Themes Part 3
Themes Part 3
The songs we consider to be traditional have stuck around in the popular consciousness because of common themes that resonate with the general population over different periods of history. Often these are similar to the way in which you might group books or films into different genres. These categories are listed for convenience and some songs might fall into more than one category.
Visit the EFDSS Education Resource Bank for a range of thematic packs of folk songs.
Sailor Songs
Disregarding for a moment, the songs sung by sailors on board ship, there are all kinds of songs where sailors are the heroes – the romantic nature of sailors and soldiers and other people in uniform hasn’t changed for hundreds of years, but the types of songs are very varied – there are historic songs of real naval battles, work songs or sea shanties and love songs recounting couples parted by long sea voyages. Press gang songs have helped to make the sailor seem more of a heroic underdog.
Example 1: The Young Sailor (Cecil Sharp Collection)
Example 2: Bonny Blue Jacket (Frank Kidson Collection)
Soldier Songs
Like songs about sailors, war songs are enduring in just the same way as perennial war movies or video games. Again, they may be tales of real battles and historical figures like Napoleon or they may simply be love songs where war parts two lovers.
Example 1: The White Cockade (Anne Geddes Gilchrist Collection)
Example 2: Battle of Waterloo (Frank Kidson Collection)
Songs of the Road
Like soldiers and sailors, the traveller is a part of a Romantic world of the national imagination, of a bygone time of rambling England’s country lanes and camping beneath the stars. There are as a result many songs about gypsy girls, tinkers, and wandering vagabonds, often with a highly unrealistic view of the realities of the travelling life. By contrast the characteristics of an oral tradition have persisted amongst real travellers, and many collectors, up to the present day have found unusual or unique versions of traditional folk songs among the traveller community.
Example 1: I’d Be a Gypsy (Lucy Broadwood Collection)
Example 2: The Poor Gypsy Maid (Frank Kidson Collection)
Songs of Good Company
There are many, many songs concerned with the process of drinking and having a good time. Many criticise the non-drinker as miserable scourge of society, and the dreaded tee-totaller is the butt of the joke in many comic drinking songs. Others’ celebrate the medicinal powers of alcohol. A very common sentiment is that celebrating the company in which the singer finds himself – undoubtedly a way for a singer in a pub or other social setting to ingratiate themselves with an audience and perhaps encourage a listener to buy them a drink.
Example 1: I Likes A Drop of Good Beer (George Gardiner Manuscript Collection)
Example 2: A Health to All Good Lasses (Alfred Williams Manuscript Collection)
