I meant that the CONCERTINA was on acid! (Sort of like "...the piano's been drinkin'...")

As for why I love folk, it started out being - quite simply - the music itself. From as far back as I can remember I was always just drawn to it, to the sound of it and to the meanings in the songs - which awakened me to a world beyond the tightly constrained modern-suburban one I had to live in (and as a child feared I would never escape from). Because this music was not mainstream-commercial, it meant I had to seek it out and look beyond the ubiquitous, inescapable Top 40; and having to find a different path and make the effort to follow it through its twists and turns was in itself enriching, and made me grow in ways I would not otherwise have. Even when I was a teenager, and you had to like rock 'n' roll or die (and wear certain things or ditto, and hang out in certain places or ditto), pop music just didn't speak to me. Folk did, and classical did - and does, to this day. I hate to tell you exactly how popular a popular song has to be before I've even heard it.

Later, when I got out into the world and had some freedom and more choices, the reason also expanded to the people itself - warm, sensitive, interesting, fun: they make the best friends in the world, and stay with you for life. You always have an open channel of communication that doesn't wither with time.

I don't usually do this, but I'm going to quote from a post I wrote some time ago in another thread, because it helps express what I mean. The topic concerned folk artists in the 50s and 60s, and various names had cropped up:

I liked (still like) Richard Dyer-Bennet too, and learned a lot from following his songs and their origins. In high school that sort of thing was definitely infra-dig, but then so was I. It was great to have a whole secret-world alternative to the law of the teen jungle, which is what my music and books were to me. So I'll always be grateful to the old folk "troubadours".

Elsewhere, "Murrbob" (as a Guest) wrote: Now, I can stand before my college biology class and talk about Woody and Huntington Disease. Then, when at best, only two student out of 60 say they have ever heard of him, I can run to my office, bring back my guitar and do a couple of Woody (or Pete, or Bobby Burns) for the group. No one should graduate from college without knowing something about folk music!

[Me again] Amen. That's the sort of thing that brings learning to life, and - to use my favourite new word, bequeathed to the world by The Simpsons - embiggens us.