dduane:

ursulavernon:

ellenkushner:

shredsandpatches:

junkybowels:

plaidadder:

argonauticae:

argonauticae:

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

OH GOD HELP ME I AM LAUGHING SO HARD I CANNOT BREATHE

(plus I know every variant of each and every one of these songs and I’ll send you the links if you want)

Jeez, you guys left off

“I Am A Gambler Who Will Come To No Good End”

“Cuckoos Are Extremely Interesting Birds, But Alas I Am A Gambler Who Will Come To No Good End (Cuckoo Solo)”

“I Was A Cowboy And Then Everyone Died So I Came Home”

and that old favorite, “My Boyfriend Left Me So I Dressed Up As A Man And Shot His Cheating Ass.”

There is also a peculiar Southern variant that seems to be “My Horse Is Extremely Fast And Also Sexy And Then I Met A Woman On An Equally Sexy Horse And Married Her.” That one worries me a little.

attn petermorwood (”ahem, somebody left this bonny black hare running around loose in here…”)