In this blog post I’ll be looking at two songs that are considered Folk. Folk is a widespread genre that can mean many things to many people. I’ll look at these two songs separately and then compare and contrast them in my summary.
The Unthanks are a band famous for blending different genres of music with traditional Northumbrian folk music. Mount the Air stays true to that formula by fusing a modern jazz sound with very sleek production and fuses it with classic folk melodies. The song mostly serves the purpose of giving a sense of melancholy to the listener while also telling the story of a woman desperately searching for her lost love.
The song slowly builds in a minor key with arpeggios being played on a harp. A brass instrument then fades in playing the main theme of the piece over a piano giving a very jazzy feel. Harps, flutes, fiddles and cellos are added in bringing a more traditional folk feel to the sound. The song maintains a slow tempo for the majority of the song though it speeds during the third verse and a large instrumental section in the middle of the song to return to its somber slow pace of the original verse. The song uses a very basic harmonic structure that only uses eight chords and puts more stress on the dynamics of the instrument to create the different feels that mark each new section.
When the vocals come in they gently take over from the brass section keeping the main theme of the piece as the vocal melody. The almost medieval melody gives a natural tone to the narrative of the story and works well with the walking pace of the rhythm found in the song. The lyrics discuss how a woman has lost her lover and would do anything to find them. She discusses becoming a fish and a deer in order to find her love but these are simply metaphors for searching the mountains and the oceans in order to find her love.
Mount the Air was recorded between 2012 and 2014 in The Unthanks own studio by Adrian McNally who wrote the piece and played a large number of the instruments used. It was released on the 9th February 2015 by Rabbie Rouser and won the best album award in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2016.
The Well by Smog is an alternative folk song with heavy american country influences. The song has a very clean but simple production. The song serves the purpose of providing some easy listening entertainment while also telling the story of a man discovering an abandoned well in the woods.
The song sets of with a major key with some guitar notes and the performer introducing the song. Then arpeggios come from the guitar at a mid tempo as the drums, bass and fiddle gradually join in. Though the mid tempo of the intro is maintained for the majority of the song there is a free flowing feel to the tempo that would suggest this was recorded live or at least with no click track. There are moments where throughout the song where the tempo makes a sudden drop for dramatic effect. The songs harmonic structure is incredibly simple and only makes use of two chords in the whole piece. This works for this song as there is no clear verse or chorus and instead uses the instrument dynamics to help give each part of the songs story a distinct feel.
The vocals of the song are incredibly conversational and more resemble a man rambling than they are actually singing. He sings in a southern drawl with a very narrow range. The song tells the story of a man who smashed a bottle in the woods and while picking it up stumbled on an old abandoned well.
The song was recorded in 2004 in Spicewood, Texas and appeared on A River Ain’t Too Much to Love. It was released in 2005 under Drag City Records and was the final album released under the Smog moniker before the artist started using his own name Billy Callahan.
In conclusion we have two very different examples of folk. The two have elements in common. They both serve to tell you a story which is a common trope of folk music. They also make use of indigenous music from the regions they were written in although this has resulted in two very different sounds. They also offer many points of difference. Smog makes use of a very simplistic two chord formula and flows along with no distinct feeling of individual sections. Instead The Unthanks break up solid verses with fantastic instrumental sections and have much more harmonic diversity within their songs. This gives a stronger sense of structure. The top melody in both songs are used in incredibly different ways. The vocals from the two sisters who sing Mount the Air is sang very melodically in an old traditional folk fashion. This melody is often repeated by the instruments on the track. The vocal in The Well is comparatively more conversational and give more of the feeling of someone sat down telling you a story rather than singing you a song and is at no point repeated by any of the instruments. The instrumentation itself also drastically differs. While The Well makes use of a smaller four piece made of percussion, guitar, bass and fiddle The Unthanks make use of piano, cello, fiddle, harps, flutes, trumpets, flugelhorns and various percussive instruments to create a more fleshed out sound. These two songs make fantastic examples of the huge range that the genre of folk music has.
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