" converge and proceed to tell me I am sadly mistaken, to put it VERY politely"
Mistaken about what exactly?
The only hostility towards songs on this thread, and all these discussions is not towards writing and singing new songs anywhere, but towards the older fol song 'living in the dim and distant past', 'irrelevant', ' out-of-date', 'dreary dirges'.
Nobody writes a 'folk song' - they never have - they become such via a process - very much a case of 'don't call us, we'll call you', whether a song is good or bad is totally irrelevant.
The hostility shown towards the older songs and to those who passed them on to us has staggered me - sewer level in some cases.
Each time this discussion comes up it is 'folk policed' out of existence by people who seem to resent the fact that is wrong to think about the songs we sing - take a look at the list of dead threads at the top of the page - several of them forcibly cloes by 'the management'.
Not onl;y 'folk police' but 'thought police', it would seem!
Jim Carroll