20/09/2026
This is such a good piece, and I think it should be shared widely, after posting on the Pennymoor Singaround FB page:
Below is an interesting peice about singing written recently by Clare Penny.
Reflections on Folk Song
Folk song and music has enriched my life for more than 60 years and now, on my 82nd birthday I find myself reflecting on its durability.
We humans have an innate and unique ability to sing. We are born with it. We don't need words to do it but once we gained language the ways in which song could flourish became immense.
We have no problem when we look at what was probably the first known musical instrument; a hollow bird bone, imagining that all amazing modern instruments started there. I see no reason to suppose that all the diverse and amazing genres of song did not start in the same way, with the human singing voice and the emergence of the first folk songs . We didn't even have to wait for someone to think about how to get a sound from a voice box – it was there from day one.
To have the ability to sing in common with others is really useful. At the most primitive level it turns a group of individuals into one much greater 'whole'. As a co operating group we are more potent.
'Joined in song' is a phrase we take for granted. Worship, regardless of which God or Gods almost always involves song and if forbidden, is an acknowledgement of its power.
Anyone who has sung along with a crowd of others will have experienced the heightened emotion, sense of belonging and sometimes shared purpose it evokes. Just watching football fans at a stadium is awe inspiring. In less benign situations it could be terrifying. If you have ever been on a demonstration you will have experienced songs' ability to unite and empower a group sharing the same political belief or purpose.
In relation to work it enables us to keep in sync. Sea Shanties come immediately to mind but think also of a team of men 'mowing a meadow'. They worked in line with sharp scythes and needed spot on timing if they were to keep legs and feet intact. Most of us will know songs or parodies, usually ribald or ironic sung by marching men in the world wars.
Singing may have been a tool used in learning before the age of widespread literacy. The use of the repetition of lines and chorus' is still a useful device enabling an audience to catch on and join in.
The oldest songs were composed and passed on by ear. Analogous to wild flowers they belong to all of us and no individual can claim them as property. They can be sung any place any where with no royalties involved. These are our 'traditional' songs and are our intangible history, unlike the bone instrument, an earthworks or a castle but they are just as valuable. They are a rich source of clues as to social rules, attitudes, beliefs and social class. They refer to common laws governing behaviour and property. They give us raw insight into grief, bereavement, love, lust, bitterness, hatred and joy- all emotions unchanged and experienced in exactly the same way today. They use dialect and words that we all know but have fallen out of use.
An example is the Holmfirth Anthem:
Abroad for pleasure as I was awalking it was one Summer Summer's evening clear.
There I beheld a most beautiful damsel lamenting for her shepherd swain
Lamenting for her shepherd dear.
The song goes on to use the words thee and thyself. 'Abroad' as used today still means leaving home but you have to at least cross the channel!
Many lines in these traditional songs could stand alone as poetry. One of my favourite lines is:
'As morning stands on tiptoe twixt darkness and dawn' which is the opening line to a hare hunting song. (Note that the word processor doesn't recognise 'twixt')
Some songs make uncomfortable listening today such as the huge repertoire of hunting and whaling songs, victories in battle, hangings and betrayals. Others tell of joyous occasions, weddings and Fair days. Those that relate an event puts the singer in the third person, very unusual in popular songs of today.
We can't escape the emotional pull of a song or melody. Prose is less strong.
There is no reason to doubt that singing in chorus for the sheer joy of it must have existed at least as long as the public bar and before that wherever people gathered in celebration of the hunter bringing home the 'kill' for the 'tribal' dinner or a successful harvest. I am not an historian so can only use my imagination. Songs that tell jokes, poke fun at pomposity or power, invite witty responses, encourage drinking or just get people joining in a rousing chorus are as popular today as ever.
One of the great virtues of folk songs traditional and modern, is that they can be sung using just the voice making spontaneity possible. 'Backup' is unnecessary. Microphones are unnecessary. What is needed is a desire to engage with others, not to sing at them but to them and then with them.
We have become inhibited about singing in public. With initially the wireless, television and vinyl, followed by the explosion of accessible recorded music culminating in AI creations all made perfect electronically the standard against which we can measure our own performance is impossibly high. It is not surprising then that there is a dearth of young people participating in folk today. We have forgotten or perhaps never recognised the power of live performance where the singer offers an intimate personal contact with the listener making the performer both vulnerable and brave.
During my life time 'Folk' song as a genre has moved towards performance rather than participation. The stage rather than the pub is where you are likely to find young people, and as great as they are festivals promote this approach with pub singing often relegated to 'the fringe'. Guests drop in to fulfil their bookings at concerts and then often leave.
I am not however pessimistic. People love, no need, to sing and however commercial 'folk' has become irrepressible voices will still leak out in public places and discover the joy of 'joining in song'. This still happens; there are evenings in public bars that 'take off'. People who have no connection to the folk scene are suddenly taking notice, joining in, getting up to dance and even offering songs or snippets of song of their own. Miraculously even teenagers put down mobile phones of their own accord. Any song that speaks to people and can be sung spontaneously will fulfil this need regardless of its origin. Our traditional songs and newly written songs in the folk idiom are so good they will be discovered again just like my generation discovered them in the 60's and a new generation will find them relevant, make them their own and write more.
Clare Penney
