful instrumental piece played on the hurdy gurdy named after the hardware which gave it it's rhythm ("Delta 3000 Plastic Presser.")
But for me the stand out number was "Pigeon End", a series of quote from an old man, remembering the time before the war where the local pub seemed like the centre of the universe. It puts me in mind of some Romany singers that I've heard; more a chant than a song; full of specific detail and in the end almost unbearably poignant.
so I chose life and returned to men
but it's hard to leave and return again
the fens are still there but the pub's closed down
it's all moved in to folk lore now
While they were researching the album Greg and Danny ran workshops in village schools; and they sing one of the songs they wrote with the children. One child wanted to be a "farrier" when she grew up, the other wanted to be "a therapist". The phrase "a farrier a therapist" has a wonderfully folkie rhythm to it. You can almost imagine a factory machine chugging it out.
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