Folk music includes both traditional music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th century folk revival. The term originated in the 19th century but is often applied to music that is older than that. Certain types of folk music are also called world music.
Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. One meaning often given is that of old songs, with no known composers; another is music that has been transmitted and evolved by a process of oral transmission or performed by custom over a long period of time.
Starting in the mid-20th century a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. This type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock, folk metal, electric folk, and others. While contemporary folk music is a genre generally distinct from traditional folk music, in English it shares the same name, and it often shares the same performers and venues as traditional folk music. Even individual songs may be a blend of the two.
Jean Ritchie (born December 8, 1922) is an American folk music singer, songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player.
Abigail and Balis Ritchie of Viper, Kentucky had 14 children, and Jean was the youngest. Ten girls slept in one room of the farming family's house in the Cumberland Mountains.
Jean Ritchie quickly memorized songs and performed at local dances and the country fair in Hazard. In the late 1940s the family acquired a radio and discovered that what they were singing was hillbilly music, a word they had never heard before. In the mid-thirties Alan Lomax recorded in Kentucky for the Library of Congress's Archive of Folk Song. Among the people he recorded were The Singing Ritchies.[dubious – discuss]
Ritchie attended Cumberland College (Now the University of the Cumberlands) in Williamsburg, Kentucky and later the University of Kentucky in Lexington. At college she joined the glee club and choir and learned to play piano. In 1946 she graduated with a BA in social work. During the war, she taught in elementary school.
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM ( /ˌreɪf ˌvɔːn ˈwɪliəmz/; 12 October 1872 – 26 August 1958) was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many folk song arrangements set as hymn tunes, and also influenced several of his own original compositions.
Ralph Vaughan Williams was born on 12 October 1872 in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, where his father, the Reverend Arthur Vaughan Williams (the surname Vaughan Williams is an unhyphenated double-barrelled name of Welsh origin), was vicar. Following his father's death in 1875 he was taken by his mother, Margaret Susan née Wedgwood (1843–1937), the great-granddaughter of the potter Josiah Wedgwood, to live with her family at Leith Hill Place, a Wedgwood family home in the Surrey Hills. He was also related to the Darwins, Charles Darwin being a great-uncle. Though born into the privileged intellectual upper middle class, Vaughan Williams never took it for granted and worked all his life for the democratic and egalitarian ideals in which he believed.
Lying in the long long grass
Blossom on the trees
Springtime's slipping away my love
Yeah springtime's slipping away
When it comes around again
It will never be the same
Heaven's slipping away my love
Yeah heaven's slipping away
Yeah heaven's slipping away
Walking through this changing season
Sorrow spreads its wings
We can't keep a hold on time
Just receive what it brings
Lying in the long long grass
Clouds are drifting by
Springtime's slipping away my love
Yeah springtime's slipping away
Dreaming in this lost domain
Which you'll never see again
Heaven's slipping away my love
Yeah heaven's slipping away
Yeah heaven's slipping away
Walking through this changing season
Sorrow spreads its wings
Light a candle in your heart
Light it to the spring
Walking through this changing season
Sorrow spreads its wings
We cant keep a hold on time
Just recieve what it will bring
Mellow evenings in the spring
Full of warmth and hope
you are dreaming unaware
Unaware that you are letting go
Walking through this changing season
Sorrow spreads it wings
We can't keep a hold on time
Just recieve what it will bring
Walking through this lonely season
Sorrow spreads its wings
Light a candle in your heart
Light it to the spring
Springtime's slipping away my love
Yeah springtime's slipping away
Heaven's slipping away my love
I have waited the night over
For some word to come
I asked the moon o'er the clover
But the moon she is dumb
You have made me a promise
At midnight we'd go
And that we should be married
Sailing westward ho
Such words you have spoken
You have told me a lie
That it could not be broken
When you knew it must die
There's no light in heaven
My eye can see
That my heart be imprisoned
While the devil go free
Go free
Like honey the ocean
In the morning breeze
I'll take my tears to the water
That the rivers may freeze
There's no light in heaven
Can shine for me
That my heart be imprisoned
While the devil go free
Go free
What folly is beauty
What trick of the skin
Desire it's fancy
And ruin its whim
Your child within me
And what can I do
My blood fill with needles
That he look like you
There's no light in heaven
My eye can see
That my heart be imprisoned
While the devil go free
My heart be imprisoned
While the devil go free
No light in heaven
It's like picking up the pieces is a daily chore
Thinking of your time card forms a habit
Watching rick folks on T.V.'s like picking a sore
Fuck it all, they can have it
And now I'm loaded like a gun again
Like a plague of locusts heaven sent
Just a ball of dissension with a death perception
I won't sweat the definition of content
They said "better safe than sorry" and "look out for #1"
I heard "only play the cards your shown"
Fuck what they say
It doesn't matter anyway
Only in your grave are you alone
Like grown men staring with little boy's eyes
And actresses speaking with conviction
These people should demand a pulitzer prize
For various works of fiction
"Judge a book by it's cover"
And "keep one eye on your back"
I heard "only play the cards your shown"
I say fuck what they say
It doesn't matter anyway
Only in your grave are you alone
So many people with so much to show
Rotting away in their own little holes
One can only wonder why
I'll celebrate my home
But know that I'm not alone
Only fools are "along for the ride"
In think of the size
Of the world that's right outside
How will I find you O my love
In the darkness of day
I will look in glass forests
Where electric fish play
How will I see you when I find you
In the brightness of light
I will see you on the silver train
That people call night
How will I know you when I see you
In the bareness of spring
I will know you by starlight
Where the road's echoes sing
How will I love you when i know you
In the greyness of mist
I will love you forever
Where sadness hass kisses
Walking by the sea
See the names floating by
Trying to find each other's
summer sky and a throat bone dry
and the fields are all gold
dusty lane with a song in my brain
and it stoned me to my soul
I climb higher move towards the fire.....blaze sun
silver trees and a whispering breeze
are my sight and my sound
the thought of heaven couldn¡¯t drag me from the path
when I¡¯m wandering here alone
I climb higher move towards the fire.... so blaze sun
watch until it dies slow falling from the sky
pale fading sun