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Does a song have its own life?

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There are songs that have a story that goes beyond their composers, their place and time of origin.

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Sometimes it looks like they have a life of their own and.

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This relates also to the way.

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Artists often look at their works at times are.

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Described as having their own trajectory almost independent from their creators.

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In order to make art, an artist puts together ideas that might have a wide variety of origins, often hard to pinpoint by the artists themselves.

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In music, it might even be more challenging to figure out what.

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Are things made of, for example, what is a melody made of and where and how its creator put it together?

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In addition to that, music relies entirely on interpretation.

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Each performance of music is bound to the unique time and place you hear it and the performers you hear it from.

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So a piece of music relies entirely on its interpreters to carry its artistic message through time and space, and today we're going to see a few examples of such.

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Journey the question we are asking.

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Is does a song have its own life?

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Black is the colour.

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Of my true.

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Is or something wonderful?

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The the.

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And the brave.

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I love the ground where each step.

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Black, black. Black.

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Is the colour.

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Of my true love and.

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I love my love and where he knows.

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I love the growth.

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Where he go?

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No more, my love. I see.

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My love would fade.

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This is a tune called Black is the colour.

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And you might be more or less familiar with it. There are a few versions of it out there, some by well known artists.

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This fact that the theme takes different forms according to the style of its interpreter is not surprising.

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We enjoy very much when the lyrics or the melody of a song.

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Tell us things we didn't hear before thanks to a new interpreters, as if those meanings have always been in the song. But it took a sensible interpreter for this to emerge convincingly and beautifully.

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The following question though, is natural to ask what is the initial version the so-called original?

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In the case of Black is the colour the first recording dates 1941 in a collection of American folklore songs.

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That version had the lyrics by John Jacob Niles, who wrote them around 1920, so 20 years before the recording.

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These lyrics are the ones that are now mostly taken as the authentic ones.

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Evidence of it is that the hundreds of versions recorded after this one employed mostly these lyrics, and believe me, there are hundreds of versions.

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Now we understand something more.

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The song existed before the lyrics.

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But the lyrics allowed for the song to somehow settle in a more defined version.

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Nonetheless, the song Black is the colour had alive before that. It is in fact described as a traditional Appalachian tune from the mountain area in the United States that goes from Alabama up to the East Coast to New York.

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Until Maine, it is a traditional song, so we might think it was sung by people as part of their traditional heritage, although we might find it difficult to decide exactly what tradition that is.

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Some point to Native American and my limited knowledge of Native American folk music.

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Tells me it is possible the melodic contour and its harmony.

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Matches with the technique and style that I associate with Native American music folklore. Something like this.

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Interestingly, though, some attribute its origins to Scotland.

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Particularly famed folklorist and musicologist, the late Alan Lomax attributes Black is the colour of my true Love's hair to Scottish origins and time during the 19th century. There's a line in the original version of the song.

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That goes I go to the Clyde to mourn and weep, but satisfied I could never sleep. Referring to the River Clyde in Scotland.

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The folk tune probably made its way across Atlantic in the company of Scottish immigrants, many of whom settled in North Carolina and Appalachian America.

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Then the song was first collected by English folk music archivist. Certain Cecil Sharpe, who notated and recorded it during a 1916 trip to North Carolina, which he then published in his English folk songs.

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Of the southern Appalachians, 1917.

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And then the lyrics were adjusted by the before mentioned John Jacob Niles, who recorded them in its collection of American folklore Songs in 1941.

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And from then up until now, hundreds of artists reinterpreted it.

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Black is the colour.

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Of my true lost.

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Ohh lips lie.

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Some roses.

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She have the sweetest smile.

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And the Jamp will stand.

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And I love the clown.

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Whereon she stand.

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I love my love.

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Well, she knows.

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In this case, you can probably hear the influences of.

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Blues country and at the same time.

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The relationship with Scotland and.

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Celtic tradition. I find this fascinating, but we might realise that similar stories happen all the time.

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It is no coincidence that we ended up in the folk music genre since folk.

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Is where tunes and songs emerge from traditions that are developed collectively transmitted orally.

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More often than from one creative mind composing and writing on its own.

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While it is easier to trace the history of a piece when we have a single composer, it is much harder when the composers are many people, sometimes creating at different times or even in different areas of the world.

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This short journey back in time.

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Shows the the original version of this song escapes us, and that might make us wonder why are we looking for it?

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As an artist, I look for originals mainly for two reasons.

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Because I value authenticity and because I want to feel that my interpretation of a text, musical or otherwise, is independent of outside stranger influence.

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I think there is nothing particularly original in that. I want a 1 to 1 confrontation with art where I am diving freely into the artwork, minimising the intrusion of facilitators or even the context sometimes.

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One might take it too far.

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I notice I sometimes I have a hard time in museums just because I see I feel the curators are trying to conduct me, contact my reaction, or I often skip the introduction of a book if not written by the author for similar reasons.

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But with regard to the first point, authenticity in music, there is a problem. I need to know what the authentic version of a song is in order to interpret it, but that authentic version is nowhere to be found.

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Should we just?

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Take any or the one I prefer or the one that is most popular to be the authentic 1.

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In the work folk songs by Luciano Berio, Italian composer, certainly.

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To me, to me the most interesting collection of music related to this subject, the composer explores the issue of origins and authenticity in traditional music that is almost by definition, transmitted orally. He did astonishing research.

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Into performing practises of traditional music in various areas of the world.

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Processing it all in a writing style that is not what one would expect.

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We might be inclined to think that if you do historical research and collected information about a particular tradition.

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Perhaps you found out how a certain music was performed exactly.

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If you then write it down, you'd think the goal is to finally set in stone.

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The most authentic version of it, no.

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This is probably what the academic world would wish to look into history in an attempt to clean an artwork from the dust of time and reoffering it new and shining to the audiences of the day.

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Berio, who understood music profoundly.

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Did the exact opposite. He chose folk songs from traditions that challenge this very idea of a unified, clear, single origin that are centuries old and complicated, mixed and with complex histories.

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And wrote a version of each song that.

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Incorporates that dust of time.

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Enhancing rather than washing it away.

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Knowing fully well that that same dust, those inaccuracies of traditional performances.

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Those many contrasting versions of the same tune, those lyrics that were perhaps clear ones and are now unintelligible. All of this is the life of a song.

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The true authentic story.

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That comes when we hear a tune. Berio knows that.

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For any song, perhaps there isn't an authentic original version.

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But every version is true is somehow authentic.

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This is what he might be suggesting with his folk songs operation.

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And that might also hint at a way of thinking that we can extended to every piece of music.

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None is the authentic one, but each one is true. Here is Luciano Berio's version of Black is the colour.

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Or something.

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So what tradition, exactly? Luciano Berio is.

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Bringing up with with this arrangement with this transcription.

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It's very hard to say. There is a reference to mediaeval music, a reference to probably Celtic Northern European music. Many more references. It's complex, is extremely complex.

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Probably is a reflection on what tradition is. In a way, the word tradition probably is just a simple shortcut term.

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Cut through hundreds of years of complex histories and non-linear.

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Paths and life stories.

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In this in this song you could hear clearly all the words.

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I mentioned lyrics to be sometimes unintelligible in this folk song. The lyrics are intelligible, but there is one tune in the collection, the last one from Azerbaijan, which even extensive research did not result.

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In there you knowing what the lyrics exactly were so so interesting rather than introducing alternative words in the original language as lyrics that would make sense.

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He listened to recordings and transcribed those phonetics into the score.

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So no one knows what the singer is singing.

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No one.

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Coming back to our question, what version should I take as the original? What should I use as the authentic thing to interpret?

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I don't know the answer. It is my decision. Whatever I decide to do, whichever version I rely upon, and whichever version I end up making up as an artist, I feel I am adding.

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My little contribution.

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The life of a song.

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We don't know who gave birth to it, where or when.

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But we have the chance to contribute to its existence briefly.

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Just by singing and performing it.

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It takes some courage to believe that you are taking part of the life of a song. I think better takes that responsibility very seriously.

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As well as.

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Nina Simone when she sings it.

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Of my true loves hair.

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His space.

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So soft and wondrous.

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The pool and the strongest ham.

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I love the ground. I'm wasted.

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Is colour.

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Of my true loves here.

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Of my true love.

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And well, he knew.

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Yes, I love the ground way go.

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And steal oh.

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That good.

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When he.

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And I will be as one.

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How powerful didn't want to interrupt it?

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How different though, from everything else we've heard? Certainly the same song, the same tune, same lyrics.

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How different, how soulful is?

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This version in how powerful, emotionally and communicatively?

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And this was a live version from 1959, and there was a I think also studio version, but I prefer this one.

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Perfect matching with the conversation we are having with regard to the fact that she does a contribution to the life of a song.

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And she does it for real on a stage. Now we have access to this recording, but this recording is a copy somehow of that.

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It's somehow less authentic than being there in that very moment.

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By the way, the.

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Version of folk song by Luciano Berio. We heard earlier was also live version with the celebration of.

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Think Kathy Barbarian the.

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The singer, who originally sang the song for for Luciano Berio.

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I will leave you with an instrumental version of Black is the colour as a way to hint at the fact that the soul of song can be kept alive without its lyrics.

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This version is by the jazz artist Kit Downes, pianist and organist, who plays it on organ in the album Obsidian from 2018.

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You will agree that.

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The organ itself as an instrument, carries special layers of significance to the modern listeners. Its relationship to religious tradition, to choirs and spiritual gatherings. It's long life in music history.

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Much longer than the history of piano does make sound, everything more ancestral.

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Keep down here is interpreting the various core.

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For organ solo.

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Fascinating, I.

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Found it quite.

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Inspiring. Certainly a completely different world. We are not generally speaking as a culture used anymore to the organ, so organ sounds.

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A little bit from another world nowadays and what an instrument, what a variety of nuances.

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I would be inclined to take such a version as maybe something as the final one, the final version not clean.

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I'll say modest, elegant, sombre.

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Lightened up from lyrics that did not pass the history authenticity test.

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I will be tempted to take this as the version to show in a Museum of songs. If there was such a thing.

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But I would be a bit deluded, I suspect, because even this version is just.

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Heartbeat in the life of a song.

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I hope this was an inspiring journey. Perhaps you have other tunes, other titles, other songs that you cherish. You keep close to your heart that.

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Maybe their history goes way beyond your life, maybe way past in the in centuries, and who knows where.

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Where and when those songs were created.

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So nevertheless, the fact that they retain something valuable to us today somehow makes me think of how timeless are certain messages, certain meaning, certain ideas.

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Same could be said probably.

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About the stories.

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Certain stories are universal, timeless. You can change the names of the characters. You can change the places and the details, but the story still still is the same and.

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So I hope this journey inspired you. Thank you for listening to today's episode and and thank you to everyone who listened to my previous episode on List France List and his piano piece outboard and source for the podcast I enjoy choosing.

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You see that I can play at the piano.

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And in the case of that piano piece on water by Franz Liszt “Beside a spring”, which I presented last time, I'm enjoying also to produce a video of the actual performance, you can still watch it. It's on my YouTube account.

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And thank you again for being with me today until next time.