"DG always makes his music immediate and relevant to the present."

And part of the problem with performing topical music, especially the political stuff, is it sounds dated rather quickly.

I didn't see this programme. I have seen DG perform live a number of times, have met the man a coupe times, and have corresponded with him online. I think I know him well enough to critique both his music and politics.

I don't find him all that curmudgeonly, or even a bastard. Quite the contrary, on a personal level, he has always been quite polite and gracious with me. He seems to be a generous performer.

But none of that changes the fact that his voice (which I once enjoyed) seems to be gone (at least in the last live performance I heard, and I've heard from others who are fans that it wasn't just an off night). Much of his music now sounds dated. And while I agree the world could certainly use some new form of socialism, I don't think the old school socialism will pass muster nowadays. Nor should it. The world has changed a tremendous amount in 20 years time. Sadly, I don't know that DG has kept up with it.

I do have problems with the political worldview of a lot of musicians who have spent their entire adult lives "not getting their hands dirty" (or dry and chapped from doing the washing up, as one female friend would say) as someone mentioned above. I really don't think most of the male folk musicians of DG's generation especially, get what people are enduring these days, whether working or not.

It is almost as if the whole world passed DG by, in the blink of an eye.