The Folksmen - Never Did No Wanderin'

[jesusonacid1]

oeyesea is overplaying the double negative aspect, IMO.

People say, because they are stupid, that "I could care less!"

and everyone knows what they mean.

It means that they are stupid Americans (usually) whom don't care about their language.

That's about as much play I'll give the double negative in the song.

Common usage, perhaps with a little thought about that?

[berkeleyhome]

Main St singers made into a toothpaste commercial...

[3Pitous]

This parody is very hypocritical.You play it but you sing it as if you don't like it.Pity.

[dytakeda]

@3Pitous I thought the whole movie was very respectful of folk music.

[3Pitous]

@dytakeda .. Respectful of folk music maybe but not of those who sings or sang it.Too much parody is a mark of lack of inventiveness.,I believe

[dytakeda]

@3Pitous I guess we'll have to disagree about this. I didn't sense anything mean about the portrayals. They were parodying the stereotypes of the different types of folk acts, but you couldn't say that a certain character was supposed to be a particular actual person.

[HeWhoKnocks]

Isn't that a rip off of the Main Street Singers?

[khouck2000]

Honey, they ARE the same guys in Spinal Tap...and Best In Show...and Waiting For Guffman...and For Your Consideration.

[erikvonriese]

Y'know what's always struck me as weird about The Folksmen? They look ~really~ similar to the guys in that super-obscure hair band Spinal Tap. Totally different style, obviously, but still a funny coincidence. Anyone else noticed this?

[PonyboyInNewZealand]

@erikvonriese haha you can't be serious

[CaptainThrice]

@erikvonriese Super obscure? Today's kids are rejecting death metal in droves - they say it's too intellectual - and Spın̈al Tap is filling the gap. As for the resemblance, it's an open secret that Spın̈al Tap was influenced by the The Folksmen's ability to merge image, style and music into a coherent whole. Like Alice Cooper, Gene Simmons and Lemmy, to name but a few, Spın̈al Tap would never admit to having had plastic surgery but the before and after pics tell their own story...

[MattieA65]

The Folksmen spoke for a whole generation. They sung the things that needed to be said and stood up for alienated, the downtrodden, the ....the little guy! They were so self-aware that they expressed the flip side of alienation - togetherness - in their great classic, "Old Joe's Place." Please come back, Folksmen!

[homecoolmods]

I am a blonde, female folk singer trapped in the body of a bald, male folk singer.

[sunnchilde]

What would they need to do this? Some instruments, microphones, a venue and a computer to do the recording and mixing. That can't be that much. I wish they would make stuff like this and sell it over the Internet! They could totally do this. They could do it part time and even do a short tour. That would be so cool.

[kuagra3035]

The joke is that many folk songs dealt with the road and all the places the singer has seen. These guys have never been anywhere.

[hemansx]

great film, the best version of this tune has to be the one they're practising before the show near the beginning of the film, sounds so good!

[tkeely4777]

I love this movie. If you ask me, this was Christopher Guest at the top of his game..The subsequent film to follow, 'For Your Consideration' was a pretty significant departure away from his 'mockumentary' signature style, and I feel it was sorely missed. Lets hope he goes back to his roots in his next feature, assuming there will be one...

...speaking of which, how cool would it be if he were to do a movie where all of the previous characters cross-over one another? XD

[timgrez]

THIS IS SPINAL TAP!!! awesome

[MasterPhilbo]

NEED TO FIND A COPY OF THIS FILM!!!

[kassemir]

You definitely have to, it's great, I loved it so much, and Eugene Levy is brilliant in it, alongside Guest, Shearer and McKean and the rest, you've got a great piece of film.

[berkeleyhome]

who was playing the mandolin??

[wftjet]

Christopher Guest

[berkeleyhome]

Guest is playing the banjo..someone off screen is playing the mandolin.

[vincentfromia]

No banjo in this piece. It should be Guest on the mandolin - was in the movie anyway.

[MasterPhilbo]

@berkeleyhome I saw it on tv so i know its a gr8 film! I just want a copy so i can watch it again, cos it was a while ago!

[dfarmbrough]

You're right, oeyesea, however the double-negative is a recent construct - old English speakers would use double-negative for emphasising a negative just as slang speakers do today, so I think it's fair to take it as meaning he sat at home with his New Seekers records!

[decurser]

@dfarmbrough litening to it again all of the things hes talking about seem to come from someone elses account... always "they say" or never heard somethin

[dfarmbrough]

Yes. because he didn't wander at all :)

[oeyesea]

What's really funny is how long it takes some people to figure out this song is actually joke, he never went anywhere. Or maybe not if you really think about the double-negative. Never doing NO wanderings is actually always wandering. This is getting more confusing than cornwine.

[skaterocknroll]

haha well that's the beauty of it

[mbonnar]

@oeyesea

The only thing, though, is that southern dialect in the United States uses the term "no (verb)" ("no wandering") as a catch for "any (verb)" ("any wandering").

[junkevil]

@oeyesea that's why i love this song. it's a folk song about doing nothing at all. awesome.

[RingoWinfrey]

Loco man.

[Shalroq]

Excellent, I have been looking for the Folksmen version of this song for a while. Thanks.

[skaterocknroll]

Oh, no problem.

[aliarikan]

Great stuff.

[ticket88]

Was this on the soundtrack CD?

[skaterocknroll]

Yeah, it was.

[skaterocknroll]

It's the men who were in Spinal tap whom I had the pleasure of seeing :) amazing performance

[finnishminnow]

@skaterocknroll Okay. And BTW... I (for one) love this version of that Fantastic Train Song sung by The Folksmen as much as the other version of this song; based on what's sung by The New Main Street Singers! :D

Plus... I most certainly think The Folksmen would do a great job of singing this song with The New Main Street Singers that sang it later on during the movie, to make quite a perfect duet of two groups singing at the same time. How about you and the other guys?!