Here are the show notes to Episode 9 of VITAL FOLK, which explores the origins of April Fools’ Day and features a selection of traditional folk songs from the British Isles and earl America that highlight the fool.
VITAL FOLK Episode 9 April Fools’ Day Edition
Good evening. You are listening to Rose Island Radio at Rose Island Radio dot com. My name is Ken Corder, and tonight on Vital Folk…as we enter into the month of April, an exploration of the history of April Fools’ Day. Why DO European people in the West have a day celebrating fools, and how did the custom of the April Fools Day prank come about? We will explore these foolish questions, plus hear a selection of traditional folk songs from the British Isles and earl America that highlight the fool…tonight on Vital Folk.
[Play Intro Music]
April Fools’ Day is a day when pranksters catch gullible souls with their guard down and play what is typically a harmless but embarrassing joke on them. “April Fools!” the prankster shouts as the prank is carried out. Today the young folks call it getting “punk’d.” Punked or fooled it’s all in good fun but can certainly challenge the patience and graciousness of the butt of the joke. How did this custom begin in Europe? It could go back as early as 1582 and involve the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.
Before we get into the origins of April Fools Day, let’s hear a traditional folk song about a young boy made the fool in the song Shepherd’s Lad. A young lad encounter’s a young lady bathing in a brook. Thinking that if he acts the gentlemen he will be rewarded by the lady with her attentions, the lady, in the end, locks out the Shepherd Lad from the gates of her estate because he did not make a move on her while he had the chance. The boy is left looking the fool on the opposite side of the gate as the young lady lectures him about being more aggressive in his courting strategy. Hear is The Shepherd Lad, sung by the Battlefield Band from their 2001 Happy Daze Album on Vital Folk.
[Play The Shepherd Lad by Battlefield Band]
The Shepherd Lad by Battlefield Band on Vital Folk. So when and how did all of this pranksterism centered around April 1 begin? Some historians suggest it all began as far back as 1582. In that year, France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, a switch mandated by the Council of Trent in 1563. In the Julian Calendar, which had aligned with the Hindu calendar, the new year began with the spring equinox around April 1. Of course, the new calendar, the one we follow today, began the new year on January 1. News did not travel so fast in those days, so it took months, even years, for people to learn of the new calendar. Those who were slow to get the news that the start of the new year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes and were called “April fools.” According to one historian, “these pranks included having paper fish placed on their backs and being referred to as “poisson d’avril” (April fish), said to symbolize a young, easily caught fish and a gullible person.”
Crafty pranksters have been identifying gullible persons for their jokes on April 1 ever since. Of course, some people don’t need a prankster to display their foolishness. Some people make fools of themselves easily enough on their own. Such is the case with the fool in our next song called “The Swapping Song,” or sometimes called “The Foolish Boy.” In this song a young boy inherits a good sum of money that eventually trades for various items and eventually trades down to owning only a mouse who scampers away into his hole. Here is Peggy Seeger from a 1992 CD collection of with “The Swapping Song” on Vital Folk.
[Play The Swapping Song by Peggy Seeger]
Peggy Seeger with The Swapping Song or The Foolish Boy on Vital Folk.
There are other theories for how April Fools Day came to be a thing. One suggestion dates back to the reign of Emperor Constantine. As the apocryphal story goes, a group of court jesters or fools convinced Constantine to make one of them “king for a day.” Constantine obliged, and one of the jesters, named “Kugel,” was appointed to the playful position. Kugel forthwith decreed that April 1st would be a day of jollity, and so this day every since has been celebrated as April Fools’ Day. The only problem with this story is that it is actually an April Fools’ Day hoax. The prank was pulled by Boston University professor Joseph Boskin on Associated Press reporter Fred Bayles in 1983. Bayles reported the story, and the AP ran it. When they discovered the hoax, the AP retracted it some days later.
Speaking of hoaxes, our next song is the story of a hoax gone bad. In the song, “There Was an Old Lady,” the old lady has taken a shine to a man other than her husband. She concocts a plan to render her husband blind so she can cheat on him. But the prank takes an unexpected turn, and the old lady ends up getting fooled. Here is Horton Barker, an Appalachian traditional singer from Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee, with “There Was An Old Lady” from the 1962 album “Horton Barker: Traditional Singer” on Vital Folk.
[Play There Was an Old Lady by Horton Barker]
Horton Barker, who passed in 1973, with “There Was an Old Lady” on Vital Folk.
We have been featuring songs about foolish persons on our April Fools edition of Vital Folk.
April Fools’ Day spread throughout British Isles in the 1700s. In Scotland, the tradition became a two-day event. The first day was “hunting the gowk.” On this day unsuspecting people were sent on phony errands. Gowk is a word for cuckoo bird, which is a symbol for fool. This day was followed by Tailie Day, which involved pranks played on people’s bottoms, such as pinning fake tails or “kick me” signs on them. Being right, orderly people all such Scottish pranks had to end by noon.
Whatever the true origin of April Fools’ Day, it’s persistence and popularity attest to the fact that people whose heritage lies in the British Isles like a good joke. They can take it just as well as dish it out. So keep your guard up. You never know when the jokes going to be on you on April Fools’ Day.
We’ll close out tonight’s show with the story of a gullible sailor who is fooled by a flirtatious girl and her co-conspirator father in the Whitby Maid, performed here by Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman from their “Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman 2” release from 2005.
Thank you for being a part of the show tonight. Join me next Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. ET for another episode of VITAL FOLK. Tonight’s show re-airs on Wednesday night at 8:00 p.m. ET, and past episodes are archived at roseislandradio.com. And, please, if you are on Facebook or other social media, share the link roseislandradio.com so that people will know about the easy blend of traditional folk songs from the British Isles and early America at roseislandradio.com. This is Ken Corder for VITAL FOLK. We’ll see you next time.
[Play Whitby Maid by Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman]
Sources:
https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/april-fools-day
https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2016/03/april-fools/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horton_Barker
