A Tribute to Folk Musicians

Folk legend Tom Paxton in concert (with Billy Heller). Photo ©2013 Charles "Rain" Black

As I see it, one big difference between pop music and folk music is this: Pop music is about the singer, while folk music is about the songs.

In pop music you can have a terrific singer and mediocre, formulaic songs and the result is an Idol or Diva. In folk music, that dog won't hunt.

In folk circles, great singers simply add to the appeal of great songs. However, some pretty mediocre singers achieve great fame as folk artists because of the power of their songs. If you doubt this, just think about Bob Dylan for a moment.

Folk musicians are a peculiar lot, in a positive way. There are folk artists out there who are exemplary singers/musicians. They are as talented as any Grammy winning pop artist, but most of the general public hasn't heard of them. Part of this is because of the nature of the business. Most labels tend to shy away from folk musicians, in part because they aren't as marketable as a pop performer. The driving force behind pop music is to make money for the record label, with the artist managing to benefit as a result.

Doing this requires appealing to the lowest common denominator among the target audience, with a great deal of effort put into getting people to part with their money in exchange for music, without allowing them much of a chance to decide whether the music is actually worth it. This is done mostly by marketing departments convincing the listener that they are not cool if they don't buy the songs. This, in turn, entails appealing to the most unthinking, visceral aspects of human experience such as sex, wealth, having a good time or the pain others have caused in love affairs, all in a way which declares that being self-absorbed is a good thing.

In pop music, the real subject is usually self as the observed, whereas folk music is often about self as the observer. That's why you don't hear many folk songs about sex, booty, bling, how much of an asshole someone's ex is or how broken-hearted the singer is over losing a non-asshole lover in the melodramatic, self-absorbed way pop music does. (Ok, you do hear songs about the last two, but often they explore the subject in a different way).

Folk songs tend to take these same topics to psychological and lyrical depths that pop songs rarely broach. For instance, while a pop song may go into why the ex is an asshole, or the singer is broken-hearted, a folk song will explore the fact that the real reason the singer is broken-hearted is because he, not the ex, is the asshole.

The pop music industry isn't apt to entertain such introspection, simply because its entire raison d'etre is the celebration of narcissism, including the idea that it's almost always the other person's fault if things don't work out.  Deep contemplation of one's own imperfections isn't a province of pop music.

Unless the song has a really, really good "hook". (The "hook" is that part of a song that everyone keeps singing, even if they can't remember the rest of the words to the song.)

The narcissism of pop  also leads to a tendency to create a musical version of the world that is more hip, more sophisticated, more extravagant, more dramatic, more indulgent than real life. That's where it's truly at odds with folk music, because the heart of folk music is in fact folks. People, and their simple, everyday experiences.

An entire folk song can be built off of the experience of waking up to the scent of Wisteria, and the thoughts, emotions and memories that scent evokes. No clever hook or tagline is needed for such a song to be considered successful and appreciated. It's successful because the listener thinks "Yeah, that's the same way I feel".

Alternately, the listener may appreciate how the song facilitates visiting a part of the singer/songwriter's world, a world filled with different experiences. A good folk song can either bring forth a rush of memories or create new memories for the listener, depending on what the listener has experienced in his or her own life. Such as song can, in fact, be a catharsis for the listener, leading to thoughts and emotions that can be life-changing.

Yeah, that's a lot of thinking going on, which is something pop music doesn't really want people to do too much. Not that pop songs can't do the same thing: it's just not the main reason a pop song is written or recorded. Pop music tends to want to divert people's attention away from anything to serious and concentrate on how good the pop song makes them feel.

This brings up an area in which pop and folk probably have their biggest divergence: social awareness. Folk is frequently identified with protest songs, and rightly so. Being a music of the People and for the People, folk is driven by the need to express the experience, and therefore the needs, of the People. While a pop song saying "Now's the time to PARTY!", a folk song asks "How can you party when this sort of thing is going on?"

Not all folk artists get into protest songs, but the genre itself would not be folk music if not for the numerous protest songs folk artists have produced. Folk music has always been identified as being an aspect of the moral conscience of society, at times reminding us of injustice when we really don't want to be reminded. This is probably the biggest reason why folk isn't more popular, because the message of many such songs is the antithesis of the self-indulgence pop music tends to celebrate.

If the music industry could be likened to a cruise ship, pop music would be what all the passengers see on the upper decks: the entertainment, the food, the facilities and the service all intended to make them feel like royalty. Folk music would be the crew that labors below decks, preparing the meals, keeping the ship running efficiently, making sure the ship stays on course and doesn't run aground.

One thing all of this means is that on the same night Beyonce sells out a 10,000 seat arena, an equally talented folk singer is playing to a few dozen people in a club or smaller venue in another part of town. The folk singer knows that Beyonce is making more off this one night's performance than he is likely to make all year, but that doesn't matter (too much). That's because even to the performers, pop music is about the singer, while folk music is about the song. So that under-appreciated (compared to Beyonce) folk singer is often happy simply that his songs are being heard by people who will appreciate them.