Ballads With Guitar

3

It seems to me that those of us who can sing folk songs

know a way to make the everyday home life of the every-

day American family more fun, warmer and more united.

And those who cannot carry a tune might still be able to

accomplish the same by listening to others sing them.

The power to create a bond between people is a charac-

teristic of all music, but without wanting to sound preju-

diced, I believe it is inherent even more so in our folk

songs. More so probably than any other literature, folk

songs deal with the fundamentals of life—such as justice,

courage, humor, pathos, adventure, love, crime, etc. The

text of most of these songs is poetry at its finest while the

music itself comes from the heart—simply and honestly.

Many of these songs such as Irish Rover take our imagina-

tion on freeing flights to a sharpened world because they

are pure poetic fantasy. They also carry the force of nos-

talgia—as in Wanderin’—a nostalgic quality which offsets

our modern and sophisticated way of life and therefore

cannot be overestimated.

The question “What is a folk song?” is the one I am

most frequently asked. Well, I have an answer. I feel that,

no matter what its origin, folk music becomes a part of the

people, the folk, who have molded it and made it their ows

by imposing their individual and collective mark upon it.

Thus any song, if taken up by the people of an area, and

made a part of their singing and music expression becomes

a folk song.

Yet this is not all that a folk song is. For we sing many.

currently popular songs for a few months and forget them.

A folk song has to have lasting power. It must convey

truth: be a meaningful personal or social or group ex-

perience.

A vital people are a singing people, and a vital people

have current experiences out of which musical expression

must come. This musical expression will be a folk song.

This is wnat folk songs of the past were and are. They are

the great bulk of songs created before the days of radio

and the music hall. Small groups of people who shared an

BALLADS ~ With Guitar

by Burl Ives

SIDE ONE

1. GO °WAY FROM MY WINDOW 1:43

>. TWO MAIDENS WENT MILKING 2:51

3. WILLIE BOY 1:50

4. IRISH ROVER __ 3:08

5, CROODIN’ DOO 1:49

6. TURKISH REVERY | 3:17

7, WANDERIN’ 1:30

SIDE TWO

1, LADIES MAN 1:55

2. HENRY MARTIN | 3:19

3. HOW COULD YOU USE A POOR 2:09 MAIDEN SC

4, PUEBLO GIRL ou

5. LILY MUNRO 4:11

6. HYPOCHONDRIAC SONG 26

J, PIRATE SONG 4:02

All of the above songs were written by BURL IvEs

and are published by WayYFaRER Music, INC. —

- ASCAP with the exception of HENRY MARTIN and

PUEBLO GiRL which are published by LEEDS Music

Corp.—ASCAP.

Produced by WAYFARER ENTERPRISES, INC. Cover

Design: BACON-BRAEREN-LEWINE. Photo: MARVIN

SOKOLSKY.

This is a High Fidelity Recording. Adjust your

equipment to the R.I.A.A. curve for best results.

experience, like cattle-raising or railroading, would get

together and one or more among them would create a song.

Folk songs are always spontaneous songs growing out of

the situation.

UNITED ARTISTS UAL 3060 te

These folk songs of the America, present and past, are

everybody’s heritage. Today, we find them as history gave

them to us, as refined by the concert artist, as changed by

Tin-Pan Alley. Take your pick, but sing them. For in

every case, these old songs have a truth and a strength that

makes them a pleasure to sing and to hear. :

For this reason I hope we and our children can more

and more learn to love Pueblo Girl, Henry Martin,

Croodin’ Doo, Go ’Way From My Window, and the hun-

dreds of other folk songs, because in later life they will

remind him that there are beautiful songs also in our

American Way of Life, as well as tall buildings, refrigera-

tors, electric stoves and the-four-lane ‘highways, for which

the rest of the world envies us.

Folk songs have dramatized our growth as a nation for

us, and help give us stature in our own eyes. This is always

a comforting thing and I do not think they will fall into

limbo again. By dramatizing’and making personally vivid

events that would otherwise be merely text book episodes

to most students, folk songs are creating real and well-

based pride in America’s past and present. This may be

their most important function today, together with the fact

that through recordings and short-wave broadcasts they

are winning admiration for native American folk music —

abroad. A more proper evaluation of our cultural back-

ground than was ever held in those paris of the world

before, follows naturally.

For us, here at home, the function of our folk songs is

even more important. Folk songs are the articulated ex-

pression of the experiences of a people (a nation). These

songs are a shared heritage, and when the people of a

country can sing of these things together, it can only

strengthen their national bonds.

It is for this reason that as a singer, as weil as in my

home, I sing these songs. I do so not just as an entertainer

but as one who has long sung them for his owx pleasure

and one who wants to share this pleasure with others.

BuRL IVES

UNITED ARTISTS RECORDS +729 SEVENTH AVENUE» NEW YORK 19, NEW YORK © 1959 UNITED ARTISTS- RECORDS, _JNC.

Printed in U.S.A.

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