Folk Song Index

Folk Song Index

Notes and disclaimers

This is an index of the folk songs in books and recordings in my collection, plus some of the books and recordings in the collections of friends. The emphasis is on traditional folk songs in the English language, though there are songs in other languages (notably French), modern folk songs, and some instrumentals. There are over 47,000 entries in the index.

* The Title column contains the name of the song or tune, and for some songs a distinctive phrase from the chorus or from a verse. The column also contains the name of the composer, if known. If words and music were composed by different people, the author of the words is preceded by "w:", and the composer of the music is preceded by "m:". The column may also contain capitalised initials, representing the identity of one of my friends whose books or recordings are in the index.

* The Location or Cross Reference column contains the name of the book or recording, plus the name of the author or performer. If the book or recording is from the collection of one of my friends, it contains a note such as "(collection of ABC)". The column may also contain the word "see" followed by text. This text may be an alternative title; a distinctive phrase from the song to assist in identifying songs when the title is not known; the name of the tune followed by "(tune)"; a reference such as "Child #085", which means it is number 85 in the collection of Francis James Child; the title of a related song; or the name of a generic theme such as "broken token" ballad or "night visiting" song. Songs that are related may be different versions of the same song, songs that share a tune, or songs that share a theme. Use caution, as a cross reference from song A to song B and from song B to song C does not necessarily mean that song A and song C are related. These cross references are not active links. To use them you will have to go to the top of the page, follow the link to the appropriate section of the index, and search within that section. Or use the site search feature in the upper right hand corner of the page.

* The Page column, for a book, gives the page number within the book where the song may be found.

* The Type column indicates whether the source has words, music, an audio recording, or information about the song.

For alphabetisation, leading articles in English and French (a, an, the, un, une, le, la, and les) have been inverted, but this has generally not been done for any other language. There are no accented letters in this index (it was begun when most computers didn't handle accented letters).

The index began very modestly as a homegrown database to enable me to locate songs in my collection of about 30 vinyl albums. It had been annoying me to have to pull out many albums to find the one song I wanted. The index has somewhat outgrown its origins.

I'm currently working on adding information to the index from the Spring 2002 version of The Digital Tradition (opens new window). This process is now about two-thirds complete, with about 4,000 entries to go.

While care was taken during the preparation of the index, it has not been proofread. There will be errors of many kinds. There will also be inconsistencies. Use with caution.

This is an index, and refers to books and recordings only. None of the books or recordings are on this site. There are no links from this index to Internet sites. Check with libraries, book stores, and record stores.

James Prescott
2004-November-16
Edited 2006-April-18
Edited 2012-February-16
Edited 2012-December-14

If you are interested in my index, you might also be interested in another index that I am now (as of 2007-June-22) hosting on this site. Someone who tells me "I don't want any attribution to my name, because I relish the anonymity" has sent me an index of mainly Irish and UK traditional artists, with small separate sections on (a) folk-rock, (b) singer-songwriters, (c) early music, (d) old-time, and (e) anthologies. This index is entirely their work. They have given me permission to host their index here. Primarily Irish and UK traditional recordings, arranged by artist (opens new window)

See also the online index on another site by Jane Keefer here (opens new window)