Well I would quibble about always "writing of songs to entertain".

You musicians - especially those earn money doing it - how often do you practice? I've known those that spend 6 hours a day - probably while on tour, but a lot.

So don't songwriters practice? Self critique? Not sing-out the songs that don't quite fit snugly. Those songs would not normally find their way to the public domain but never say never. Irving Berlin wrote 15,000 - where are most of them now?

But I do agree that story-telling, poetry, and yes jokes are all part of the mix that folk did, and therefore grist to the mill. As is being paid to do those things. All entertainment and no roots makes folk a dull plaything.

I used to tell a light-bulb joke as a feature between my allocation of 2 songs in an evening at a vibrant singers' FC. It took 6 months for them to realise I was demonstrating "folk" in the modern idiom. And I had to tell them in the end. Throw-away two-liners that are a good joke analogy of the "Seeds of Love". OK it may take 100 years to prove me right - I can wait.