SIMPLE SONGS FOR SIMPLE PEOPLE [T, 10-28-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Lyrics of An Old Song Writer—SIMPLE SONGS FOR SIMPLE PEOPLE [T, 10-28-25]

 

What is art? There are a thousand definitions. Anything artistic is notoriously difficult to define.

Justice Potter Stewart said, “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.”

I can’t define folk music, but I know it when I hear it.

Folk music is both immediate and simple. Immediate and simple are not necessarily better than distant and complicated, especially in music. But I’m simple, so I’m a folkie.

Young people like to think of themselves as complicated. I certainly did. I thought I was complicated when I was really just confused. The older I get, the more I realize how simple I am. I’m a simple guy, so folk is my music.

Folk has no intermediaries, no handlers who present an image different from the musician him or herself. The same is true with the songs.

In a former life, I was a bassoonist. Bassoon isn’t a folk instrument. It really needs other instruments, preferably an orchestra, at least an ensemble. It’s hard to sit around the camp fire and sing to a bassoon, especially if you are the bassoonist, and also trying to eat s’mores.

I like simplicity. The older I get, the more I like it.

I am partial to running/walking as a sport because it is so simple and immediate. You just put on your shoes and go out the door. Other than the shoes--and not even those for folks like Zola Budd-- you need no clubs or rackets or skis, no special court or floor or field, no machines or pool. Unlike other sports, you can use running/walking actually to go some place useful, like the donut shop, to recoup the calories you lost along the way.

Because I like simplicity, I am a folk music singer-songwriter. I’m known for writing songs like “I’m In the Poor House Now,” and for my renditions of the songs of others, like the Snake Oil Willie Band’s I Don’t Look Good Naked Anymore or If My Nose Was Running Money, I’d Blow It All On You. [1]

Our granddaughter is coming to visit us, and she is bringing with her Pansy. Well, not the whole band named Pansy, just the lead singer/songwriter, Vivian, who needs a place to get away to write some more songs. I assume they are coming to visit us because they know I can be helpful with the writing. Electric punk isn’t all that different from acoustic folk, is it?

John Robert McFarland

 

1] The internet is confused about who wrote If My Nose Was Running Money… It was either Mike Snider or Aaron Wilburn.