Folk Songs: Mother of Poetry and Music
November 3, 2023
“THROUGH its text and melody, the folk song is the mother both of literature and of music. This sung poetry is our earliest poetry; this poetic song is our first music. Thus, the well known folk song , ‘Summer is icumen in’ is the beginning of polyphony as well as the earliest recorded poem in the English language. Out of the background of lyric, ballad and other types of folk song, the more complex forms of literature have developed; from the simple melodies of the people, the elaborate harmonies of modern music have grown. But while it has given birth to many forms of music and poetry, the folk song is a mother who remains eternally young and beautiful. Can we ignore this mother or become so clever as to do without her? Must we not always return to her as to the source and crown of our musical culture? folk songs deal with universal realities of life
“The folk song deals with the fundamental, universal realities of human life, realities which belong equally to the present and the past, and which always hold deep meaning for us. Thus, nothing has has changed in the relation between God and man in spite of modern atheism; nothing has changed in the relation of boy and girl, man and wife, despite rising divorce rates; nothing has changed in the relation between mother and child despite birth control; nothing has changed in the relation of a man to his country despite treason and cowardice. Folk music sings of life and death, the joy of true love and the pain of disappointment, daily chores and heroic adventure, the jovial comradeship of the tavern, the difficulties of this earthly pilgrimage and the longing for our heavenly home.
“Because folk songs present these universal human experiences in a simple and beautiful form, they have the power to stir the souls of men in every age. They are always contemporary; they speak to us now as clearly and warmly as when they were first sung. We experience today the timeless beauty of the anonymous folk poetry, a beauty often equal to the work of our greatest pets and composers.”
— Laughing Meadows, A Book of Song; Grailville Publications, Loveland, Ohio; 1947
