CDSS NEWS | Summer 2020 CDSS.ORG28 CDSS.ORG
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When I think about what makes a good folk song, I often
come back to a quote from Irish singer Frank Harte: “Those
in power write the histories, those who suffer write the
songs.” Traditional music provides stories that you can’t
find in other places—stories of struggle, stories of hope,
or just the stories of ordinary humans who didn’t make it
into the history books. There’s a depth to the music that
is hard to find anywhere else, and while
that depth is a truly beautiful thing, it
can be daunting when one is attempting
to write new songs within the tradition.
Capturing that essence, making a new
song sound timeless, is hard, and I don’t
profess to be an expert or an authority.
That said, I’ve written within the
tradition for nearly twenty years now,
and I’d love to share what tips I have.
The first step to writing a folk song is
defining what, to you, constitutes a folk
song. The term is nebulous, and many
people have different definitions (all of
which are arguably correct). There are
a few things, though, that I’ve found
universally true. First, a folk song is a
song of the folk—it belongs to nobody because it belongs to
everybody. Second, it’s music with a job to do; whether that
job is telling a story, building community, coordinating
work, or even just being fun to sing, a good folk song pulls
its weight.
So once you’ve decided your criteria for what makes a
folk song, how do you go about writing one? The first and
most obvious step is to really engage with the tradition by
listening to a lot of traditional songs, learning the words,
and thinking critically about what you like about them. As
you learn more songs, you will begin to notice recurring
tropes, both in terms of strong structure (the second line
of every verse being a refrain, call-and-response patterns,
a space in the chorus featuring a line of the preceding
verse, etc.), and narrative (leaving a loved one to go sailing,
drinking, shipwreck, murder, and so on). Building on these
tropes is an excellent way to write a folk song; a nice thing
about working in the tradition is that you don’t have to
reinvent the wheel. You can also take a common trope and
subvert it to create something new.
The second step is deciding what to write about. My advice
here is simple: write a song you want to sing. Many of my
songs have come from wishing that a song existed and not
finding it. Despite the richness of the tradition, there are a
lot of stories that still remain untold, and a new folk song
can help change that. (The song attached to this article,
“Sweet Mary Starbuck,” was written to add a bit more
queer representation to the tradition.)
Folk music’s specificity is very effective
at responding to issues of justice—for
example, a song that says “capitalism is
bad” feels vague and removed, but a song
like “Aragon Mill” hits like a gut punch.
That said, don’t pressure yourself to
write something deeply profound and
intense right off the bat—that’s a good
way to stare at a blank page for an hour.
Feel free to go small; you can write a pub
song about the bar where your pub sings
happen, or about a story from history
you like, or about mining for toads. All
are valid. It’s perfectly acceptable to tell
a story that has already been told; there
are dozens of versions of some songs
for good reason. This also gives you the
opportunity to tell a story from a different perspective or
subvert a problematic trope. (In the latter case, though, the
song must still stand on its own; a song that exists only
to rebut other songs will be nigh incomprehensible to
someone who hasn’t heard the songs it’s rebutting.) It can
help to start with a setting, a character, or even a call to
attention (“come all ye…”), and see what comes from there.
Once you have a topic for your song, you have to write the
dang thing. There’s no one way to go about this, but I have
found it helps to keep three criteria in mind at all times.
The first is accessibility: the song must be straightforward
in its language, topic, and message. I always aim for a
listener to be able to “get” the song on their first listen.
The second is specificity. I try to make my songs sound like
they are about real people in real places and times. Even
if I am making stories up out of whole cloth, or adding
fantastical elements, I try to add enough historical or
personal details to make them seem real. Third, and most
important, is singability. If you’re writing a song for the
oral tradition, and especially for social singing, it needs
to be a song that is easy for people to sing. Make sure the
rhythm flows easily when sung, as the rhythm is by far the
most important component of singability. Don’t get too
hung up on rhymes; partial rhymes are fine, and a forced
rhyme can be deeply jarring in a song. If I can’t find a good
rhyme, I’ll often just change the word or phrase I’m trying
to rhyme with.
When I am writing a song, I will often already have a song
in mind whose mood or feel matches the one I hope to
write. As I get words onto the page, the new song takes on
a life of its own but retains some characteristics of the song
that inspired it. This brings me to my final piece of advice:
steal vociferously. The trad repertoire builds on itself and
always has; as you study the tradition, you may find turns
of phrase or melodic lines that repeatedly appear in folk
songs. There is no shame in snagging these and putting
I married John Con just two years ago
And he’s a fine man, as all Nantucket knows
And he’s bound to make second mate, or so I hear
If the Charles brings home enough oil next year
At twenty a mother, at nineteen a bride
With a child on my knee and another inside
My heart it was broken, and swept out to sea
Where my sweet Mary found it and brought it to me
Chorus:
Sweet Mary Starbuck from Nantucket town
If she were the sea I would willingly drown
And her voice like a bell on a clear winter’s day
Sets my heart a-ringing and winging away
At meeting one morning she came to me there
With the Nantucket wind in her flyaway hair
Her hand, soft and certain, clasped mine in the lane
And I felt my heart shiver when she spoke my name
Her words came in whispers, in trembling lines
Her cheeks red as roses, her eyes all a-shine
Then she kissed me so gently, so soft and so sure
The world spun round once, and at once I was hers
Chorus
On Nantucket our men go to hunt for the whale
And they live at the mercy of teeth, sea, and gale
But in town life goes on, and it goes on apace
With children, and letters, and Mary’s sweet face
So when John comes I’ll give him a kiss and a smile
And a good whaleman’s wife I will be for a while
And in time I’ll stand watching his sail fade at sea
Then go home where my true love lies waiting for me
Chorus
NEW OLD SONGS: Writing Within the Tradition
By Alex Sturbaum
them in your own song; after all, this music belongs to
everyone, you included.
In a world that is often frightening and isolating, social
singing is one of the most beautiful ways I have seen people
come together. We as a society can always use another good
song, and writing is great fun; I urge everyone out there
to try their hand at writing a song and see what happens.
With any luck, we’ll all be singing some of them together
sometime soon.
Alex Sturbaum is a musician, singer, and songwriter based
in Seattle. They perform solo and with the contra dance
bands Countercurrent, Gallimaufry, and the Waxwings.
alexsturbaum.com Photo by Brian Lindsay.
Listen to Alex sing this song at bit.ly/SweetMaryStarbuck
SWEET MARY STARBUCK
Alex Sturbaum
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