Abstract
Have you or your students ever heard the story that the children’s song “Ring around the Rosie” is related to plague symptoms in English history? Or heard the song “Blow the Man Down,” been unable to get it out of your head, and been curious about the origin of sea shanties? Or wondered what instrument is said to best embody the voice and soul of Ukraine and wished to listen to it?
Well, you are in luck. The Library of Congress podcast Folklife Today features episodes related to these topics and many more. Combining brand-new interviews and narration with songs, stories, music, and oral history from the collections of the American Folklife Center (AFC), Folklife Today tells stories about the cultural traditions and folklore of diverse communities. Entire episodes or short segments may be of interest to you and your students.
The podcast first launched in 2018 and has been described as an “audio magazine” featuring wide-ranging topics and segments, at times driven by the season or by audience interest and always intended to pique listeners’ curiosity. Select episodes include the following:
“Is ‘Ring around the Rosie’ about the Plague?” A Look at Children’s Songs
In this episode, hosts discuss children’s songs, in particular, “Ring around the Rosie.” They interview a former Library of Congress teacher in residence and play versions of children’s songs recorded in the field in 1939 and in 2019. They talk about the story that the origin of “Ring around the Rosie” is related to plague symptoms in English history. They conclude that the plague story is folklore—specifically, metafolklore, meaning folklore about folklore. They also conclude that it is probably not true. Nevertheless, the story reveals interesting things about the way folklore is told, spread, and used by various kinds of people, including children.
Sea Shanties
https://www.loc.gov/item/podcasts/2021-01-29/sea-shanties/
This episode presents an introduction to sea shanties, including a discussion of the word shanty or chantey; a discussion of the roots of shanties; the history of shanties; the subtypes of short-haul shanties, halyard shanties, and capstan shanties; the importance of the African American and Afro-Caribbean communities to shanties; and the prevalence of women singing shanties. The episode presents six shanties: “Pay Me My Money Down” by the Georgia Sea Island Singers, “Haul the Bowline” by Richard Maitland, “Dead Horse” or “Poor Old Man” by Leighton Robinson, “The Amsterdam Maid” by Charles J. Finger, “We All Going Ashore” by a group of women from Anguilla, and “Blow the Man Down” by Ship’s Company Chanteymen.
Ukrainian Traditions at the American Folklife Center
https://www.loc.gov/item/podcasts/2022-07-08/ukrainian-traditions-at-the-american-folklife-center/
In this episode, hosts explore Ukrainian materials in the AFC archive. Interview segments include a discussion of Ukrainian embroidery and dance and a discussion of a Ukrainian family bandura band who immigrated to the United States as refugees in the late 1940s. Musical selections include a song with bandura accompaniment. More information on the performers and the selections can be found at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.
Songs of Spring
https://www.loc.gov/item/podcasts/2022-02-28/songs-of-spring/
In this episode, hosts talk about songs of springtime, from agricultural and pastoral songs about farms and flowers to love ballads and a dance tune. They also play the songs, including Pearl Nye’s version of “Early in the Spring,” the Copper Family’s rendition of “When Spring Comes On,” Baptiste Pierre’s version of the Haitian song “Fleurs, Certaines Jolies Fleurs,” Rubén Cobos’s version of the alabanza hymn “El Alba,” Warde Ford’s version of “Nightingales of Spring,” and the Chicago Zither Club’s “Spring Polka.” More information on the songs, including rights information, can be found at http://blogs.loc.gov/folklife.
These four episodes barely scratch the surface of the podcast’s offerings. There are episodes on fiddle tunes, ballads, Irish-language songs from Cork, and other specifically musical themes. Songs and music are also found in episodes on more general topics, like Asian Pacific heritage, Irish American women, April Fool’s Day, and many more. There is an especially rich selection of seasonal songs, from winter songs and summer songs to songs for specific holidays, like Christmas, Halloween, and even Groundhog Day! Several episodes present excerpts from the center’s Homegrown concert series. More than 45 episodes have been recorded and are available for listening on various platforms. Full transcripts are available for each episode, too, at https://www.loc.gov/podcasts/folklife-today/, which can help you find subjects relevant to your teaching and of interest to your students.
Each 25- to 50-minute episode of the Folklife Today podcast serves as an engaging point of entry into the AFC collections. Listeners can access full audio of items excerpted in the podcast and more related folklife content through the Folklife Today blog, at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/.
The AFC is a division of the Library of Congress that documents and shares the many expressions of human experience to inspire, revitalize, and perpetuate living cultural traditions. Designated by the US Congress as the national center for folklife documentation and research, the center meets its mission by stewarding archival collections, creating public programs, and exchanging knowledge and expertise. The center’s vision is to encourage diversity of expression and foster community participation in the collective creation of cultural memory. The center’s archive, officially called the Archive of Folk Culture, was founded as the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library in 1928. In 1978 the archive became part of the AFC and was renamed. Many other types of documentation are now part of the archive, but songs and music are still among its most prominent collections.
Since 1976, when Congress passed the American Folklife Preservation Act (Public Law 94-201) and President Ford signed it into law, the AFC has fulfilled its charge to “preserve and present” folklife in all its diversity. Over the years, the center’s staff have coordinated and conducted large-scale fieldwork projects, produced rich public programs on-site and online, supported training for researchers and field workers, provided robust reference services, and built a significant multiformat archive that holds cultural documentation of lived human experience and meaning-making from around the world.
During the first week of January 2025, the Folklife Today blog will feature a post related to this article. It will include the opportunity for you and your students to propose topics for future episodes.
Footnotes
Lee Ann Potter (