[this is an updated version of a post which first appeared on my blog From the Front of the Choir]
I was in the middle of planning a workshop and was checking through a few songs to make sure I had the correct lyrics, source, meaning, background, etc.
I came across a few that I couldn’t figure out so I went searching and ended up with several contradictory pieces of information. How do you know what to believe?
The internet is an extremely valuable tool when trying to track down song information. But, like all media, it is not to be trusted. Many is the time that a false story has appeared in print and been picked up by other outlets then spread like wild fire without anybody bothering to check the facts. With the internet, this process just happens faster.
Somebody mis-hears a song at a workshop or whilst singing around the camp-fire. They go home and write down the lyrics (phonetically), note down the country of origin (incorrectly), and half-remember what it was supposed to be about.
Through a process of Chinese whispers, this song gets passed around from mouth to ear to mouth until it bears little relation to when it was first heard (and we don’t even know if it was accurate the first time!).
Very soon the song is widely known and its origins and meaning become fixed in people’s minds. The song then gets printed in a songbook and the myth gets perpetuated. Nobody has bothered to go back to the source or try to find out from scratch if the story and background is accurate or not. Now it’s in print, people believe that it must be true.
This is the oral tradition at work.
Songs constantly change their lyrics, meaning and context, that is part of the process of living music. But we have an obligation to be as accurate as we can, especially when dealing with a foreign culture and with the correct attribution of a song.
Many is the time that a song has been credited to the person who just did a cover version!
The Chinese whispers of the oral tradition happen on the internet too, but it becomes a little easier to spot the myths.
When searching for a particular song, it may come up on many different websites, but you soon realise that the text on each site is exactly the same. Somebody has written something once and it’s just got passed around intact without anybody bothering to question it.
There is an apocryphal story of this process at work (I’m not sure how true it is, but it’s very believable!).
A well-known workshop leader taught one of her own songs in a workshop. The song was then spread by various people who attended the workshop. Many years later, she was teaching it at another workshop when a participant came up to her and said that she’d got it wrong and proceeded to correct her tune and lyrics and tell her a long, involved story about the origins of this ‘traditional’ song. And she’d written the thing in the first place!
Before I teach a song I try to check that the information I have is accurate. If I learnt it from an individual, I go back to them and ask them where they got the information from. I then try to go back to that source and so on.
If it’s in a book, I look to see what their sources are and if they credit someone in particular. If I’m not sure about something I’ll search on the internet and make sure I come up with at least two different sources for the information.
I also try to contact an individual from the culture or country concerned (either through personal contact or via the internet), especially if they speak the language.
Next week I’ll be giving two very specific examples of trying to track down a song’s background, lyrics and meaning.
In the meantime, do leave a comment and share your experiences of finding out about songs.
Chris Rowbury: chrisrowbury.com
