It was interesting to me that Pete Seeger, who was a leading folk singer whose rallies protested civil rights and the Vietnam War, was out last week in his 90’s giving support to the Occupy Wall Street movement.
If the young men and women sitting in the parks has been taught to play guitars when they were younger, we’d probably be hearing protest songs again, if they knew what they were protesting or had a suggestion how to fix what they think is wrong. But music for them has become a "spectator sport" where you listen to or manipulate what someone else has produced, rather than a "participant sport" where you make music yourself with skills you've honed. The music they’ve grown up listening to has very loud electric guitars, and the lyrics are un-intelligible. So they don’t come from a tradition of singing songs in which the words tell a story, where rhyme and repetition are important, and an emotional climax or “hook” or message is delivered.
Folk songs can be very serious. But I’m not going to get into war protest songs and the like. Let’s keep it fun. Here’s one for fun:
OLD MACDONALD HAD A FARM Key G
G C G G D7 G
Old Macdonald had a farm, E – I – E – I – O.
G C G G D7 G
And on this farm he had some chicks. E – I – E – I – O.
G
With a chick chick here and a chick chick there.
G
Here a chick, there a chick, everywhere a chick chick.
G C G G D7 G
Old Macdonald had a farm, E – I – E – I – O.
And on this farm he had a ____________________
