Sea Chanteys do tell a story. They have a progression. The sailors know the stories and that's why they sang them to accompany their work.

Beatles and Elton John Songs are not being sung by masses of people. They are being listened to but not perpetuated to any great degree because they rely on musical production values to carry them. Perhaps in the future some exceptions might include "Give Peace A Chance" or "Imagine".

Why? Because they might be re-written or changed to reflect new times but it could take a hundred years or more for this to happen.

Folk songs do make a difference and are not show, art, or pop tunes. The reason they are important as a distinction has to do with history and cultural background. The Beatles as great as they were (McCartney and Lennon were fantastic songwriters) are still a manufactured pop group put together with expertise by those in the music biz such as the remarkable George Martin. Elton John is an obviously gifted pop artist and entertainer.
But he is a stage personality and you are not apt to hear his songs sung that often in non-show biz environments. You will however hear many folk songs "off the stage" and in living rooms across the country, maybe not easilly discernable unless you happen to be in those living rooms, but they are there and alive.

The reason I became interested in folk music in the first place is because I recognized the distinction between a song created for show purposes and one that survives because it reflects history and culture. I never heard Barbara Allen or Streets of Laredo on the popular radio with exception of perhaps Burl Ives. When I first heard traditional folk singers I knew that they were never going to acheive the same kind of commercial success that a trained pop singer or performer geared to the business would have. The songs, themselves, were different because they informed about the human condition on a sociological, historical and cultural level that a pop song couldn't do. They talked about agrarian cultures, working-class people in their misery, historical events that were embraced by the public that were not instantly manufactured and the music sounded different. It wasn't slick or canned relying on a band to play it. It just was without trimmings and trappings and had its own vitality. Example: The Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music on Folkways. Son House, Texas Gladden, Hobart Smith, Vera Hall........... There will be those who say these songs are not important to distinguish but I am not one of them.

Frank Hamilton