What Recorded Music Took From Us (and How to Get it Back) w/ Andrew Tolkmith

Andrew Tolkmith is the assistant literary editor at Word on Fire and author of "We Are What We Sing" in the Winter 2025 issue of New Polity. Today, he joins Jason Craig to make the case that folk music is not a genre but the way a people expresses itself, and that most men have inherited nothing to sing. They trace what recorded music replaced, how a song like Tom Dooley is born and handed down, and why the Church has always been a singing people.
 

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why recorded music turned listening into private consumption—and what it replaced
• The difference between music you choose and music a people hands down
• How a real folk song gets made, using Tom Dooley as the example
• Why every priest vows to pray the psalms daily but is not bound to say Mass daily
• Three songs Andrew says every father should have in his home

 
Resources Mentioned:

• "We Are What We Sing" in New Polity, Issue 6.1
• Word on Fire Luminor
• The Stillwater Hobos, My Love, She's in America
• Kingfisher Folk Fest
• Fraternus

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Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios

Chapters:

• 00:00: Introduction
• 0:38: Inside Word on Fire's literary imprints
• 2:51: The article—"We Are What We Sing"
• 6:54: When recording turned music into a product
• 14:50: The concert and the community it counterfeits
• 18:11: Tom Dooley and how a folk song is born
• 26:30: Canongate, the Stillwater Hobos, and a music he never inherited
• 42:56: The vow to sing—the divine office
• 52:48: Three songs for a father's home
• 57:59: Kingfisher Folk Fest, August 1