Traditional folk songs/lullabies in your language(s)

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galaxyrocker
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Traditional folk songs/lullabies in your language(s)

Postby galaxyrocker » Tue Oct 12, 2021 9:17 pm

What are some traditional songs and/or lullabies in your language(s)? I'm curious as to what they sounded like, etc. Are they still to be heard, or has modernity (sadly) displaced them all? I went with lullabies as I often feel they've very traditional (though not necessarily). I've been on a real kick recently with Irish sean-nós songs and going through the Child Ballads in English, so I'm just curious as to what songs are available from other countries/languages around the world, as well as the situation they're in.

Sean-nós in a weird situation as the number of Irish speakers declines. Obviously the sean-nós singers do too, but there's still people learning and even writing new ones thankfully. It's all a cappella, and it's considered bad form to talk during it or to sing along with the singer. Sadly, there's lots of sean-nós songs we have lyrics of but sadly no music to, so they've been lost. It's quite disheartening to see that, especially given that all of them will likely be lost one day apart from being learnt by non-native speakers. Alas! Hopefully the situation is better elsewhere with regards to folk music (though, given how things are, I sadly wouldn't wager it).

With regards to America, I can really only think of one folk song, "Red River Valley", despite being born and raised in the South, Appalachian areas. Maybe if my family was closer to the mountains there would've been some left, but sadly not.

EDIT: I've thought of a few more, all in the Western sense. "Home on the Range" and "Oh my Darling, Clementine".

But, really, I'm curious as to from all over. Folk songs, the stories behind them, is the tradition still alive, lullabies, etc.

Finally, here's probably my favorite one from Ireland (not really an a cappella rendition of it, but still one I like a lot). The song is Amhrán Mhuínse, and it's about an old lady who knows she's dying. She describes how she wants her funeral to be, then says she wants to be taken back across the bay to Muínis, which is where she's from, for burial. As she says "It's there that my people are". The sadder part of the story is that we know the seas were rough and she was actually not able to be buried in Muínis as per her request. But it's still a very haunting and lovely song.



And here's Red River Valley

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AroAro
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Re: Traditional folk songs/lullabies in your language(s)

Postby AroAro » Fri Oct 22, 2021 9:08 am

When I started learning Romanian, I discovered a lot of Romanian folk songs. The most famous genre is what they call "doină" songs. They have probably Middle Eastern/Persian roots, their lyrics are quite sad as they tell about love/loss/longing and so on. The similar song styles are known in other East European countries ("dumka" in Ukraine, "doina" in Lithuania). I don't live in Romania so I'm not sure what doină's current status looks like but Wikipedia says "it has almost completely disappeared from peasant life, as most peasant music has".

Here's a doină from Maramureș region, the first lines say "When mother gave birth to me, she had no fire in the hearth / There was bad weather outside, just like in my heart" (not an uplifting song I guess...)



Regarding Polish folk songs, a lot of musicians nowadays use folk elements but in most cases what you get are those cheap and cringy disco songs that have nothing to do with folk culture. It's actually hard to find modern interpretations of traditional folk songs in high quality (or maybe I'm looking in wrong places). There's a band Percival Schuttenbach whose songs were used in "The Witcher" game, they recorded albums with traditional songs of Eastern, Southern and Western Slavs and that's a good introduction to Slavic folk music.

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luke
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Re: Traditional folk songs/lullabies in your language(s)

Postby luke » Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:49 am

I've been working on the railroad


When Johnny Comes Marching Home


Somewhere over the rainbow


You are my sunshine
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Hash
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Re: Traditional folk songs/lullabies in your language(s)

Postby Hash » Fri Oct 22, 2021 4:18 pm

The Russians have some of the weirdest lullaby songs for their kids like this one Bayu Bayushki:



They use it to scare them into staying in bed with the threat that a wolf will grab them in his teeth and steal them into the forest if they lay on the side of their bed!

Tili Tilim Bom, another spooky Russian lullaby:


Arabic lullaby (of Turkish origin):
https://youtu.be/AvBnOG274ss?t=40

The original Turkish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILeu7kyFFuA

Ancient Arabic:


Berber:
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Le Baron
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Re: Traditional folk songs/lullabies in your language(s)

Postby Le Baron » Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:06 pm

A famous American folk song is Michael Row The Boat Ashore. Perhaps this is a 'spiritual'.

In English folk music I always find it difficult to separate out what 'folk' songs are among the morris dance songs, sea shanties, traditional protest songs or even sophisticated nursery rhymes. I suppose they're all folk.

One we used to sing at school - I'm from Cumbria - was Ballad of Chevy Chase (not referring to the actor of course!). :lol: Another was Aiken Drum.
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Re: Traditional folk songs/lullabies in your language(s)

Postby rdearman » Sat Oct 23, 2021 10:36 am

Here is a folk song.


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luke
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Re: Traditional folk songs/lullabies in your language(s)

Postby luke » Sat Oct 23, 2021 11:39 am

rdearman wrote:Here is a folk song.

If we're doing The Animals, then we can do Jeff Beck's Greensleeves, right?



Or do we need lyrics?

Although I've seen the cover hundreds of times, that young woman on the cover is more obvious than I ever recall.

Le Baron mentioned this one (in case we need to have some lyrics). I hadn't noticed the contextualization he mentioned:



I guess I was still working on the title.
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