Hi All, I'm a newcomer to this great site, so apologies in advance, as I'm sure this must often have been discussed before. But I've sometimes wondered, what might make a newly-written song a 'folk song'?

I enjoy writing songs occasionally, just for fun, as I'm sure many of you do. But there are only a couple of these that I might label as 'folk songs' (if anyone asked me); one or two more are just lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek 'pop' songs; and the rest are just, well, songs.

So, the serious question is, what makes a new song a folk song? Should it have a particular kind of tune? Must it carry an important message? Does it need to be about ordinary people's lives?

When we're all singing a well-known folk standard from long ago, we just know it's a folk song. But what about a song written last week, or a year ago? Can that be a folk song? Or does it have to be written by an already accepted folk song writer, or stand the test of time?

Andy7