Today I learned that my granddaughter, Nell, is learning a folk song in her music class. It is called Tom Dooley. I haven't heard the song yet, but I fear that it devolved from a song written by Frank Proffitt, which he called Tom Dula. We could drive to Bedford county in 1 1/2 hours and to Franklin county in about 45 minutes, and Cecil Sharp collected 200 "tunes" (as he called them) in these two counties. There is an important distinction between one of these 200 tunes and "Tom Dooley," but obviously that the term, folk song, does not mark this distinction. That is why you hear the terms "vernacular song", "traditional song", "old time song", etc. I think it is time to retreat: let people write folk songs, and let us honor and cherish the kind of songs that Cecil Sharp called tunes.