Industrial Folk Music - Definitions and Characteristics

Definitions and Characteristics

A. L. Lloyd defined the industrial work song as 'the kind of vernacular songs made by workers themselves directly out of their own experiences, expressing their own interest and aspirations, and incidentally passed on among themselves by oral means...'. His definition did not include songs created by learned writers on behalf of the working class, but he was prepared to accept some popular and musical hall songs that had been adopted by the workers. His definition has been criticised, as it depends on a concept of a pure working class culture unaffected by outside class or media influences, which is at variance with what we know of the spread of ideas and new forms of media from the late 19th century.

Lloyd also pointed to various types of song, including chants of labour, love and erotic occupational songs and industrial protest songs, which included narratives of disasters (particularly among miners), laments for conditions, as well as overtly political strike ballads. He also noted the existence of songs about heroic and mythical figures of industrial work, like the coal miners the 'Big Hewer' or 'Big Isaac' Lewis. This tendency was even more marked in early American industrial songs, where representative heroes like Casey Jones and John Henry were eulogised in blues ballads from the 19th century.