As a great generalisation I've always felt that the songwriters who tell stories that illuminate or explain our lives, work, community etc are in a direct line from the songs of the past that we call folk music. The songwriters who sing about their own inner angst and relationship problems aren't.

"ANON" There's no name on the stone I sleep under today
There's no book that can tell of my time
But you know me so well when you sing roundelay
For you're singing my tune and my rhyme
I am "Anon", you know me that way
I had sometning to say about life in my day
So I made a song, and somewhere the sound of it
Goes round and round, to be lost and then found
And that it is the way that life is
That is the way it is with songs

It was in the alehouse I would sing with the rest
Then I made up a tune of my own
And a full harvest moon put the words in my head
As I trudged 'cross the fields to my home
When I sang it next day, my friends asked me how
Did I find my own song in the blade of my plough
So I asked in return how the stonemason saw
a sweet face in the stone on the old quarry floor
They asked "Is that the way that it is?"
I said "That is the way it is for me."

So they learned every word and they sang every note
'Till my song was a work of renown
And within a six month I heard boys from the school
Whistling my tune in the town
And I smiled when I heard what came out of the sky
Coming now from a child as he quickly ran by
Would it pass from that child when as father he'd sing
To a child of his own? Who'd believe such a thing?
But that is the way that life is
That is the way it is with time

It was twenty years gone when our Parson came home
From a journey he'd made far away
He shook my hand hard, said the Inn where he'd stayed And he'd listened with joy as one, with a bow,
Sang the song that I'd found in the blade of my plough
So he told them my name, but they said that my song
Was as old as the hills, and our Parson was wrong
I asked "Is that the way that it is?"
He said "That is the way it is, my son."

So I planted and ploughed'till my bones bowed and bent
I made up no more verses to sing
And it seemed that my life had been wasted and spent
On the curses my hard days would bring
Soon Death came to call with a voice that cried "Now!"
And the song that I'd found in the blade of my plough
Leapt from my heart as I journeyed on
And I knew it would live, even though I was gone
And that is the way that life is

There's no names on the stones we sleep under today
There's no books that can tell of our times
But you know us so well when you sing roundelay
For you're singing our tunes and our rhymes We had something to say about life in our day
So we made our songs, and somewhere the sound of them
Goes round and round, to be lost and then found
And that is the way that life is
That is the way it is with songs

Harvey Andrews. Haska Music. 2000