Guest,Jon seemed a bit scathing of contemporary song writers when he said:

"Yes, but which obeservations expressed in songs will carry on and be part of future traditions?

Personaly I doubt that much of what I suppose is described as "contemporary folk song" will do."

Can't possibly agree with that! There must have been hundreds of songs composed and performed at the same time and by the same authors as those we now consider "Tradtional" classics, which didn't survive the test of time. What we now have left are those that were good enough to do so. Becasue we are in the "Now" we experience both the great, good, not so good, and downright awful of contemporary song, but the very best of these have just as much to say about people and like today as did those of 100 to 500 years ago. I'm therefore convinced that these will live on to form part of "Tradition" for generations to follow.

Guest,Richie says

"To me traditional means that the songs have no verifiable author.
"

That's really just a symptom of the difference in levels of education, literacy and most importantly, communications media that existed then amd now. The fact that we now live in an age of global communication means that contemporary songs and knowledge of their autors are easily and rapidly communicated across distances and communities that would previously have taken generation to penetrate. Once again I see no reason why the best of these will not survive the test of time and enter "The Tradition". Just because they may still exist in their original (recorded) form will make them no less relevent as a window back to today from the future. Just as musical presentation has changed over the generations and we now have little issue with "traditional" artists accompanying themselves on guitar and other instruments unheard of (or at least scarce) when the songs were composed, I'd expect today's songs to be reinterpreted by later performers to suit what will then be contemporary taste. That's what I believe the folk process is all about!

IMHO