How do we remedy England’s mental breakdown? It’s easy — with traditional folk music

Will-derness
Nov 5 · 6 min read

I once attended an event at a pub in Bampton, Oxfordshire, where one of the local morris dance sides was playing host to some visiting contemporaries from the United States. I hadn’t even been aware that American morris dancers existed, but there was the proof, and there were so many of them that the pub garden could barely fit them all in. They threw themselves at the dancing with an enthusiasm that put even the famous local side to shame, and when I asked them why they had got involved with the hobby I received variations of the same cheery response — “ I thought it just looked like fun!”

The Americans seemed to just enjoy the dancing for its own sake, with no awareness that here morris dancing is generally held as an embarrassment. It was rather refreshing to see, though for me they did much to show up the ‘fringe’ existence of folk traditions in modern England. It’s certainly a strange state of affairs — I’m sure we all approve of other cultures embracing their heritage — their old songs, rituals, dance styles, forms of theatre and storytelling — but most of the English instinctively avoid their own. Why is this? Why do we not show tourists our folk dances? Why do nights in English pubs not give way to the singing of old songs?

A traditional folk session in the pub

I am increasingly convinced that our lack of folky connection is a key factor in the English ‘crisis of identity’ that has given fringe right-wingers their moment. This country feels hollowed out — economically most obviously, but also culturally — spiritually. What exactly is the ‘point’ of England anymore? It’s a question irrelevant to booming London, but it feels far more pressing across provincial English shires. The Brexit vote can certainly be explained by the ravages of austerity and the long jeering of the tabloid press, but beneath it all I see modern English people looking for answers to important emotional questions. Who are we? What do we stand for? What, if anything, unites us? Humans generally feel the need to belong to something tangible and solid, but England feels so compromised by neoliberal greed that it feels emptied of emotional meaning. There is a deep desire for England to be more than just an economy and some tourist-tilted brand names, and this is being cynically harnessed and twisted by the Brexiteer elite. Johnson, Farage and Co are successful because they appeal directly to this unmet emotional need, so if we’re ever to defuze their influence we must find healthier, inclusive ways to do the same thing.

It is clear to me that folk has the power to do this — it is a great untapped national resource, a positive affirmation of identity that well deserves a more prominent place in the national tapestry. The folk experience is one of continuity; engaging with old stories and melodies gives you a place in an ongoing narrative: a deep form of identity that is open to all. The grounding in tradition does not mean stultifying nostalgia — it’s as folk-grandee Martin Cathy once said: “I’m not interested in heritage — this stuff is alive.” Folk has always evolved with the times, telling stories that matter, whether it be about coal mines or climate change, and it’s this fusion of the historic and contemporary which gives it such power. In our shifting, anxious digital lives, there is a groundedness to folk that feels like a tonic — a reminder that we’re not just data, but the latest chapter in the story of this place and the people that live here.

Stone Monkey Rapper dancing at Towersey Folk Festival

This isn’t as earnest as its sounds — it’s usually just a great deal of fun. A good example is the monthly ‘Bastard English’ Folk Session in Oxford, which always buzzes with a range of demographics and nationalities, and is described by its founder as “irreverent and rough around the edges”. Most of the songs volunteered are certainly English folk tunes, but various genres are also thrown into the mix; somehow it seems natural for a boozy sea shanty to make way for some 90s hip hop or an Abba classic — it’s the music we all live with, and the traditional melodies seem to make a fine foundation to pull it all apart. It’s folk as an energised living entity, and I doubt anyone present there feels a ‘crisis of English identity’. Is it so hard to imagine this experience entering the mainstream of English life? We would all be better off it did.

There is an understandable liberal suspicion that “tradition” and “identity” are gentle by-words for ethno-nationalism, but in reality folk is intrinsically well-suited for a multicultural England. After watching the instrumentalist trio Moore Moss Rutter my Hungarian friend commented, in a tone of amused surprise, that somehow the gig made him feel a bit better about the country where he was building his life. A healthy folk tradition makes multiculturalism a great deal smoother: nervous, confused cultures are harder to integrate with than those with secure rootedness — solidity is conducive for openness. It’s not a coincidence that the contemporary English folk world has a strong streak of breezy internationalism: when you’re surrounded by affirmations of healthy identity other cultures become enriching, not threatening. The reality is that traditional music has always travelled and merged across the British Isles and beyond. It is heritage already defined by multiculturalism.

Johnny Kalsi, Chris Wood and Martin Carthy performing in ‘The Imagined Village’, a star-studded multicultural folk project

Say I convince the nation and we witness a miraculous 21st century folk revival — what would it look like? Not hugely different, at least on the surface. I see people joining in with the chorus of half-remembered old tunes in the pub, and groups of friends asking ‘ceilidh or club?’ on a night out, and kids learning to play the accordion after school. I see our life milestones — weddings and wakes — including the sharing of our old ballads, and tourists cramming into rooms to see Northumbrian Rapper sword dancing, and Mummers Plays becoming almost as popular as pantomime. I see an England that readily offers its citizens a place in an ongoing tradition deeper than consumerism and urban sprawl, free of grubby imperial nostalgia. I see an England more quietly at peace with itself.

In 2003 the author Kazuo Ishiguro described our folk music as a “treasure chest“, saying that “If you were American or Irish you might have opened it by now, but because you live here it probably hasn’t occurred to you to do so yet. Well, I would urge you to open that thing up and delve inside it.” England can keep the global brands of Royalty and James Bond, but we also deserve a celebration of Englishness that feels solid, positive and meaningful. The delving into the treasure chest of our folk culture will have to be slow and organic, but the first step will surely be the softening of the strange English self-contempt that has kept folk on the margins. Let’s take a lesson from our Celtic neighbours and consider folking off for good.

Will-derness

Written by

Will is a writer with a face like a WWI soldier (apparently). He likes old things, green places and trying to find the funny side of it all.

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