im putting together a couple of scottish folk mixes bc that’s what i do and im honestly curious if anyone in my country has ever been unequivocally happy about anything ever
scottish trad music genres:
Everyone I Love Is Dead
The English Have Stolen All My Sheep
You Want To Be My Boyfriend? First You Must Answer These Riddles Three
The Protestants Have Stolen All My Sheep
I Love You A Lot But You’ve Left Me And It’s Raining [fiddle solo]
The Sea Is Treacherous, Just Like The English
One Time Bonnie Prince Charlie Punched Me In The Face And It Was Awesome
The Fairies Have Stolen All My Sheep
We have of course the traditional Irish music genres to go with them:
* Everyone I Love Is An Allegorical Representation of Ireland
* The English Stole My Farm And Put Sheep On It
* You Were My Boyfriend But Now You Won’t Even Come To The Window To Look Upon Me And Our Dead Infant Child (In The Rain)
* Whack Fol Too La Roo Umptytiddly Good They’ve Stopped Listening Now Let’s Talk About Revolution
* Something In Irish, I Think It’s About Fairies, Or Maybe A Cow
oooo can I add to this? don’t forget Appalachian folk balladry, the American cousin of Scottish and Irish traditional music and just as uplifting as its Anglo-Saxon highland forbears!!!
genres include:
I Left Everyone I Love Back Home In The Holler To Be With This Guy Who Doesn’t Wear Shoes Or Have Teeth But He Plays A Mean Jug
The English Told Us Not To Move West Yet, We Ignored Them, My Entire Family Was Killed
You Were My Boyfriend But You Tied A Sack Of Rocks To My Petticoats And Threw Me In The Creek (And My Baby Too)
Mama Loves All 14 Of Us A Lot But She’s Weary Of Our Shit And Now She’s Dyin’ (Gather Round)
The McCleans Stole A Firewood Log From Our Pile So We Won’t Rest Until The Last Of Their Male Kin Is Laid In The Cold Ground
We Knew The River Would Rise But We Still Didn’t Fix The Levee
The River Rose, The Levee Broke, Everyone Died, It Was Just As We Reckoned (dulcimer twang-a-lang)
When The Rebels Come A-Marchin’ I’m A Southern Man And I Feed Their Horses My Best, When The Yankees Come A-Marchin’ I’m A Northern Man And I Feed Their Horses What The Rebels Left
The Tennessee Valley Authority Killed All My Sheep Somehow
Don’t forget that old standby “The Mine Collapsed and Everyone Died”!
I think someone needs to put in a word for the English folk tradition though:
I Met a Girl and We Went Hunting (It Was a Metaphor for Sex)
I Met a Girl and We Caught Some Birds (It Was a Metaphor for Sex)
I Met a Girl and We Found Her Lost Pet (It Was a Metaphor for Sex)
I Met a Girl By Staying At Her Parents’ House and She Made My Bed (It Was an Especially Thinly-Veiled Metaphor for Sex)
I Am a Girl and I Regret Engaging In Metaphors for Sex Because Now I’m Pregnant
I Met a Girl and Bribed Her Into Sex But She Stole My Horse and Ran Away With It
I Met a Girl At an Inn and We Had Non-Metaphorical Sex But She Stole My Stuff The Next Morning and Now I Have Syphilis
Your Fiance Died Either at Trafalgar or Waterloo, Let’s Get Married, I’m Glad You Said No Because I’m Really Him In Disguise
Lord Nelson Sure Was Awesome
The Press-Gang Dragged Off All the Important Men in My Life (And Now They Are Dead)
Farm Laborers Are The Salt of the Earth And Are Never Grindingly Poor
Begging Is a Completely Viable Career Option With Flexible Hours and Unlimited Access to Alcohol
behold mongolian folk music genres
I Went Out Riding and Noticed Mongolia
We Fought a Bunch of Guys (On Horseback)
Witness My Many Ungulates
(While On a Horse) I Met a Hot Girl Who Reminded Me of a Plant
On Three, Say What That Terrain Feature Looks Like to You (One, Two, Three, A Horse)
Witness My Many Ancestors’ Many Ungulates
I Also Enjoy Heavy Metal, Especially If It’s Made of Horseshoes
Oooorrrrweeeeuuurrrreeeeuuuuwwwwwrrrrrrrr (Is Tuvan for “Horse”)
You Might Not Know This About Me, But I Own a Horse
THE MONGOLIAN FOLK SONGS MADE IT BETTER.
now with more okinawan!
We Must Plant the Crops, Let’s Get Drunk!
We Must Harvest the Crops, Let’s Get Drunk!
There’s No Crops Right Now, Let’s Get Drunk!
Sex On the Beach Is Awesome, War Is Bad
There Are Ghosts in the Trees
The Japanese Exploit Us (And the Americans Do Too)
I Love the Sea, This Island Is Beautiful, War Is Still Bad
Hey, There’s an Old Man, Let’s Get Drunk!
Respect Your Parents Or You Will Be Lost at Sea Forever
As the daughter of a folksinger and spouse of a folklorist, I love this SO MUCH. Here’s some from the sub-sub-genre of French folk songs of the Midwest…
I Am A Brawny-Armed Lumberjack Who Loves a Town Girl, Oh No!
Oh Fuck, I Slept With a Fur Trapper, What Shall I Tell Maman?
Hauling Logs, Rolling Logs, Driving Logs, All Day, What Ho!
Like Hell You’re Marrying That Good for Nothing Bambocheur!
Fetch My Gold Ring That Fell Into the Sea! Now!
I Met A Sailor While A-Strolling, And Now We Are In Love!
I Want to Kiss the Sailor I Met A-Strolling, But I’m Afraid My Father Will Find Out!
Oh Fuck, I Kissed the Sailor I Met A-Strolling And Now We Are Doomed!
French Canadian (both Québécois and Acadian) folk ballads have the above genres as well, and also:
*We May Gave Gotten Bombed And Hijacked The Devil’s Watercraft To Go Home For The Holidays YOLO
*Where The Fuck Are The British Demanding We Fuck Off To THIS Time (Tabarnak They Keep On Doing That Shit)
*We Were Told That If We Did The Thing We Would Get The Shit Haunted Out Of Us But YOLO (Shit We Shoulda Listened To That Old Native Guy Though)