THERE IS NO OFFICIAL VERSION

Something I’ve realized about “folk music” lately, is that there really is no “official version” with most songs. You’ll find every performer plays the same song differently: different lyrics, different verses, melody & rhythm variations - it’s wild. Life is kind a free-for-all and the version that most people know and remember and emotionally attach to tends to be the one that sticks, whether or not it is the “best possible” version.

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4 Reader Responses

1. JK Says:
   February 25th, 2008 at 8:42 pm

   Sure. Same thing with jazz and blues. Also classical, now that I think of it. And hell, why not DJs who spin dance, beat or rhythm “standards” at clubs etc too?

   Also, shit, how about certain lines in hip-hop songs? “Throw yo hands in the ayah” etc. Those are old lines from seminal hip hop that turn up in new songs and ad lib all the time.

2. Big Elk Says:
   February 25th, 2008 at 9:23 pm

   Yeah totally. I realized the other day too that a song title of mine was lifted unknowingly from another song. I thought I “wrote” it, but I had just processed it on some non-conscious level and removed it from its original context. I think this is a major element of how poetic forms transmit through time and across generations and cultures: outright theft, both knowing and unknowing.

   Also want to come back and write about how this fits into modern linear literacy versus old-fashioned oral-based “literary” forms, but that thought is still brewing somewhere dark beneath the surface…

3. The Bottle by Big Elk [Video] - [tmbchr]™ Says:
   March 2nd, 2008 at 8:11 pm

   […] And speaking of, Skip Wiley has recorded an awesome and totally different version of my song “Hotel Hell”. Check that shit out! Remember: there is no official version! […]

4. firefly grove » Blog Archive » Hotel Hell Says:
   March 4th, 2008 at 5:52 pm

   […] Eat that cocoa and play a song, A big elk’s footprints did say But you’ll have to wander for 40 odd days Its the price that I have to pay […]