As usually occurs in a group discussion a great deal of smoke and friction is generated because of the conflation of multiple definitions around a single phoneme or word. "Folk" has multiple definitions, of which a few are:

1. A musical category of songs and tunes that have been handed down through time orally or through personal modeling. Folk music is the product of a musical tradition that has been evolved through the process of oral transmission according to Saint Fifty-Four. (His close friends just call him Nineteen).

2. A set of agreements and cultural attributed associated with folk music.

3. A class of non-urban people romantically considered as the backbone of a nation, often used as a pretense for war or other political dodges.

4. A category of musical products such as records or CDs usually involving artists playing acoustic instruments and pretending to be from the class in Definition 3.

5. Musical compositions that try to sound as if they come from the people in Definition 3, by invoking simplistic or romantic sentiments, minimal vocabulary , a bent for melodrama, and weak discrimination as a key plot component in farce or romantic comedy.

It should be immediately clear that if you have one definition in mind, your assertions will sound quite off to a person who has another definition in mind.

A modern singer-songwriter who writes a really great and genuine-sounding "folk" song (e.g., Darcy Farrell, circa 1970) is only doing so under definition 5, and not under definition 1.

A