Folk Songs

Folk Songs in Five Languages
Folk Songs: Five Languages & Cultures
The term "folk music" is derived from the German word "Volk", which means "of the people"; hence, folk music literally means "the people's music." Folk songs and music express and reflect the culture of particular ethnic groups, or in some cases, entire nations. If you are learning a new language, it helps to also listen to songs whose lyrics are written in the language you are studying, as this will open a window into the culture and soul of the people who speak that language. I will be fea...

The Alice's Restaurant Massacree by Arlo Guthrie
The misdemeanor that defined a generation
For me, it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without listening to this classic performance piece by Arlo Guthrie, released in 1967. The Alice's Restaurant Massacree relates a largely-true and very funny story of small-town drama, clashing cultures, and the struggles of the 1960s, all set to an memorable (but never tiresome) guitar line.

The Laily Worm and other evil stepmother stories
What to do when a giant worm says he'd eat you, except you're his father.
This peculiar ballad was collected by Francis James Child and was published in his compendium called The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, published in 1802. He wrote: There is only one version of this ballad, which was recorded in the north of Scotland about 1805. It was printed by Child from a MS. formerly in the possession of Sir Walter Scott, which he called the "collection of an old lady's complete set of ballads." It's probably a fragment of a longer ballad which was lost. The cu...