I find it very easy to relate to the *content* of folk: the lyrics and the music. I like songs with odd titles, songs with non-sequitur lyrics.

I dig songs about drinking; political struggle; songs in which linguistic anachronisms and long-forgotten events become surrealist by default; songs in which the existence of the supernatural reveals hidden desire; songs which expose the animal in the human; songs about hating your job; songs about loving your craft; songs about killing your boss; songs about the depth of your love. It's the materialism of folk I relate to most, I suppose.

It's fairly unsurprising that these are the things that I most relate to in folk, being an unreconstituted English Literature graduate from the era of postmodern lit crit (Marx, Freud, Derrida, Barthes).

By contrast, I find ballads difficult to relate to, because they strike me as too straightforward, too cut-and-dried: I don't like narratives in which this happened, then that happened, and it is obvious why one led to the other. There's not enough bewilderment in ballads for me. But I enjoy hearing other people singing them with commitment and sincerity.

Music-wise, I can relate to the way the sophisticated haunts the simple. I like my folk modal and contrapuntal, albeit with harmonic twists (I like jazz way too much to ever want my folk purely monophonic and mode-bound).   

Reckon that fills my space in pseud's corner for the day.

As far as the "accoutrements" go, well, I do prefer ale and bitter to lager. And I do appreciate tweed-based clothing. But that's as far as I go.