It would be interesting to learn what people talk about when talking about folk music
I've long believed that the best way to win people to our music is to explain what it's about and why the songs are important - particularly all the hidden pleasures they contain
Let's face it, it's pretty weird stuff to someone not familiar with it.

Slightly differently, Irish traditional song differs somewhat from British material in that Irish songs tend to be lyrical (concentrating on description and feeling), in contrast to the British and American stuff which is largely narrative (storytelling with music), usually chronologically progressing through a story

We had a very gratifying experience during a singing weekend a few years ago here in Clare
We were talking to the young son-in-law of a singer friend when I was called up to sing
I sang a longish humourous narrative song, 'The Ranter Parson' - quite different to most of the other songs that had been sung.
When I'd finished the young feller turned to Pat and said, somewhat bemused and said, "That's a story"
I don't know that I sang particularly well, but on several occasions later I was asked by the lad about the type of songs I sang
Jim Carroll