Faux-Folk

Up and down the land, people are rejoicing. The sandals are coming out again. The beards are blossoming on the chins. The smell of incense and herbal tea and loamy, unwashed kaftans is in the air.

Folk is back.

Folk is back! Hear the cry ringing in the street! Hear it in the newspapers! Hear it on the radiowaves! Hear it on the lips of the fresh-faced flower braided beautiful ones, my dear brothers, because the dam has broken, the rain has come, the prodigal sound has returned! Folk is back!

Mumford and Sons! Laura Marling! Noah and the Whale! Villagers! More Fleet Foxes! That second album from Bombay Bicycle Club!

Folk is back! Long live fooooooolk!

...to which I say, bollocks. Folk is dead.

No, that’s not quite right. To be exact; folk has died, and come back as a sputtering, barely sentient embryo.

Folk is not back. Not yet.

The actual value of these acts is nothing compared to the praise and benediction heaped upon them by the press. When Sigh No More was released journalists climbed over each other to see which of them could blow its virtues the furthest out of proportion. When I Speak Because I Can followed it, they went a step further and tried to actually blow it; sucking on the corners of the CD sleeve to see if they could somehow give it oral pleasure. I’m sure there’s a video of it somewhere online.

About a month back, the review supplement of the Telegraph stuck Marling on the front cover (pictured in front of a field of wheat because, hey! Wheat is organic! And folk is acoustic! And acoustic is sort of like...organic music! Yeah! It’ll go well with your organic marmalade and your pomegranate juice! Look at you, saving the planet from the comfort of your Aga heated kitchen! You little Trojan you!) and announced that she heralded ‘The Return of Folk’. Accompanying the article itself was a picture chart, detailing ‘The Highs and Lows of British Folk’, showing the fluctuating quality of famous folk acts before finishing up with Marling achieving a high not seen since the likes of Nick Drake.

I’ll sidestep the issue of how patronising this must be to all the other folk artists operating in Britain over the last 40 years (being based on the assumption that it is quality, rather than public taste, which changes over time) and get right to the point.

Now I like Marling. A lot. I think she’s talented and interesting and when she looks directly into the camera when performing she makes me feel a bit gooey. I also, begrudgingly, like Mumford. Begrudgingly because their proliferation of major chords and lilting voices makes them impossible not to like, regardless of quality. It’s aural pancake batter.

But my God, they are far too fucking cosy.

Like me you probably haven’t paid much attention to Mumford’s lyrics, nullified into a happy stupor by their fluffy-butter sound. But take a look.

Love that will not betray you,
dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free
Be more like the man
you were made to be.

In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love, you invest your life.

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways

Cause I need freedom now
And I need to know how
To live my life as it's meant to be.

Christ. They sound like they’re singing the words of Chicken Soup for the Soul

Here’s my issue. Folk isn’t supposed to be cosy. Though the term is vague, in its current incarnation it basically applies to a strand of popular music that is based, both musically and lyrically, upon traditional acoustic music. Folk is usually a mash up of several of these – it might incorporate aspects of Delta blues, Irish ditties, English ballads, or anything that pre-dates rock and is not descended from the classical or jazz traditions. The strongest, most unified Folk movement in recent memory ran from the 1930’s to the early 1970’s– from Woodie Guthrie and Pete Seeger up until folk bands of the late 60’s began experimenting and became psychedelic, progressive or just popular rock.

But the crucial thing about folk music is that it comes from the people. That’s what folk means (it’s an Anglo-Saxon word actually, folc. Look at me being all smug. Ho Ho). And it is not cosy music, It’s angry music. English and Irish ballads are all about people sleeping with each other’s wives and getting stabbed to death. Blues is all about how shit it is to live in a world controlled by rich white guys. 1930’s-60’s folk was protest music, against first the anti-unionists, then the HUAC, then nuclear war, then Vietnam. When folk fell out of popular favour the spirit it incorporated surfaced in genres such as punk, grunge and rap.

But now folk is coming back into popular favour. And we are badly in need of music that says something about the times we live in; about a world in the midst of financial recession, religious fundamentalism, environmental abuse and pointless war. Something to counter all the years of hipster-naval gazing that has made up most of the 21st century.

Folk doesn’t need to be cosy. It needs to grow some teeth.

It has potential. Mumford just need to get some new lyricists. Laura Marling needs about two or three years to get really good. I think she’ll do it. I have faith.

Plus it’ll mean I get to wear my kaftan again. Huzzah!