Don Firth: No, John, I DON'T want the tradition to be a museum piece. Nor is it.

But when someone steps up to the mic and says "This is a folk song I just wrote last week," he's talking nonsense. He's trying to claim a level of prestige for his song that it has not earned.

In all my years of going to gigs, sessions, singarounds and clubs, I've never heard anyone say "here's a folk song I wrote". Almost invariably they'll just identify it as "a song": ie, "here's one of my own" or "I wrote this song last year after my mum died" or whatever. Never once, to my recollection, have I heard anyone say " here's a folk song I wrote" or "this folk song's about the death of my dad" or whatever.

I've heard people say (and said myself) things like "this one's an old folk song" or "this is a traditional song from Sussex" (or Kent, or wherever) but I've never heard anyone "label" their own songs as either "folk" or "a hit" (unless it was) or hang any other label (punk, rock, or whatever) on one of their own compositions.