Richard, my ideas of what constitutes a folk song and what doesn't does not spring from the "1954 definition," which I never heard of before I started frequenting Mudcat some years ago, in 1999 to be exact.

In the late 1950s, while studying music and English Literature at the University of Washington, I took a course entitled "The Popular Ballad," taught by Prof. David C. Fowler, author of a scholarly work on "Piers the Plowman" and a number of other works on early English Literature. Prior to that, I had taken another course in the English Lit. Department on Early English Literature going back as far as "Beowulf." I have a thorough acquaintance with the Child Ballads and the very early collections of songs and ballads by such collectors as Bishop Percy, Sir Walter Scott, and others—along with, of course, Cecil Sharp. And of course, I'm very familiar with the collections of the Lomaxes, who began by collecting cowboy songs sung by real cowboys (and learned that some of them had English ballad forebears), Frank and Ann Warner, and other American collectors.

Dr. Fowler introduced the ballad class to early troubadour and minstrel songs and ballads, some going back to the 12th century, and the bardic tradition, and touched on the traditions of the scops and skalds of the Scandinavian countries. And songs of the Goliards, along with introduced the class to the early poetry that went into the Carmina Burana. A quite extensive and comprehensive course indeed—with one killer of a term paper assignment that required a great deal of research on my part.

I have long been fascinated by the history behind these songs, ever since, as a teen-ager, I heard a broadcast by Burl Ives on the history of the Erie Canal along with songs connected with it. I learned more about the Erie Canal and its importance in opening the interior of the country in that half-hour than I ever learned in any history class in school.

I have a fairly extensive collection of books on folk music and ballads, from academic studies to song books. A whole bookcase full, in fact. Which I have read.

Real folk songs and ballads have some meat to them!

Therefore, I'm given to snort when I hear someone say, "This is a folk song I wrote this afternoon. . . ."

But my view has nothing to do with the "1954 definition," about I knew nothing until I read it posted here a few years ago, and about which you seem to be so contemptuous.

Don Firth