Bang on Jack.

If someone wants to be comfortable with an arbitrary definition, then for them it is real. A bit like superstition. You either have an imaginary friend or you don't. Completely irrelevant to the person next to you, and you can use the same queue at the supermarket checkout.

Jim said in reply to some poor sod who asked how a song he writes might or not might not be folk that it is not for the person to decide. It if isn't folk it never can be. That is the most arrogant offputting 🐂💩 I have read to date.

I am fed up of seeing well meaning people, who want to listen to others and at the same to time have an outlet for their own practicing, almost apologise with "Err.. I don't actually know if this is folk or not, so apologies before I sing it..." Every time I hear words to that effect, I curse the pompous librarians who confuse their cataloguing with entertainment.

A love of some traditional music can help you in many other genres, but a traditional song insomuch it sounds traditional or a traditional song because it is so old no bugger knows who wrote it, is not the be all and end all of folk.

Traditional folk and contemporary folk are both folk. There was little contemporary folk around in 1954, so let's put that old chestnut to bed. Anyway, mudcatters in The USA must be bemused by this fascination with old men pretending to be inheritors of an English farming tradition being worshipped for claiming their mother's knee is the origin of song.

The librarians can folk off.