SINGING/STREETS Booklet
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Singing in the Streets ROUNDER CD 1700 p © 2003 Rounder Records Corp., One Camp Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140 USA. ROUNDER is a registered trademark of Rounder Records Corp. http://www.rounder.com; Scottish Children’s Songs email: [email protected] www.alan-lomax.com CHAINIE TIG FROM HERE AND THERE childlore he recorded here for Lomax was almost Alan Lomax’s 1951 gleanings of children’s lore were all English. gathered in a crowded city, a sparsely populated island, a suburban street in Aberdeen, a school play- Alan Lomax’s continuing interest in children’s game ground in Edinburgh, a vigorous singing class in songs led to the creation of a wonderful CD South Uist, and in quiet conversations with people (Rounder CD 1716) and a book on children’s game not yet famous. and pass-play songs in the eastern Caribbean, Brown Girl in the Ring: An Anthology of Song Games from the Early in his visit to Scotland, Lomax had the good Eastern Caribbean, written with J. D. Elder and Bess fortune to encounter the remarkable and gifted Lomax Hawes (1997). collector of children’s lore, James T. Ritchie, whose books and films give an unparalleled view of the CONTINUOUS RE-CREATION richness of Edinburgh children’s games, songs, and These recordings are not nursery rhymes — rhymes play activities in the 1950s. Ritchie led one of his or songs taught by adults to children. Rather they are principal informants, sweet-voiced Peggy the folklore of children themselves, first heard from MacGillivray, through the complexities of skipping their pre-teen elders, learned along with their peers game and song. Lomax’s subsequent visit to record aged seven to ten, and abandoned when puberty Ritchie’s Norton Park pupils reprising their singing struck. Some of these children’s songs travel the globe role in Ritchie’s film The Singing Street provides a in multiple guises. Others droop and wither before neat comparison between MacGillivray’s singing style they can be collected and preserved. Those that in an interview context and singing with her peers in survive adapt to local languages and conditions, and the natural open-air habitat of the songs. versions multiply like those of the Child ballads made and preserved by adults.1 The children’s songs Later in his visit, Lomax recorded a group of are created and re-created as they are adapted, glued Aberdeen children under the leadership of 10-year together, or chopped into fragments. They drop their old Jack Mearns, who 50 years later provided a tunes and become rhymes, other tunes are then fascinating account of Lomax in action and recon- applied to them. Sense becomes nonsense and is structed who performed what. rewritten to become sense again. We have included a number of English rhymes on They function to develop language, memory and this CD, in part because Lomax recorded very few physical co-ordination. Children utilize many of children’s songs in England in 1951, and in part them to accompany physical play activity: group or because of the high quality of the material from individual selection for games (“counting out” and singer Ewan MacColl. His upbringing in a Scots elimination), group game songs, for use with a ball, family living in Salford, England, gave him a and for skipping, hand-clapping, elastic ropes, and so wonderful command of Scots adult song, yet the forth. Others are used for performance and include wordplay and parody verses, or narrative ballads of Rymour Club swept up gems and dross. Alan Lomax here by Ewan MacColl, only two were also collected he said: more than one stanza, often featuring surreal humor. credited William Montgomerie for his help during by Lomax in Scotland. the 1951 trip. In 1947, Montgomerie and his wife Sometimes these rhymes sound very simple and monoto- In general, the girls learn and use the play songs, and Norah had published the first of several assemblages TWO TO SING nous, but that is because they were never meant to be the boys sing the songs about football and violence of Scottish Nursery Rhymes, collected from oral and Some of the songs heard on this disc are always asso- sung indoors. When the children take them into the and earth, bawdy songs and rhymes. Some perform- printed sources. At the same time, the most produc- ciated with particular tunes, but many draw on a street and the complex rhythms of play begin, then one ance songs and ballads are performed in common by tive collector of Scottish children’s lore, James T. limited supply of floating tunes that are amended as can hear a subtle and refined musical art at work, girls and boys. Many songs of all types exist in both Ritchie, was beginning to uncover and report a they are applied to and shuffled for texts. They which is as old as humanity. Listen to these Aberdeen bawdy and “polite” versions (see “Aunty Mary Had a wonderful harvest within a single Edinburgh school. include march and dance tunes, music hall tunes, children at their skipping with the rope smacking Canary”), but few bawdy songs were offered to and the tunes of popular songs. Mostly only the first the pavement. Lomax: children tend to protect tender adult ears. Later, Scottish material is strongly in evidence in the strain of a melody is employed, sometimes only the series of seminal books by Iona and Peter Opie, who first line. This is not folklore in action, overheard by the tape Variants of songs and rhymes blossom like flowers in wrote that “Scottish children seem to be in a happy recorder. All performances are mediated by selection, a meadow, but children and adults tend to have position. They know most of the English child’s A few tunes that are applied to numerous children’s and most are in some sense rehearsed. They include strong views about which text is the “correct” one, rhymes . and they also have their own hamely texts have a long Scots pedigree. The internationally solo and small group performances physically placed the associated activities, and where the songs origi- clinky rarely known to children outside Scotland.” known tune for “London Bridge” derives from one for optimum recording quality, a professional adult nated. “The Wind Blows High” is considered to be After quoting some examples, the Opies report: part of the nine-part “Gabhaidh Sinn An Rath Mor” presentation, a group that had already been selected Irish because the folk group the Dubliners recorded “Pluckings like these from the Scottish woolbag of (“We Will Take the High Road”) bagpipe march that and recorded for a film, and a tightly rehearsed choir. an Irish version; “Johnny Todd” is stated to be from oral song seem to be as numerous as they were in the in the fifteenth century belonged to Clan MacIntyre Although singing and the sounds of the movements Liverpool because the tune was used for a TV police eighteenth century.”2 of Cruachan. The march was appropriated by the associated with game activities can be heard, the drama series set in that city; the Newcastle version of Stewarts of Appin, who played it in battle. This singers are not the players. The presence of children “When The Boat Comes In” is claimed as the origi- HOW MANY SONGS? eventually led to it being called the “Sherramuir in action in an outdoor setting changes performance nal and definitive text. Yet there are old, distinctively Here is a small number-crunching exercise to illus- March,” a Scots text about the 1715 Battle of style, as can be seen from the example of Peggy Scots versions of all three songs. trate variety and change in the repertoire. Of the 50 Sheriffmuir. “The Merry Matanzie,” more widely MacGillivray, who in the context of an interview Scottish and 20 English children’s songs and rhymes known as “The Mulberry Bush” or “Nancy gives melodic performances but who also participates THE SCOTTISH WOOLBAG on this CD, only 10 overlap with the 130 or so that Dawson,” appears in the Scottish Skene manuscript in vigorous and at times joyous outdoor group Scottish children’s lore has attracted much attention Gavin Greig and Rev. James Duncan3 collected in of around 1620. performances. from interested adults, and many fine collections Northeast Scotland in the early twentieth century. In have been published. Robert Chambers was the trail- the 1960s and ‘70s, the teacher Ian Davison IN PERFORMANCE IN MEMORY blazer in 1826. The end of the nineteenth century collected4 over 500 distinct songs, rhymes, and ballad We are fortunate that these recordings include not The listener’s response to this album will in part be brought a flood of them — a survey of Golspie in fragments from Glasgow schoolchildren and found just lyrics, tunes, and descriptions of how the songs guided by individual memories of childhood and Sutherland in 1897, Games and Diversions of versions of 15 of the items on this CD. (Although and rhymes were used, but also a variety of perform- child lore — a lore that we’ve all had a share in. Argyleshire in 1901, Robert Ford’s general account in versions of nine items included here were found both ance styles. Alan Lomax noted in a 1951 BBC radio Childhood memories were also important in identi- 1903. Early in the twentieth century, Gavin Greig by Greig-Duncan and Davison, the texts in each broadcast5 how the singing styles of five- to seven- fying the original performers on this CD, which led and the Rev. James Duncan gathered songs from all collection vary radically.) Finally, of the 18 items year olds differed from those of older children.