basically the definition remains unchanged - it just has a much broader interpretation than you wish to attribute to it

Horse feathers. No amount of interpretation can make the 54 definition fit contemporary singer-songwriters' work. More to the point, I don't understand why anyone would want to make it fit - or want to claim the word 'folk' for their own compositions.

glueman: where I depart is the idea that folk can have no present or future tense, that 'we are not the folk' and never can be because of the vicissitudes of recording. Human nature hasn't changed so we're left with a verbal abstraction

'Human nature' is a verbal abstraction - I'm talking about actual changes in the way people live The uniformity imposed by mechanical reproduction has been eroding the diversity of the oral tradition for a long time, going back to pianolas and mass-produced parlour songbooks. Ironically, the oral tradition finally gave up the ghost (in this country at least) at around the same time the Revival was really getting going.

We aren't the folk, and the folk aren't singing. We're singing - which is great, and I hope some of our own material will be good enough to stand the test of time. But it won't be folk music.