Conclusions

I have only scratched the surface of the huge sea of folk songs from this area. I had planned on incorporating more lesser known folk song into this blog, with the hopes of learning something new myself. While I did find a huge number of songs I had never heard sung, or heard maybe only part of before, in books and online I had a great deal of difficulty finding any background on them. I also love to hear the way the songs are sung, including the tune, the voice and sometimes musical accompaniment. I believe folk songs are so much more than just poems, and this was all I was able to get from simply reading the lyrics. Based on this, I decided to showcase a few of my favourite songs which I could find recordings of with at least one from each province. I tried to choose a song for each that was unique to the province and I felt reflected the general theme I found while reading other songs from that province. While all the songs were unique, they all seem to share similar influences and styles. The celtic and fishing influences are particularly apparent. Most of the songs I found were in some way related to the sea, fishing, or shipwrecks, even though all the showcased songs did not directly involve this. They all describe a life or event of a person: most being some kind of monumental event in the singer' s life, such as leaving home for war (Farewell to Nova Scotia), losing a long known way of life (Alec's lament), losing a loved one (Evangeline, and in the case of I's the b'y, just describing a way of life. All of the songs I included, and most that I read, include reference to specific geographic places and personal elements such as names of people. These inclusions make the songs seem very personal and help to draw in listeners that come from the same communities as the songwriters. I ended up learning a great deal, even about songs that I grew up listening to friends and family sing.