I agree with Ewan MacColl and with you, Zander! I sort of slid sideways into folk music from classical music. The initial attraction was seeing and feeling history from the bottom up. That strong attraction remains. As a fourth/fifth gereration Canadian and Bristish Isles mongrel knowing why ancestors came to the new world and feeling why helps a lot. Traditional folk songs are windows into that history. Today's world has its rich and poor, powerful and exploited. We need ever new Woody Guthries and Ewan Maccolls. I regret that usually the justice verses of "This Land Is Your Land" are omitted when I hear it sung. Prophets are true patriots: royalty and heads of state rarely are. Lose the passion for justice and folk music loses its soul.