When I went to the New York City public schools 1954-1963 we were taught a lot of what were called folk songs. Among the songs I clearly remember are:

• This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie)
• Waltzing Matilda (Banjo Patterson)
• Oh, Susannah (Stephen Foster)
• The Camp Town Races (Stephen Foster)
• Over the River and Through the Woods (Lydia Maria Child)
• Kookaburra (Marion Sinclair)
• The Happy Wanderer (Friedrich Wilhelm Möller)
• My Darling Clementine (traditional)
• She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain (traditional)
• Alouette (traditional)
• Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho (traditional)

OK, maybe most of these are not folk songs in the strictest sense of the terms, but that's what our teachers called them.

There are also the songs that we young ones learned from one another, including:

• Bang, Bang, Lulu
• Walking Down Canal Street
• The Bear Went Over the Mountain
• We're Here Because We're Here
• 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall
• I Hate Bosco
• Hitler Had But One Big Ball
• George Washington Bridge

These definitely are folk songs by anyone's definition.

--- Steve