In terms of folk song writing, some people might consider Ewan MacColl to be "The Woody Guthrie of the UK", I think. Like Woody Guthrie's best songs, MacColl's songs seemed to also reflect a desire to create a new world (and not just a desire to individually make a good living as a professional musician or singer-songwriter within a corrupt society). Many of MacColl's songs seemed to also reflect Woody Guthrie's view of what constitutes a "folk song". In a July 15, 1946 letter of 60 years ago, for instance, Woody Guthrie wrote the following:

"Every folk song that I know tells how to fix some things in this world to make it better, tells what is wrong with it, and what we've got to do to fix it better. If the song does not do this, then, it is no more of a folk song than I am a movie scout."