I love folk music, and some of those folk songs I love more than modern day music. I know, it’s a weird thing to love, and there aren’t a lot of people our age who enjoy music like that. Most of our generation like new age music, or classic rock, or punk from decades past, or other genres. And that’s totally great. I think all music is wonderful, and it speaks to all of us differently. But I feel like people think it’s weird that I love the kind of music I do. So here’s why I love it so much.
1. It’s Old.
Folk music has a history to it that modern music doesn’t have. I can feel it in my bones when those songs come on. This music comes from a time long before us, and it just sounds…pure. But in its age, there is also timelessness. It’s like if you captured a sunset, or a summer night. You can almost image people from times long since past singing these songs around a fire in the center of the village. The songs are about nature, love, heartbreak.. They are old concepts, timeless ones. It gives me goosebumps.
2. Easy Listening
I know not everyone will agree with me on this, but I like the fact that most folk music has a softer beat, and sweeter tunes. For one thing, it makes it easier to concentrate while I'm doing homework. It’s something soft to play in the background. True, we all need some songs like get our fists pumping, our hearts pounding with a drum, and our heads rocking (where are my FOB and P!ATD fans?), but softer songs are a nice break.
3. It’s romantic.
There are many songs from today that I love, and think are absolutely romantic—“Bright” by Echosmith, or “Tenerife Sea” by Ed Sheeran. But I also think a lot of songs from modern times can be brash. They can be insulting and harsh, or about lust and getting laid. Folk songs are about something sweeter, something truer, than all that. Most of them are soft and sweet and pure, about finding true love in this world, and the pain that comes if you lose it. It sets the mood in a way that some other music can’t.
4. It’s so much fun!
For as many folk songs that are about love or heartbreak, there is an equal number that are fun and flirty and light and happy. The notes sparkle in your ears and make you want to leap up from your chair and dance through a field of wildflowers with someone. Yeah, there are dance songs from today that make you want to jam out—either on the dance floor or in the kitchen in your jammies (no pun intended)—but folk music makes you want to waltz, or skip around in a circle like from the days of old, or just laugh as you sing along.
5. The musicality.
#Sorrynotsorry, but I’m gunna nerd out of a second. There is something musically different about folk music that other music just doesn’t have. The chords are different, the rhythms are unique. The music just builds on itself, the chords and rhythms intertwining and leaning on each other. The songs are so intricate, sometimes so much more so than the electronics of the songs we hear on the radio now.
I love music. I think it’s an incredible thing in this world, and I know we all have different tastes and different music that gets our heart pounding and sends shivers down our spines. Never be ashamed of the music you love, no matter what your tastes are. There’s music out there for all of us and we all enjoy different things. That being said, you can’t tell me this song by Celtic Woman isn’t fantastically awesome. Give it a listen, and maybe listen to some music outside your comfort zone. You never know what kind of wonders you’ll find :)
