Average Jane’s Musical Secret

It had never occurred to me to write about this topic, but then Grace posted this on Facebook today:

Of all of the types of music you might expect me to admit to liking, there's one I'll bet you'd never consider: traditional folk music. It's true – the queen metalhead herself has a soft spot for songs like "I Gave My Love A Cherry."

My mom used to sing it to me when I was a kid. It was in lullaby rotation with the theme song from "Branded," among other odd choices.

My mom wasn't a hippie – she was already married with a baby by the time the Summer of Love rolled around. No, the whole folk song thing can be laid squarely at the feet of Burl Ives.

We had an extensive album of Burl Ives singing folk songs that included "Tam Pierce," "Foggy, Foggy Dew," "Leather-Winged Bat" and other aged traditional tunes. And when I say album, I mean album album: a book full of 45 rpm records in separate sleeves.

Because the music was perfectly suitable for kids (except for the fact that some of it was rather depressing), we listened to the songs a lot when I was growing up. You can imagine how excited I was when I first saw "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." (Needless to say, I didn't know about him ratting out his friends to the House Unamerican Activities Committee until much later.)

So even today, I'm happy to stop and enjoy a traditional folk song now and then. Even at the risk of being overwhelmed by patchouli.