Songs That Nobody Taught Me is a collection of songs from musician, contemporary performer and writer Nick Field.

The collection stems from Nick's lifelong fascination with folk music. He's worked with and recorded folk music before, but this time he has questions about what folk music means. The songs were researched and developed as part of a performance commission for POP Festival in West London in 2020. The performance piece, Songs The Nobody Taught Me, explores folk music, community and authenticity.

The collection features songs that all have a relationship to folk music, but highlight how complicated folk music is as a concept. Portobello Road and Willow's Song are both part of movie soundtracks, but written to appear like folk songs. They can both be considered pastiche to some extent. Flash Company, a lament from the end of a hedonistic life, was first encountered by Nick on an archived field recording of folk songs. Of all the songs here it's the one considered to be a true folk song, but it's likely to be a combination of a number of commercially written songs that were then blended and passed on through the oral tradition. There's Nothing To Be had Without Money was found as part of the research for the performance, and isn't considered to be a folk song as such because it came from and is about London, has an urbane quality to the lyrics and is seen as a commercial song rather than an organically developed folk song because of this. Even so, it's very old, probably about 400 years, and was also passed on orally. This raises a number of questions; are any British folk songs really authentic? Instead, are they all to some extent a mix of pastiche, commercial concerns and evolution through oral sharing? And who is excluded in this?

The commission for POP Festival focussed on Ladbrook Grove and Portobello Road, which have a rich music legacy. A digital version of the performance piece is available on Nick's Youtube channel and website, and incorporate and contextualise these songs.

Nick says:

I fell in love with these songs, putting them together for the performance piece, and I really wanted them to have a further life so I made this collection. Willow's Song is one of my favourite songs, and I love that its from the folk horror classic The Wicker Man. There's Nothing To Be Had Without Money is a delight, I love the narrative elements to it and how relatable it is 400 years later in terms of city life. There's also a suggestion of queer subculture in it, I'm so happy I found it. Flash Company is also known as the Yellow Handkerchief, I think it's a beautiful, soulful lament. Portobello Road, originally from Bedknobs & Broomsticks, is a charmer, and was recorded with Portobello Live! choir who are wonderful. I've loved revisiting folk music, reconsidering my relationship to it and creating new versions of these songs.