Oh I confess, you wrung it out of me with your hoary exhortations. I invented yer Folk Clubs. I started with a single one, but it was such a good one, I decided that quantity was not a bad idea. The quantity thing I got from a pan of cookies I pulled out of the oven. I had intended one huge cookie, but the dough crawled, see, and shrank, and at first I was delirious with grief till I realised that there were more cookies that way. And so it was with Folk Clubs.

I searched all about for the starchiest Folk I could find. Self-righteous was the best, but I quickly found too many of them, and realised that I need some pushovers, Folk what liked anything by anybody. Them I called "audience". Then I needed costumes, short pants for the gents and long skirts and snoods for the ladies. Had everyone gain ten pounds. Beards were assigned to men, and beards were assigned to women.

I put them in a room and instructed them as to what was the Single Right Version of anything, and warned them to sing it with an accent not their own. I toyed with the coinage of a word, "Greenface", for songs sung in faux-Irish, but thought better of it. Don't know why; that's what it is to hear "Raglan Road" in Paddy Blackface...

Anyway, I needed old ones who mainly talked, not sang, and middleaged ones to whine and complain about variants, and young ones to play too loud and have too much fun with such serious stuff as my Folk Music. And here you all are!

I take full credit for my invention, and I suppose that it has kept quirky accents and autoharps alive all these years. You all can line up to thank me now. You're welcome, I'm almost certain.