SONGS IN CONTEXT
WAN MacCOLL’S BBC session, St. Cecilia and the Shovel, which presented a dful of sea shanties, weavers’, ners’ and agricultural workers’ ballads, was enjoyable and informative. The bitter character of many of the ballads before the music halls sweetened them up at the turn of the century, and the harsh way in which they were sung, set the songs back in their proper context, and by so doing gave them their full aesthetic worth. Somewhat surprisingly at least two of the items were modern, the tale of the en-gine-driver who thought his girl as "nice as the 8.45," and a truck-driver’s ballad. The habit of song which in England Once ran like a thread through the whole life of man is evidently hard to kill. Were it not for the fact that the inhibited highbrow mutely "collects" his songs, where the lowbrow either sings them or gets Tin Pan Alley to resuscitate them for him, a session like this could do a lot to break down the false distinction in values which stops a pro: per two-way traffic between folk art and its more sophisticated children.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540409.2.21.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 768, 9 April 1954, Page 10
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189SONGS IN CONTEXT New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 768, 9 April 1954, Page 10
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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