Tunes without names

There must be a million of them. Let's look in Newfoundland. These boys called this next tune Rambler's Mix because they didn't know the original name. If it was Doug's favourite, you could always just call it Doug's Favourite. This one's from the South Coast of the same rock.

I think there's something special about a tune with no name. Usually, it's an instrumental, not weighed down by a singer. It's a modest tune, one made up sometime, maybe long ago, just good enough that it was remembered and handed down. Or one that hibernated for a while to emerge again years later, without the story and the name.

Tunes with no names are perhaps all folk tunes, tunes we all own together, rather than tunes which are copyrighted and bought and sold and packaged up and marketed. I like the idea of owning a song together. We don't do much of that here in Toronto.